Reviews

“Ever heard of parcel babies in South Africa? Hard to believe, but there was a time that children coming to other climes were treated as parcels arriving via the postal service. Now, in memoir form, here is an excruciatingly honest and refreshingly self-reflective account of the lives of Cape Town’s trading Indian families in the context of the geographies that formed and re-formed this vibrant community. Between the Raj and apartheid, this is the story of one life unfolding in the crucible of transnational struggles for freedom. Put differently, here was a parcel baby passed back and forth between India and South Africa for purposes of work. As a young boy going back and forth to the local Indian shop on the Cape Flats, I of course saw the bubby’s children busy behind the counters, but I had no idea of the repression that came with what was a particularly exploitative form of child labour. This highly accessible (and in places, entertaining) account of working life inside an Indian shopkeeper’s store is composed with a finesse that would make a seasoned anthropologist proud; except, this remarkable book comes to us from the hands of an accomplished neurosurgeon. You cannot fully grasp South Africa’s turbulent past, and the long shadows it throws into the present, without grappling with this particular angle on identity, politics and community formation gifted to us through a truly stunning work of remembrance.”
– Prof Jonathan Jansen (Distinguished Professor of Education, Stellenbosch University)

“This is a moving account of an extraordinary life, one which exemplifies remarkable achievement against odds that seem insurmountable. There is much evidence of personal courage and tenacity, interwoven with accounts that emphasise the central place of empathy and principle in the author’s values. There is no self-censorship, no shying away from awkward truths, nor of putting a positive gloss on adverse events. Beyond the personal details of the Parcel Baby, one gains in this work some insights into the realities of migration from India to South Africa of a particular community, the Konkanis – and therefore a better understanding of this aspect of the mosaic of South African life. Dr Shafik Parker is to be commended for his courage in seeing through to completion this eloquently written work.”
– Prof Daya Reddy (Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town)

“Parcel Baby is a fascinating story about a life’s journey that has confronted multiple pathways, many of which have presented challenges and responding to which has required a suitcase filled with courage, belief, principle and human agency. Parcel Baby unpacks that suitcase and gives a deep insight into Shafik Parker’s incredible journey and most remarkable life.”
– Royston Pillay (Registrar Emeritus, University of Cape Town)

“A deeply meaningful story about loneliness, adversity, resilience and a unique inventiveness called jugaad, well told by Cape Town’s first black brain surgeon. Shafik Parker illuminates in surprising and unsparing ways, the rich texture of experience of Indian South Africans, and their connections with “home”, during the apartheid years.”
– Prof André Odendaal (Vice Chancellor’s writer-in-residence, University of the Western Cape)

“A truly fascinating, remarkable and vivid account of a life well-lived that spans two sub-continents and more. Shafik Parker and Bruce Adams were regular visitors sixty years ago at our family home during the sixties and seventies. I am at pains to appreciate the generosity of both Shafik and Bruce in supporting my parents through illness and just being present during their lives since the Claremont/Harfield days during times of joy and despair. A copious and riveting piece of writing from a very active seventy seven year old parcel baby in Dr Shafik Ahmed Parker.”
– Russell Dudley (Development Practitioner, Cape Town)

“My husband and I read your book with great interest. It was a very absorbing story and reading it evoked many memories – of times at Groote Schuur Hospital, of Kay de Villiers and of our shared loss of children (I can’t go there without tears). My son died 8 years later. He was the same age as Rosanne, 22. I remember coming to her funeral, the Christian ceremony. I thought of Rosanne every year as her death date is on the list of birthdays and death days that I copy over into my new diary for each year. Your book reawakened in me the sense of hopelessness and guilt evoked by the many horrors of apartheid. I can remember our colleague KB, who very rarely expressed any opinions on the apartheid government, saying, after we had been examining a girl with a large hydrocephalus and obvious intellectual disability, “Do you think I could have her vote?” and of many other events. Thank you for this wonderful memoir.”
– Frances Hemp (Clinical Psychologist, Cape Town)

“This is a poignant book about life struggles that chronicles the experience of a young child separated from his family during the partition of India/Pakistan in 1947. Reading this book helped me understand and reflect on life’s obstacles, “the vicissitudes of life” (surviving life’s ups and downs). Dr Shafik Parker captures the challenges, fears, and hopes of a young boy living in a different country from his parents and how he navigated life’s challenges and adversities with courage and resilience.”
– Nisa Farooq (United Kingdom)

“Thank you for writing your book. I feel like it’s a kind of talk therapy our family needed. It sheds light and provides much needed context for certain patterns and strange behaviour I’ve witnessed over the years. Maybe actions made sense at one point, but times have changed, and the behaviour hasn’t. So it feels almost inappropriate. Like cutting the ends off the leg of lamb only to find out that our grandmothers before only did it because they didn’t have a pot big enough to fit the whole thing. It’s helping me understand my own father and extended family better. And I appreciate it so much. And I think we’ll have a better relationship for it. That is why I find this book so, so valuable. It must have been uncomfortable to relive certain parts, but I think it’s so courageous to tell your story and I think there’ll be so many positive ripples for generations to come. It also sheds light on bigger system issues. Like the impact colonization and apartheid had on our lives. And it’s making me feel angry. But the anger makes me want to move and do something. Such an inspiring book. And I’m only on page 30! But I’m treating it as a set workbook from school and journaling and noting down themes as I go.”
– Reader (South Africa)

“I also had similar experiences to you with regard to religion: brought up in a Christian school, with all the Christian holidays, hymns in assembly, Sunday night services that induced guilt made you feel you were a sinner, nightly prayers, etc. Yet at about 18, I could see that prayers went unanswered and that the guilty were not punished. “Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord, but yet He never seemed to extract it. At about the same time I started reading classics and was exposed to many different belief systems, thinking the Gods of Homer and the Bhagavad-Gita were much more fun and just as likely to exist as the Christian God…”
– Reader (South Africa)