EPISODE 12
September 9, 2021
Sandhya is one of the women whose story appears in my book, Women Who Walk. She talks of a happy childhood growing up in the immigrant Indian community of Mozambique, where she was born. When Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in the mid-70s, escalating civil unrest caused her parents to abandon the comfortable life they’d built, and return to Gujarat in the north west of India to start over. Three years later, when she was 10, the family migrated again this time to Lisbon, Portugal in search of opportunities. In this episode we talk about her grown daughters and the family’s tradition of Bollywood-style weddings, her vitiligo, which she has lived with since she was a teen, and the evolution of her work with the philanthropic foundation, Minhembeti, that she and her husband founded in Mozambique and where Sandhya is actively involved in seva or selfless work.
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Women Who Walk. I’m Louise Ross, writer and author of Women Who Walk the book, the inspiration for this podcast. And just as I did for the book here, I’ll be interviewing and unpacking the journeys of impressive, intrepid women, who’ve made multiple international moves for work, for adventure, for love, for freedom. You can find a transcript with pictures to each episode, and my books, on my website, LouiseRoss.com. If you’d prefer to listen to an interview while simultaneously reading closed captions of the transcript, you can do that on YouTube, under my channel Women Who Walk Podcast.
Hello listeners. Welcome to Episode 12 of Women Who Walk. My guest today is Sandhya Acevinkumar.
Sandhya is one of the women whose story appears in my book, Women Who Walk. She talks of a happy childhood growing up in the immigrant Indian community of Mozambique, where she was born. When Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in the mid-’70s, escalating civil unrest caused her parents to abandon the comfortable life they’d built and return to Gujarat in the Northwest of India to start over. Three years later when she was 10, the family migrated again, this time to Lisbon, Portugal in search of opportunities.
The stress of the country moves and the harsh realities of being identified as different by her peers at the American school in Lisbon, resulted in Sandhya developing vitiligo at 13, which compounded the taunting she was already experiencing. Despite this, she excelled academically, but there was no talk of her going to university. Instead, her parents expected her to work in the family business, which she did. And then by the time she was 21, she was in an arranged marriage.
Though there are aspects of Sandhya’s personal story that are difficult to read, she’s ultimately triumphant, forging a life for herself and her four daughters within the confines of her arranged marriage. And that encouraged me to want to pick up from where her written story ends and talk more about the evolution of her work with the philanthropic foundation, Minhembeti, that she and her husband founded in Mozambique and where Sandhya visits twice a year, and also her leadership role in the Indian community in Lisbon.
Plus, since I interviewed Sandhya for the book, two of her daughters have graduated university and married young men that they fell in love with and that they chose to marry.
[00:00:00] Welcome Sandhya, and thank you for being a guest on Women Who Walk.
[00:00:03] Hello Louise. It’s a great honor to be here. I feel I’m very privileged. Thank you.
[00:00:09] As we start, why don’t you give listeners a sense of your neighborhood. I think in the introduction, I mentioned that you actually do live in Portugal, but tell us where, and perhaps what you see out your windows and a little about your neighborhood.
[00:00:23] I live in Sintra in Quinta da Beloura. It’s a beautiful premises and it’s a golf estate. Um, I love the fact that each individual house is different. We have pink houses, yellow, blue, gray, modern, classic, traditional. The garden spaces are also very comfortable. I love my garden, actually we walk through it every single day. We have several types of flowers, herbs, we have several olive trees. It’s very pleasant.
[00:00:57] It sounds gorgeous. Tell me, do you grow herbs because you like to cook with them or use them medicinally?
[00:01:06] Both. I love herbs. We’ve grown up with herbs since a young age, and we use it on our daily cuisine and absolutely as medicine; they’re home remedies for us. They play a very big role in our cuisine and our life.
[00:01:21] Actually what I didn’t mention in the introduction, is that we met in a traditional Indian cooking class that you were teaching. And I loved that class because you learn so much from, um, home chefs, if you like, it was a wonderful time. So thank you for sharing a little about your neighborhood and, uh, your home and garden. So, I’d love to start on a celebratory note. Your two eldest daughters graduated university and then married young men that they’re in love with. Despite the COVID pandemic, I bet there have been some really happy times in your family in the three and a half years since I interviewed you for the book.
