Walied Jassat

I have a huge family, lots of aunties and uncles and tons of cousins, and when I was a kid, everyone would descend on ‘Big House’ my grandparent’s home where we would spend most of the weekend swimming and playing and eating. But at some point, all the kids would lock ourselves up in the Tower tp work on our variety show of skits, songs and magic. I was the writer/director and my cousins were the actors and performers. I say writer but we never wrote anything down, it was all in our heads. And then on Saturday night, after dinner, everyone would squeeze into the tower or gather in the living room, to watch the show (something like 50 to 60 people on any given weekend) and what a show it was!

I was always writing stories and poems and essays, and my teachers thought I was really good, but my dad was only interested in one thing. He had my future mapped out for me, long before I was even born. He knew that I was going to be a civil engineer. The typical Indian immigrant thing. Your kid had to be a doctor, or an engineer, or a chartered accountant, and my father was determined to have one of each. When it came time, I mounted a rebellion, but I was defeated and thrown into a dungeon for four years.

I graduated as a civil engineer and worked for the next sixteen years in the construction industry, but then something happened... I had a change of heart. I quit my job and we sold our apartment and all our furniture and stuff, and we packed whatever we had left into our Jeep, along with some canvasses and oil paints, our guitars and cameras, and we hit the road on a healing adventure!

For the next six months, we took “the roads less traveled” exploring the south coast of Africa, and everywhere we went, we kept meeting all these interesting and amazing people and healers, musicians and artists, fellow explorers and adventurers. We would get to know them and try their healing therapies and enjoy their artistic offerings. And as always happens after an adventure, I was full of inspiration and ideas. I was writing again, after such a long time, non-fiction at first, and then ideas for novels and screenplays came tumbling out and I never looked back. I eventually settled into a rhythm that works well for me, and that’s what I’d like to share with you all.