Author Shared Family’s Harrowing Journey at Friendship Dinner

It took Tasneem Jamal a long time before she was able to approach writing her family’s story. There was just too much emotion.

“It gestated for decades,” said Jamal. “When I finally sat down and wrote it, I was 40.”

Jamal’s family story, as told in Where the Air is Sweet, chronicles an Indian family’s rise and fall as they forged a life in Uganda – a life that was drastically changed with the rise in power of dictator Idi Amin.

The novel closely mirrors her family’s experience — including a terrifyingly surreal scene in which Mumtaz, the mother, shields her children from Amin when they encounter one another at a pool at a popular hotel in Kampala.

For years, said Jamal, she thought her fuzzy memories of this moment (she was four at the time) was simply a dream. It was only years later, when watching Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland with her parents that she realized it had really happened.

“Only then, I knew it was not a dream.”

Jamal’s family eventually settled in Kitchener, after Amin expelled the entire Indian community from Uganda. In Canada, they found support, and the chance to begin again.

Jamal shared her story at this year’s Friendship Dinner, which focused on the theme of “Changing the Odds,” and the importance preventative work that is being done in low-income neighbourhoods in Waterloo Region.