[00:02:01] Absolutely. The eldest one got married December, 2019. And right after that, um, you know, the COVID-19 virus was in Europe and there was a major lockdown in Portugal, Europe, and other continents. And then my second daughter got married this year, end of June, 2021. Also had to deal with, uh, some delays with her wedding dates. But one thing of this pandemic, we bonded as a family. We bonded more and I think this has been the happiest months of my life.
The wedding of Sandhya’s eldest daughter, in the middle with her groom, December 2019
[00:02:39] We are blessed financially, so we didn’t have to worry about that part. Um, we had more time for each other to plan the weddings, uh, to make meals together, um, to go shopping. Even my husband who is mostly occupied with his business trips was at home. So, we did closet cleaning, spring cleaning, had more time to read, play games, watch shows. So actually it was positive for our family.
[00:03:10] I have heard stories like that from, from other families. It was really a wonderful bonding time. And, uh, I remember seeing videos you shared with some friends about your eldest daughter’s marriage, which looked absolutely spectacular. Were you able to have a wedding like that for your second daughter?
[00:03:29] Even more. The second daughter’s wedding was even more glamorous and beautiful. We took everything to another level because the first daughter’s wedding was spectacular. So we wanted to take it, um, uh, step up. Just more exquisite. The decor, all the catering. We tried to incorporate bit of fine dining; the clothing, our outfits, the music. We even had a band, and the dances, we did all the Bollywood choreography. We practiced at home. We had, a lot of time to practice and we outshined.
The wedding of Sandhya’s second eldest daughter, in the middle with her groom, June 2021
[00:04:06] It was amazing, beautiful wedding. And my daughter so happy and the groom’s family is also very kind and very generous and loving, and they just accepted her with open arms. We received the photos from the photographer, they were editing, and I am just mesmerized.
[00:04:27] It does sound spectacular. Sandhya, can you tell me, is this, um, very much a tradition in Indian culture to have these big and glamorous, and, uh, I remember, I think your first daughter’s wedding was five days. Is this part of your tradition?
[00:04:46] Absolutely. As a young girl, I have two younger ones, one’s 22 and the other one’s 16, and they are already dreaming of their wedding days, I put in the plural. Yes, they go from three to five days and it’s an opportunity to not only dress up and, and beautify yourself with, uh, jewels and clothing, but it’s, it’s the bonding with the family, the cousins come from abroad and, um, the uncles and the aunts and the grandparents. It’s really brings everybody close together.
[00:05:19] And it’s also, um, way to show off your wealth, your position in the society. And, to say, you know, how successful you are. And then to show off your in-law’s families. Like my daughters, um, husbands are very good looking, very smart, successful young men. So it’s a way of showing we have worked hard, but we did accomplish all this.
[00:05:45] It serves a larger purpose within the context of your community and society. Yeah. So your married daughters are building very different lives for themselves. For instance, they’ve had many more opportunities such as education and education abroad. Do you see this as a by-product of how hard you’ve worked to ensure that they had the freedom to study and to choose their life partners? Or do you see this as a natural result of the times or both?
[00:06:17] Probably both. Um, my husband and I worked very hard and gone through a lot of sacrifices, we both did not have a higher education, due to financial reasons. We were both from Mozambique and the independence led our families to lose their business and migrate to India and then back to Portugal.
[00:06:36] My daughters also they have worked very hard. They’ve seen us struggle and, um, they have tried themselves as well to be entrepreneurs and succeed and also create their own position in the society because they’ve seen that success gives you a stable position in the society. It’s not fair, but that’s how it is. You’re looked more upon and you’re welcomed at events. So they’ve grown up seeing all this and they, they like the comfortable lifestyle, and they also look forward to have stability.
[00:07:12] Right. So the opportunities have given them a stability that in fact, you didn’t really have growing up. When you were a child in Mozambique, things were stable for a while and then with Mozambique’s independence from Portugal, things became quite unstable. But, um, besides your mother tongue of Gujurati, you also learned to speak English, which your father taught you, and you were learning Portuguese at elementary school. So, despite your father placing importance on your learning English, and two other languages, when it came to higher education, this wasn’t considered an option for you. Why is that Sandhya?
