Zahara and Usuf

Whilst looking through old Hong Kong newspapers I found a lot of articles covering academic achievement  and sport participation. The thing that struck me was in almost every instance the girls were mentioned by their full names whist the boys were for the most part only mentioned by their first initials. This led me to check each person mentioned off against my list of Mahomed Sewjee's children. Now bearing in mind I had stated earlier that Mahomed Sewjee and Bibi had at least fifteen children some of which died as infants I looked  at Auntie Hani's notes and she said that they had sixteen children. The oldest boy being the one missing from my list. According to Auntie Hani he took off for America, but she did not name him. Well I have now got a list of eighteen children including Alfred and Salomon who belonged to Abdulla Sewjee. Of the remaining sixteen, two are unaccounted for. First there is Zahara who appears to be one of the older ones, but whose child was she? Is there another as yet unfound brother to Mahomed Sewjee who might be her father or is she an older sibling to the others? 

The other child, a boy not on my list goes by the initial 'U'. He  appears to be the eldest of all the boys mentioned. He won many academic prizes and was also a keen sportsman being an accomplished swimmer and athlete and representing Queens College at cricket.

Later in 1906 it looks like he was involved in a court case over an unpaid promissory note which he lost because he failed to show up in court even though he was the plaintiff. His name appears in 1909 working as a Traffic Department clerk for the  Shanghai-Nanking Railway and in 1918-1921 as a stenographer for APP (Associated Press of America) in Peking (according to The Directory and Chronicle for China, Japan etc 1919/1921 and the North-China Desk Hong List 1918). Then he seems to have disappeared. Could this be the missing elder brother I thought. Did he take off for America seeing how he worked for APP, its possible, but what is his name? .....Well could it be Usuf? A declassified file of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs refers to a 1938 case 'Medical examination of Usuf Alarakia, a lunatic of Canton,China'. Well, who knew. Not what I was expecting. Now I am not saying this is our missing brother but the clues are there with the initial 'U'. He might have been Zahara's brother from another of Mahomeds brothers. It's a mystery that's there to be solved is it not.

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