Extract I was no more than 10 when I realised that my father could not protect me and keep me safe. It was a body blow to discover that he was human — fallible — and therefore powerless against forces that, until then, were bigger than him; than us. This view of I had of my father did not come out of nowhere. My lovely dad was a respected man, highly thought of. Revered in some circles. People came to him for advice. They asked him to mediate when there were disputes that could not be resolved. Someone once told me my father was so fair that once he had spoken, even the angriest of adversaries grudgingly walked away knowing they had been equitably dealt with.
My dad was “the wedding speaker”, his words of wisdom so sought after that people booked him months in advance; even changing wedding dates if he couldn’t make it.
People in our home town looked at us, The Naidoos, with wonder and, perhaps, a little awe. We were a close-knit unit; we went everywhere together.
Yes, we were a little different. Unlike our Hindu and Muslim neighbours, we were Catholic. We went to mass on Sundays and celebrated Easter and Christmas. During the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, we drove around our neighbourhood looking at the little clay lamps glinting in windows, down driveways, on people’s front porches.
And so a little bit of me died on the day I discovered that my lovely dad was voiceless and powerless. Human
I wistfully wished out loud that we could light a few lamps of our own. My mother was firm. We have Christmas trees, and sing Christmas carols; and then there’s the Easter Bunny and egg hunts … those are our traditions my mother would say.
It didn’t make a little girl — desperate to fit in, to belong — feel any better. But she was not given to compromise, my stern mother, who wore bonnets and gloves to mass.
At those countless weddings at which my father was asked to speak, I was always a little embarrassed by my mum’s fashion sense: her style icon was The Queen (of England).
Plain and stolid
Unlike my friends’ mothers who were weighted down in gold (gleaming bright yellow 22-carat gold that my mother thought pretentious and cheap looking) and resplendent in glittering, sequin-covered saris, my mum favoured sturdy shoes and single-breasted suits. There was not so much as a frill or a ruffle on her shirts. She could have been the governess in a Jane Austen novel.
All his life, my devoted (deluded!) father thought my mother the most glamorous, gorgeous woman he’d ever seen.
It was a lie. She was plain and stolid. Homely, the Americans would call her. I should know. I am her spitting image, so much so that people hit the “Wow” sign on FaceBook and remark on how much like my Mum I look.
My father was the high school headmaster: a generous, wonderful man. A kind and funny man. And wise. So wise. Respected by all — for his intellect; his oratory genius; his natural sense of authority; his impeccable sense of fairness.
People loved him. They listened to him. They looked up to him. They trusted him. He read the lesson at mass on Sundays. He was the head of the St Vincent de Paul Society, a Catholic lay organisation that took care of the indigent and needy. He headed committees.
And so a little bit of me died on the day I discovered that my lovely dad was voiceless and powerless. Human.
My lovely dad got to stand in a ridiculously long queue with his ID book in one hand, and my mother’s hand in the other, and vote for the very first time in his life — he was already in his 70s — it was momentous
We, The Naidoos, unlike most of our neighbours, took holidays. Mostly we went to Durban, in the winter, to my dad’s brother Uncle Ram and his wife, my second mother, Aunty Sita. There, the four of us (Shaun, Anton, Antonette and me) and our beloved cousins Eugene and Anita had the time of our lives. We slept on thin mattresses all lined up against a wall in the lounge. We had midnight feasts, told ghost stories and terrified ourselves.
On the fateful day in question, my cousins were dispatched with their mother (and mine) to a family funeral.
My lovely dad bundled the four of us into his green Valiant and we headed for the beach. He cut a comical figure, my father, in his knee-grazing khaki shorts, his skinny dark legs bared to the sun, his naked feet uncomfortably negotiating the shifting sand.
We raced along that beach, dipped our hesitant toes in the water; cupped our hands in the sea and wondered at its saltiness. What a day we were having, squealing and wheeling like seagulls, and whirling like dervishes, the wind blowing our hair back as we ran, leaving the light footprints that children at play leave on a beach.
Whites only
None of us paid much attention when the man — an almost man; a boy really — came up to my father. He was dressed in khaki shorts, not unlike my dad’s. Only he wore a khaki shirt too, and carried a truncheon that he menacingly slapped against his hand.
We stopped, Anton and Shaun and I and ran towards my dad. I think we instinctively knew that something had happened to change the mood of the day. My dad’s face was stony.
I heard the words the boy/man said: “Hey Coolie, take your half-breed children off this beach. Can’t you read? It says ,‘Whites Only’.”
I stood waiting for my dad to reduce this astonishingly rude man/child to an inch. Did he not know to whom he was talking? I shuddered for him. My dad’s response to such unbecoming behaviour would be ruthless…
But my dad was silent. He gathered Antonette into his arms, he took Shaun’s hand and motioned us to follow him to the car. He looked defeated. Not angry, just weary. And indescribably sad.
My lovely dad, not given to shows of affection — not a tactile man — hugged us as he put us in the car. But it was too late. He had lost his angelic gleam, the halo above his head. His pilot light had gone out. I would never see it again. He’d moved into the realm of mere mortal.
When, years and years and years later, 1994 rolled around and my lovely dad got to stand in a ridiculously long queue with his ID book in one hand, and my mother’s hand in the other, and vote for the very first time in his life — he was already in his 70s — it was momentous.
He had the franchise. He called it the most remarkable day in his life. Yes, it was too late to go back to that day on the beach, but it was not too late for his grandchildren to frolic uninhibited on the golden sands.
Voting. Those who’ve gone before have fought so hard for our right to vote. So much pain has been endured to get this bloody vote. And so I am furious that I do not know where I am going to put my X in the upcoming election. It’s a common topic of talk at dinner parties and in supermarket lines.
I’m certainly not voting as I have done in the past. I have lost my confidence for that lot — well, both of ‘that lot’.
I’m utterly underwhelmed by all the manifestos I have seen. I was even considering not voting … until, of course, I remembered the story of us on that beach; of my father’s humiliation; of where we have come from; of what we have had to put up with to win the right to make a cross.
Of course I have to vote. We all have to vote.
Now will someone please help me decide which is the least harmful party!
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