[00:07:57] We are from the class Brahmin, education comes very easily to us. We are known to read in Sanskrit and be scholars. Reading books comes really easily to me and my father as well. He’s, he’s known as a very intelligent man in our community. People, if they’re having questions about religion or about any of the Vedas or any of the scriptures they go, um, direct to him to get the right answers or explanations.
[00:08:27] As I was growing up, vitiligo was not looked upon as very pleasant or something that would, uh, find me a good spouse. And then I was becoming, um, more intelligent. I was becoming outspoken, uh, and I knew a lot of general facts. He thought that if I was even more educated and smart, then it would be difficult to find a spouse who would accept this young girl who has vitiligo, which is not accepted in the families. So that’s why he thought I should not go for higher education.
[00:09:10] Wow. That’s interesting. Well, let’s talk a little about the vitiligo. Just recently, I heard an interesting talk on autoimmune conditions, and I believe vitiligo is considered to be an autoimmune condition. And apparently there’s a far higher incident of autoimmune illness amongst people living in diasporas than in the general population. And one of the theories is minority stress theory, where the environment in which immigrants find themselves in is constantly shaming you for being different and conveying the message that you’re not welcome. And in response the immune system is in a state of hypervigilance and can’t turn off and then conditions like vitiligo appear as the body’s way of dealing with the environmental stresses.
[00:10:02] What do you think of this? Does it make sense to you given the experiences you had as a young teenager moving country-to-country, and then finding yourself at the American school in Lisbon where you were bullied and teased a lot. And then how’s your vitiligo today? Is it an issue for you?
[00:10:20] I completely agree. Now I am older, more mature and I have a different perspective on it. But when we moved from India, yes, I felt ashamed every single day. I was ashamed of how I looked and the color of my skin and how we were dressing and our culinary habits and so forth. So that was a challenge every single day. And I developed vitiligo, that was my body’s way of reacting and it, it spread very quickly. From a month, till in a year, 50% of my body was covered with white patches.
[00:10:56] Wow.
[00:10:57] I did not understand what was happening as a teenager. So it made me depressed. I was angry. So I started dedicating to my studies. I thought, if I cannot be beautiful, if I cannot be the prom queen or liked by the young men, I will study hard. I will excel in my studies and that’s what I did. And my dad did see that, oh, this young girl is excelling in other areas.
[00:11:24] Now that I look back I was feeling shame, but if it was today, no, I would not. Because the maturity has told me I’ve accepted myself. And actually vitiligo has made me stronger and brighter. I see myself working harder than my peers and now in the society, I feel like I, um, I, I dress up more and I can see that in my girls, that we always do everything like a step more, you know? So that has given us the drive to be even more successful. Today, I thank vitiligo for becoming the woman that I am.
[00:12:00] What a wonderful answer, thank you. Now back to your girls. In contrast to your daughters in your early twenties, you were in an arranged marriage, and when your first daughter was 4 months old, and this was back in 1993, you had an opportunity to move from Lisbon – you’d already moved with your family from Mozambique back to Gujarat in India, then to Lisbon, and then you’re married, you’re in your early twenties with a four month old baby – you move to Luanda because your husband suspected there’d be business opportunities in the midst of Angola’s civil war, or maybe because of the war. And so he said, “we’re going.” What was that like for you? Did you want to go? Were you frightened to move to a country in a civil war? And then was your husband right? Were there opportunities there?
[00:12:51] You know, he moved to Angola when I was pregnant. I was left here alone. I was living with his family and I disliked living with them. Although we had a small apartment of ours, but when he said let’s move I was thrilled. I just wanted to move. I just wanted to go. I like going to places and meeting new people. I’d rather go to a wedding where I don’t know anybody or an event and just meet new people. I really enjoy that. We didn’t have that much access to internet then, but I was already doing research. If there was an American school there, I could do some part time. Or if there was an international school, what, what could I do to meet new people, the international community. I was very thrilled to go. Once we reached there, it wasn’t as pleasant. We didn’t have much to live and for our young baby to grow. We were living in a very small hotel, and then we bought a little house. But through those challenges, I like challenges. As a young girl, growing up with a lot of challenges, financially and in all aspects.
