An extract from 'Idris', a story in Pravasan Pillay's collection, Chatsworth

Soon after I finished high school I began taking driving lessons three times a week. In total, I paid for twenty lessons with Avalon Driving School, which was owned and run by driving instructor Mo Singh.

Mo was in his mid-fifties but looked much younger, especially since he usually wore a flat cap that hid his bald spot. He was short, but had the broad build of a boxer; it often seemed as though he was too big for the car seat. The most distinctive thing about him was the huge number of cigarettes he would smoke during a lesson. The car was permanently filled with the aroma of his Dunhills.

Mo was generally good-humoured and patient with me. He would rarely issue any explicit instructions, apart from street directions. Usually he would talk to me about football, as we were both big Manning Rangers fans.

Within four lessons I found myself much more comfortable behind the wheel – which I attributed mostly to Mo’s laid-back manner. Early on, Mo said that he could tell I wouldn’t have any difficulty passing my driving test. All I needed to do was to work on the finer details like checking my mirrors and improving my parking. “You going to be a lekker driver one day and you must remember who taught you,” he said the first time I successfully completed a three-point turn.

I was six lessons in when I met Idris Shaik for the first time....

From Chatsworth by Pravasan Pillay, a collection of 11 short stories that highlight working class life in a residential area that was allocated for South Africans of Indian descent during apartheid. The stories take place in the recent past and bring to life the nuances of life in this community, without leaning into stereotypes.

Available at www.madeinchatsworth.co.za.

Love birds

 

And then there were six ....

There are now only six copies of Graeme Feltham's With the Safety Off in stock.

Contact Dye Hard Press at dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order. 

In a magic city

 

Otherworld eyes

 

An extract from 'Mr Essop', from Pravasan Pillay's collection Chatsworth

 

An extract from 'Mr Essop':

Three years after we moved into our house in Chatsworth, my father built a granny cottage on the property. He said that once the cottage was rented out, it would bring in an additional R800 a month to our household.

The cottage was small – a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen – but clean and comfortable by the standards of township outbuildings, most of which were damp, poorly constructed hovels. The most unique part of the building was its veranda. It was a two-by-three-metre space, with a tiled floor, bordered by cement balustrades, and covered by a blue corrugated-plastic roof.

Despite the builder’s advice that such a small building didn’t warrant a veranda, my father insisted on adding it. His reasoning was that it would set the cottage apart from all the other outbuildings being let out across the neighbourhood.

When the cottage was ready for its first tenant, my father placed an ad in the classifieds of the Chatsworth Sun. It took him almost a week to compose it.

“We must be careful,” he cautioned my mother, the night before phoning it into the newspaper. “We don’t want to rent to katchara people. You meet anyone first time, they act nice in front of you, but, must see, two months later, they don’t want to pay their rent.”

From Chatsworth by Pravasan Pillay, a collection of 11 short stories that highlight working class life in a residential area that was allocated for South Africans of Indian descent during apartheid. The stories take place in the recent past and bring to life the nuances of life in this community, without leaning into stereotypes.

Available at www.madeinchatsworth.co.za.

With the Safety Off - only 10 copies left in stock

 

Contact Dye Hard Press at dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

An extract from 'The Albino', a story from Pravasan Pillay's collection, Chatsworth

    

I had entered my tenth year of teaching when the albino girl came to Montford Secondary. Cookie Govender was one of a batch of 90-odd pupils who entered high school that year, the majority of them from our sister school, Primrose Primary. I had previously heard about Cookie from one of my colleagues at Primrose; he had said that she could almost pass for white and that she was one of the most popular pupils at the school.

I was sceptical whether her popularity would continue in high school.

Cookie wasn’t the first albino I encountered during my time at Montford. In my second year I had taught one, a boy, his skin as pale as any white person’s, and his hair blond. His name was Chandra, but almost as soon as he arrived at the school the other pupils began calling him “Bird Shit”.

From Chatsworth by Pravasan Pillay, a collection of 11 short stories that highlight working class life in a residential area that was allocated for South Africans of Indian descent during apartheid. The stories take place in the recent past and bring to life the nuances of life in this community, without leaning into stereotypes. Available at www.madeinchatsworth.co.za

An extract from 'Chops Chutney', a story from Pravasan Pillay's Chatsworth

Extract from ‘Chops Chutney’

Kavitha’s father held the paper bag of samoosas over the kitchen bin, the bag scrunched in his tightly clenched fist. “See here, you don’t bloody bring this shit into my house, you heard me what I’m saying,” he shouted, a snarl on his face. “This is the last time I’m telling you.”

Kavitha stared at the oily paper bag, a big ‘F’ handwritten on it with a felt pen. The ‘F’ stood for tinned fish, the second most popular samoosa filling after potato curry at Karim’s Takeaway – which was located at the Unit 5 shopping centre in Chatsworth.

Kavitha had been working there for six months as a cashier, a position her father strongly disapproved of her taking – though he seemed to have no qualms about accepting the R900, a third of her salary that she gave him every month as part of her contribution to the household. This was her first real job since she had finished high school a year ago.

“I don’t want you working by Pakistani fellows,” her father had finger-wagged when she told him about the job. “You can’t trust those people. They won’t pay you on time must see.”

Extracted from Chatsworth by Pravasan Pillay, a collection of 11 short stories that highlight working class life in a residential area that was allocated for South Africans of Indian descent during apartheid. The stories take place in the recent past and bring to life the nuances of life in this community, without leaning into stereotypes. A Swedish translation of the book is currently in print. 

Published in South Africa by Dye Hard Press and available on www.madeinchatsworth.co.za.

A night on the moon

 

Thunder on the highway in Cape Town

 

Bruce Fereday in Cape Town has received his copy of Thunder on the highway - and he was struck by the similarities between its cover and the City Lights edition of Gregory Corso's Gasoline.

'Immortal' in Bangla

 

My poem 'Immortal' translated into Bangla, by Mouni Mondal. 'Immortal' was published in Sky Dreaming, published by Graffiti Kolkata in 2011.

Thunder on the highway by Gary Cummiskey

 

Thunder on the highway is a chapbook of short poems by Gary Cummiskey. 

24 pages. 

ISBN 978-0-9869982-7-0 

It is a limited edition of 50 numbered copies. 

Thunder on the highway is available directly from Dye Hard Press. For postal delivery by the post office the cost is R70. You will receive a tracking number and will have to collect it from your local post office. Should you want it couriered to your door, with 24-hour delivery, the price will be R140.00.

Send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Pravasan Pillay's excellent short story collection, Chatsworth, is due to be published in Swedish in Stockholm in September!

Thunder and Safety reaches Mpumalanga

Good to see that Gakwi Mashego in Shatale, Mpumalanga, has received his copies of Thunder on the highway by Gary Cummiskey and With the Safety Off by Graeme Feltham.

Playing the game