Saaleha Idrees Bamjee's Blog

Say a word often enough and it can lose its meaning The bricklayer is dead. The doctor is dead. The journalist is dead. The mother is dead. The artist is dead. The neighbour is dead. The daughter is dead. The garbage collector is dead. The architect is dead. The writer is dead. The grandfather is [...]

Life Lesson Now, I am too much of a coward to try for at least one child. It will mean having to develop a lesson plan for the valuation of human life. I will have to teach that not all weigh the same and this assessment is no constant measure, that on a Monday, they [...]

"Otherscapes proposes surveying the scene of contemporary South Africa through the artistic practices of four contemporary South African artists whose installations can be viewed as ‘scapes’. These address a local context by interrogating the tension between utopia and failure. Siemon Allen, Wim Botha, Sethembile Msezane and Nicholas Hlobo reflect their subjective views of South Africa by [...]

I'm thinking about the kind of nostalgia that is typified by an irresistible yen to inhabit the irrecoverable Before, and how this feeling intensifies as we age. While it doesn't hamper living in the Now, there is something thrilling about those tugs to return to the past with our stockpiled wisdom packed in alongside us. [...]

Monday, you're the asshole. Tuesday, they're the asshole. Forgive each other. These are not permanent conditions. Your spouse is not meant to fill every assigned role in your life. Yes, they are your best friend, but you also have other friends. Approach your lives together with an "Attitude of Gratitude." Don't be a Debby Downer. [...]

I asked AI Chatbot ChatGPT to generate poems and flash fiction in my style of writing. I’ll post some of the results below. I don’t think the AI has enough training data to replicate ‘my voice’ and that it is drawing from a more generic pool of information (though I must admit, some of the […]

I started writing this at the peak of the third wave in 2021, when everyday brought with it the name of someone no longer with us. We have lost My mother writes down names of everyone who’s passed on since last year These times are the strangest to now; lists to aid mourning more deaths … Continue reading {Poem} We Have Lost

Essential olive-infused CBD fruit oil from the community gardens of La Marou Found Art earrings by Fontanella Parchesa Twice-spun silk gilet from Plok+Raya's pre-2021 androgynous range Marshall Tupping's fair-trade rayon face masks with bouclé ear ties Ready-to-bake vegan banana bread panettone, packed in a copper hat box, from Rosamund's on Seventh Jemima Inigo's disinfectant spray [...]

I come from a community who gathers. But in this time of distance, there are only solitary rituals to mourn those who pass. We can't sit next to each other, pass supaarahs from hand to hand. In each of our spaces, we can only hold our own grief up to the air. — saaleha i [...]

I recently partnered with Canon South Africa to produce a short video with my top five tips for better food photography, and to share more of my photography practice on Instagram. View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Canon South Africa (@canonrsa) on Jul 23, 2020 at 8:14am PDT The video is [...]