[00:14:00] So yes, and I would go back and forth. I would live there for two months. I’d come to Lisbon. Make the most of our house that we already were able to purchase a house here. Financially we were growing very quickly. And yes, my husband was absolutely right because since we were together as a family, he also was able to succeed more. I think, cause we were side-by-side. We, we earned our, um, wealth first in Luanda. So we are grateful for that.
[00:14:31] So there were a great opportunities there. And then you moved. Was there a safety factor that encouraged, uh, you and your husband to then move to Mozambique?
[00:14:42] We stayed in Angola for about six years. By that time I already had my second daughter. And then the civil war was more violent. There was scarce of everything, unable to go outside without a guard and the young girls were growing and we felt that they needed to be in a community, able to go to the temples, uh, go to the prayers, and, uh, have Indian friends.
[00:15:10] I had made a visit to Mozambique on my own with my two young ones. My husband’s, uh, two brothers were already living there and I was like, we can do this. It’s a country that has also a lot of chances to make new business and it also has a community temple. So I went back to Luanda and I told my husband we should go together. And you should take a chance and see if you can start investing in business opportunities there. That’s how we decided to move to Mozambique. We took that risk and we went to Mozambique and we worked very hard. My husband is also a risk-taker and he’s a visionary. He started in a field of constructions, which he did not have a lot of experience, but with a lot of hard work and research, he managed to be successful.
[00:15:59] And in fact so successful that your husband set up a not-for-profit philanthropic organization called, and let me know if I get this right, Minhembeti, an African word, meaning tears. Tell us about this Sandhya.
[00:16:15] Minhembeti is my husband’s pride and joy. That’s like his baby boy that we never had. He adores the foundation. He lives, he breathes the foundation. We have four daughters, which we absolutely love and we’ve given them the best, but he wanted to leave a legacy behind. And in our culture when a daughter marries, maybe the word is not inherited, but she carries the name of the husband. And their children will be known as the husband’s names.
[00:16:47] Yes. That the children will carry the husband’s name. And your husband’s name will be lost.
[00:16:53] Yes, that’s right. Yeah. And the identity. So he always felt we’ve accomplished a lot together. So he wanted to leave, uh, something not only for our grandchildren, but for humanity. And my husband is a Brahman and he’s very religious and very spiritual as well. And we follow our guru, Nataramshama, which he is totally devoted to him. And he absolutely believes through his grace and blessings and ancestor’s blessings, that we have accomplished everything that we have. And we call it the right path. None of us have vices or we have, um, not spent money incorrectly. I don’t know if that is a term.
[00:17:38] Yes, that’s right.
[00:17:39] In places that are not valid, and we were able to have wealth, which we are very comfortable with, and he’s also very helpful towards his siblings. And he’s like, but I need to leave a legacy for Hinduism, for the Hindu culture. And that’s where the project came up.
[00:17:56] I see. And then this word Minhembeti, an African word, meaning tears. Why choose that name?
[00:18:04] Well, because my husband was born into a small village, which is about 80 kilometers from the city of Maputo, called Salamanca, and my husband’s father had a nickname given by the locals, “Tears” because he used to read a lot and always used to have a tear rolling down. So that was his nickname. And in that province, he was always known as a kindhearted man. So in that village, he was born there and grew up there, he wanted to do something for that community. Build a little local school, a local clinica, a small little hospital, make the infrastructures better. That’s why the project is set up there in Salamanca and it’s doing very well.
[00:18:48] The girls are also involved. In the beginning, they were apprehensive. They did not connect to that. They were like, why do we have to do this? We were not born here. Doesn’t mean anything. But we used to go there on weekly basis and do seva. Seva is selfless work without receiving anything in return. The girls all started getting involved. We gave them the freedom also to create their own projects. So they have created three projects called, Make Me Smile, Toys Are Life, started creating their own projects, making toys out of a fabric, very Mozambican and very common for the young children there. And then another project is about, uh, teaching or maybe reminding the locals that there’s herbs and trees and roots that they grow there, they can use medicinally.
