Читать книгу Bending the Rules - Rafique Gangat - Страница 8

“No normal sport in an abnormal society”

An incident at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg changed the course of my life.

With the advent of multinational sport, stadiums such as the Wanderers, which had previously reserved a limited number of seats for non-whites, were open to all. At the time, many involved in the struggle for equality in sport considered this a giant leap.

Once, when Eastern Province was playing Transvaal at the Wanderers, my friend Mustafa (who went on to become a national selector) and I travelled from Ladysmith to watch the match, and especially to see the legendary Graeme Pollock in action. This was the first time that we, as Indians, could sit wherever we wanted to at the Wanderers Stadium. But it was an incident during one of the breaks that became a personal turning point.

I had lined up at one of the kiosks to buy some drinks and when my turn came along the man behind the counter said, “I can’t serve non-whites as the liquor laws do not allow me.” And he handed back my money.

At that moment, a gorgeous blonde woman standing behind me picked up my R5 note and ordered what I had asked for.

I asked why my money from my hand was not acceptable, yet from hers it was.

Angrily, I grabbed my R5 and walked away.

Ameen Akhalwaya of the Rand Daily Mail – a liberal English daily at the time – witnessed the incident and took me aside. After introducing himself, he asked me more.

My response was something like: “How can we play so-called multinational sport and sit wherever we wish to at their stadiums but the rest of apartheid all remains in place? It’s a farce; we are simply being used so they can get back into international sport. I have made up my mind; I am not going to play multinational sport. From today I quit playing cricket!”

While watching the remainder of the game on that fateful day, the beautiful blonde woman walked up the aisle and sat next to me.

She said apologetically, “I really felt bad for you, so I bought the drinks you asked for and I want you to have them.”

“We will, on one condition: that you sit with us and share them,” I replied.

It seemed like a natural thing for her to do. Aware of the watchful glances of white spectators, we shared the drinks and talked about the game in progress.

Her name was Ann. Her mum was of Afrikaner descent and her dad was Portuguese. She worked as a model in Johannesburg and lived with her Lebanese boyfriend, Clinton, in the posh suburb of Houghton. He was studying law at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).

After the game, she insisted on inviting us for drinks at the home of Clinton’s parents, where the young couple was living. We simply could not refuse and followed her Alfa Romeo in my Datsun SSS.

After being introduced to Clinton, we sat around the pool sipping ice-cold drinks and talking about the game, especially the incident that had brought us together.

Social interaction between races was rare and, as this had been meaningful and enjoyable, we exchanged telephone numbers when we parted, promising to keep in touch.

Within the month, the Indian cricket association – the South African Cricket Board of Control – headed by Dr Hassan Howa, made the decision to quit as they, too, recognised the farce in which they were participating.

The slogan, “No normal sport in an abnormal society” then became the mantra in the sporting struggle.

Giving up a game I loved was my direct, sacrificial contribution to the sporting boycott – a boycott that hurt the white sportspeople of South Africa and forced change to occur.

A week after my meeting with Ann, she broke off her relationship with Clinton, moved into her own apartment in Hillbrow and began to call me daily. We would talk for hours on the phone.

In Weenen, all calls had to be put through by a phone operator, who could easily listen in (and usually did). I knew this, and the phone operator was aware that I knew. I enjoyed talking to Ann about a wide range of subjects, including politics, knowing that we were in a sense, “educating” our listeners. There was nothing wrong with this friendship.

That weekend, I visited Ann in Hillbrow and we started a relationship that broke all legal, social and cultural norms. Firstly, in terms of the apartheid laws, an inter-racial relationship was punishable by imprisonment, because we were contravening the Immorality Act. Furthermore, the Mixed Marriages Act forbade an official union between parties of different races.

Secondly, in her social set-up Ann was treated like an outcast for falling in love with a coolie. In my family, which had a strict puritanical religious base, this affair was evil and a sin.

We therefore had to hide our love, which was difficult. But we didn’t care – true love supersedes all and lovers become lost in themselves, oblivious of their surroundings. Which is exactly what happened to us.

Nevertheless, we still became part of a group of inter-racial lovers who had established a secret subculture. We went out to the limited venues open to us and, if the police questioned us, we would fall in with the opposite sex of our own race.

During this era of disco and Saturday Night Fever, the Cohen Brothers, who were coloured entrepreneurs in Johannesburg, opened a nightclub in an industrial area. They stretched the law to its limit and the club was soon closed down. While it lasted though, it brought all South Africans together and it was a happy time – this was the mid-seventies before the Soweto riots. But there was tragedy too: one mixed-race couple, Jannie Beetge and Bubbles Mpondo, who were friends of ours, finally couldn’t take the heat and jointly committed suicide.

My relationship with Ann continued for almost a year, with liaisons in venues across the country. When the heat of the law got to us we were forced to meet either in Swaziland or Lesotho, where we were free and we could express our love out in the open.

Finally, on a Sunday afternoon, while driving on the N1 north highway in my car, which had an nw (Weenen) registration – conspicuous in Johannesburg – we were pulled off by two white cops, who screamed, “You have dagga in your car!” They searched the vehicle for drugs, but couldn’t find any.

Somehow, they believed that the only reason white women got involved in relationships with non-whites was for drugs.

Both of us were escorted to the notorious John Vorster Square police station in downtown Johannesburg, where we were interrogated separately. As was common practice in such cases, the verbal bullying was backed up with punching, threats, and lies that the other had admitted to a sexual relationship.

The cop interrogating me would yell: “We’re going to put you away in prison for breaking the law. You better admit that you had sex with that woman. She says you gave her dagga and you had sex with her.”

When I said, “No!” I got a punch in the belly and more threats. (The police usually aimed for the stomach – it was painful without leaving visible damage.)

“You fucking coolie, you think you’re clever. We’ll see who’s clever. I’ll donder you for fucking a white bitch!”

Then the policeman who was interrogating Ann came in and said, “The white bitch says this coolie fucked her. Now what have you got to say?”

“That’s not true,” I said, “We are just friends and nothing else.”

Regardless of the physical pain and mental torture, both Ann and I stuck with the story that we were friends and there was no law against that.

Normally, police broke into mixed couples’ bedrooms at night and used forensic techniques to establish a sexual relationship so they could prosecute.

In this instance, they had absolutely nothing on us.

We were finally released that evening, but after the numerous blows that Ann had sustained, she aborted the foetus she was carrying.

She couldn’t deal with the pressure any more, so she left for London and I was to follow. I was so desperate that I was even prepared to take a one-way ticket to be with her.

However, I approached Dr Ahmed Sader, the ANC representative in Ladysmith who was under house arrest, for help with arranging a scholarship for me to attend a university in London, or anywhere in the UK. It was common knowledge that he had done so for his extended family, but he refused to assist me.

Once more, I saw the colours of the ANC through its representatives, and I was not impressed.

Devastated that I had no means of being able to join Ann, I returned to Weenen and spent time in solitude, dealing with the pain of separation by fishing, writing poetry and through self-reflection.

My relationship with Ann had ended – almost as abruptly as it had begun. All I was left with were memories of the joyous moments and thoughts of what could have been, in another time and another place.