Sandhya working on the Toys Are life project at the Menhembeti Foundation
[00:19:35] It’s wonderful. The girls are all involved. At times, more involved, especially when there’s festive time, like Christmas. In Mozambique, they call it Dia de Familia, which is family day. And that’s a very big celebration. The foundation holds a big celebration and goods are given out to the elderly, the most needed. The ones who are not able to come there, baskets reach their homes. First of June is also a tremendous celebration, and 7th of April, which is Woman’s Day.
[00:20:07] I think I read on the website that there’s also volunteer opportunities. Is that right?
Sandhya with young volunteers working at the Menhembeti Foundation
[00:20:12] Absolutely. Yes. A lot of devotees come there from different backgrounds, from different countries. They stay there. The foundation has, uh, infrastructures, which are relatively comfortable and safe to stay and do selfless work in any sector. Either it’s construction, gardening, cooking, cleaning, or there’s also a tank of water that is taken out of the river, which is quite, um, it’s not polluted, but it’s very muddy and it’s refined several times and distributed to the locals. From workshops to talk about HIV Aids and other diseases that are quite common in Africa, and women empowerment because in this little town, the young girls only study up until grade 4. After that they do not go to higher education. The mothers prefer that the 9-to-10 years old take care of the younger siblings and help with the household chores.
[00:21:15] The second factor is that if they have to walk to a school, that’s a few kilometers away, they get harassed, raped or abused, usually their neighbors, younger or elderly men that live nearby. And this is not talked about. Or they get seduced. They get called upon to say, oh, come here, can you help us with this chore. In return, I will give you, um, a free Coca-Cola. I’ll buy you a new frock. It’s very common. So they stay at home and help with agriculture. They produce their own vegetables in their backyard.
[00:21:59] So there’s a number of different branches of the foundation that offers the community an opportunity to flourish. And I noticed also on the foundation’s website that it’s the 10 year anniversary since its launch. So this is also something to celebrate.
[00:22:15] Well, absolutely. My husband and I, we feel very useless at the moment. We’re unable to travel to Mozambique for the past two years, not only due to the pandemic, but due to the social situation there and the security. For the past seven years, series of kidnapping has been occurring, in the Indian community. When I say Indian, it could be from any religious background, but it’s from the Indian community, and the ransom amounts are so big it’s devastating. It affects the business. The kidnappers, they threaten the family members and just make it very unpleasant to stay there. And the person who is kidnapped usually stays in captivity from 3-4 months because the amount is so large that it’s not available. And in the past few years there has occurred some tragic deaths as well.
[00:23:12] It just sounds dangerous then for you to travel.
[00:23:16] True. We are still always connected with the foundation. We’re very lucky, we have a staff that’s reliable and confident, uh, that we can trust and they do carry on the duties with the same image and the same trustworthiness. As I said, it’s like our baby or a child, and to give this responsibility to somebody there who would not do this with the same compassion and same love, you know, we always have to double check everything and make sure that things are carried on the right way.
[00:23:46] Hmm. Well, that’s wonderful then that you’re able to hand over a lot of the day-to-day running to local management, and that you trust them and that things are getting done in your absence. I’m also Interested in the leadership role that you play here in Lisbon, in the Indian community. Can you talk a little about that too?
[00:24:08] I was telling my daughter that we are born in Africa, brought up in Europe, but our heart is very Indian. A few days ago it was very auspicious, the day of Lord Shiva, and automatically I put my name down for the seva group where we had to selfless work. It just feels like when we do this kind of work, we feel good about ourselves. I tell my daughter that I’m doing good for others. I’m standing there for two hours, serving rice, peeling potatoes, just because when I come back, I feel good about myself because I did something. I feel fulfilled.
[00:24:44] In my role in the Hindu community here, I don’t have a position anymore. Before my husband was a vice president and I had all my duties connected with that, but we both stepped down and we do work as needed, without holding a position.
[00:24:59] So then the siva work that you mentioned is this at the temple where you’re preparing food for the less fortunate members of your Indian community?
[00:25:10] Yes. We go to the temple and we do it through the temple.
[00:25:14] I see. Yes, I remember taking a tour through the temple that you were conducting and it was a wonderful way to learn about what goes on at the temple. And I remember there was a cafe and we had a lunch and I do remember a delicious dessert actually. So it’s very much an active community around, um, events through and at the temple.
[00:25:39] Yes. Every month we have a festivity, and the community also has a school for the younger ones to learn Gujarati, the language from region that we are from, Gujarat, and that keeps us connected. If we travel to India, that’s how we’ve communicated with our elder ones. I think it’s tremendously important. All of my daughters, speak Gujarati, they’re not able to read and write fluently, but they do speak fluently. I always tell them that it’s so crucial to not lose your mother tongue. Especially if you have to scold your own children in a public place, it does come in handy.
[00:26:18] What sort of things might you say when you’re scolding your children in a public place?
[00:26:23] Things like, um, you don’t look appropriate. This is not how it should be, or I told you not to ask me again that you can sleep over at your friend’s house. It comes in handy when we go shopping and we find items that are overpriced or we dislike, then we can speak in our mother tongue between us.
[00:26:43] And not have anybody overhear what you’re talking about. Actually I think that’s universal for people who speak several languages or communicate in their mother tongue with their children outside their country of origin. They’re able to have a private conversation in public. So where do you see yourself in say 5-to-8 years when the girls have all launched and the house is quiet.
[00:27:08] We have a beautiful home. It’s a seven bedroom home and we have four daughters and then we have a Temple room, office, and an Indian house always has a guest room, because it’s common to have guests once in a while, family members or friends that come and stay. And there’s only three of us at the moment, my husband, I, and the younger one, living at home. And I like it. I’m enjoying it because the amount of time I spend in the kitchen is a lot less cause I’m cooking a lot less. I’m enjoying this free time, and doing everything at a slower pace. I’ve been appreciating dropping the younger one to her activities, and I’ve even joined two of her activities. She’s doing music school, drumming, and there’s a music teacher available. So I will put myself down. Instead of sitting in the car or running back home to do other chores, I’ve joined more activities and I like it. And it’s without any stress, it’s just for fun.
[00:28:08] The activities, is it drumming?
[00:28:10] Singing.
[00:28:11] Oh, wow.
[00:28:12] My second daughter’s wedding, my husband and I, we like to surprise our children with something. For the first one we performed a dance. Yes, we are outside the box. For the second one, my husband was occupied so I performed a Fado song for her. It was wonderful. So I’m continuing with the Fado. And the second thing is my husband and I have more time for leisure, for walks together. Another thing is the spirituality, the spiritual path. We dedicate more to our guru. We’re very devoted to him, and his scriptures. And there are so many books, see the white books on top.
[00:28:54] Yes, I do. I do see.
[00:28:55] They’re all from India. They’re from the library of the Guru and we brought them here.
[00:29:00] Do you and your husband do that together?
[00:29:02] No, we don’t do it together. But then we discuss them together.
[00:29:06] I see. That makes sense. Many couples, when they move into the empty nest years, you’re finding each other again, you’re spending time together and getting to know one another again.
[00:29:18] Absolutely. Our two daughters are married successfully in our opinion, our mind is also more calm.
[00:29:26] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:26] My husband family members see us more, with more distinction. That we have done well.
[00:29:36] You’ve succeeded. You’ve worked hard and you’ve succeeded. And the girls are on that path too. They have married well, and they’re highly educated and they’re on their way.
[00:29:48] That also has made us more at ease, with the two younger ones, but we cannot be too at ease, we still have
[00:29:55] One at home still. Well, as we finish up, for listeners who are curious to learn more about the foundation or maybe if listeners are interested in volunteering. Where can they find the foundation online?
[00:30:10] The foundation has a website: www.fundacaominhembeti.org and on Instagram: Minhembeti, and Facebook: Fundacao Minhembeti, you can contact us through that and it will be a great pleasure and honor to talk more about the foundation. It always is.
[00:30:29] Terrific. So in the transcript to this episode, I will add links to each of the sites and social media platforms as well. So thank you so much Sandhya, for sharing more of your story with me and this time for the podcast, it’s always a delight to talk with you. Thank you.
[00:30:47] Thank you very much, Louise. Thank you very much.
Thank you for listening today. And so you don’t miss future episodes with more impressive, intrepid women do subscribe on your favorite podcast provider. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review Women Who Walk on either Apple Podcasts or Podchaser. I’ve linked to them both in the transcript of this episode, which you can find on my website, LouiseRoss.com.