Confessions of a Technophobe, New Series 31
Part 2 continued
1956–1966
Looking back at that time, I realize now that I enjoyed hobnobbing with a number of people who were to a greater or lesser degree radically opposed to the Apartheid government. I had no desire to become a violent activist like Ronnie Kasrils, but I did enjoy my friendship with the Bughwans who were constantly mixing with banned people under house arrest as well as socializing with the white community. Dennis was not really political, and simply lived his life without much regard for the Apartheid laws surrounding him. Devi was more political but was careful not to jeopardize her career as a professor of English and Drama at the Durban/Westville Indian University. She was academically brilliant and blessed by being one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. In 1951 she became a teacher at the Clairwood Indian High School. In 1959 she became a parttime announcer with the South African Broadcasting Commission’s (SABC) Indian program. She was also a gifted amateur actress and in 1961 was chosen to play the important role of Rohini in a production of “King of the Dark Chamber” brought to South Africa by Broadway producer Krishna Shah.
In 1962 Devi was part of a group that formed the Durban Academy of Dramatic Arts (DATA), South Africa’s first non-racial theatre group. After producing some smaller plays, Devi brought Krishna Shah over from Broadway to lecture and to produce a current Broadway hit. This was followed by the world premiere of “Sponono,” a musical written by Alan Paton, author of the internationally acclaimed novel Cry the Beloved Country and leader of the South African Liberal Party. Cry the Beloved Country was later produced as a movie with the US actor Sydney Poitier in his first leading role.
At the time both David Barnett’s Durban-based plays had been successfully staged and I was out of work again. When Dennis Bughwan came to the theatre to photograph the plays, he and I had become friendly. I had dinner with Dennis and Devi a couple of times and was eventually invited to join DATA. I was promptly assigned to the task of transporting the cast of Sponono to the theatre for rehearsals (and later the production itself) in a battered old dry-cleaning van. There was very little funding for this first non-racial experimental theatre group, but such was the enthusiasm by everyone concerned, we all agreed to work for virtually nothing. We were acutely aware that the government could close DATA down at any moment as it contravened many Apartheid laws. Although it would still be more than twenty years before Apartheid was finally dismantled, there were some areas where the authorities tended to turn a blind eye to what they considered to be “harmless” activities. This did not prevent them from continuing to try and stamp out other attempts to normalize South African life. It was often hard to predict what they would ignore or what would drive them into a repressive fury.
A person that kept very much in the background of the production team but who made some valuable contributions to the success of the show was the already well-established playwright Athol Fugard. His play “The Blood Knot” written, acted and produced in 1961 created an international reputation for him. He was to go on to write over forty plays, which he produced all over the world as well as acting in some of them. He even appeared in Dickie Attenborough’s film “Gandhi” when it was eventually made. He played the role of Jan Smuts who constantly harassed Gandhi during his early years as a lawyer in South Africa. In some ways Athol was a very tolerant person, who allowed me to chat to him about many things in my search for a future career. Despite his growing fame he was happy to help out wherever needed as the production developed. “Sponono” was not a huge commercial success, but it was seen as a highly regarded work of creative theatre. Krishna Shah later took it to Broadway with the original South African cast. It was quite well reviewed in The New York Times on the third of April 1964.
Devi also won the British Council Scholarship to study drama at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic in the UK. In the course of the year she spent there, she appeared in a couple of British TV series and was spotted by film producer/director Dickie Attenborough who was casting for his film “Gandhi”. Attenborough cast Devi as Gandhi’s wife. The only problem with that was it took another twenty-five years before he got the movie financed. By then Devi was almost old enough to play Gandhi’s mother! She returned to South Africa and in 1975 became professor of drama and literature at the Durban/Westville University which was opened in 1972. In 1983 she was appointed to the Advisory Board of SABC TV.
Meanwhile Dennis and I had decided to make a short film together. Dennis had always wanted to extend his photographic skills to cinematography, and I felt ready to direct my first film. Dennis offered to pay all the costs of the production but he would not pay me a salary. This was tough but I agreed and set about earning some money to support myself throughout the production. I figured that I could drive a taxicab at night, grab a few hours’ sleep and film during the day. There were two or three large taxi companies in Durban but I was introduced to a small company with only five rather ancient cabs. Nevertheless, they had plenty of work and I signed on to drive from 6 pm to 4 or 5 am the following morning. Dennis agreed that we could start filming at 9 am each day. The story was a very simple one. It revolved around a young Indian boy of twelve who would leave school every Friday afternoon and trot across town to an Indian sweet shop, where he would work cleaning the place and be paid 20 cents for his efforts. We establish that he was saving up the money to buy a birthday present for a young girl in his class at school. Despite some difficulties he manages to save up to buy the present and in the final scene we see that the girl is a cripple in leg irons.
Dennis had three children. The youngest, Kamal, played the boy and his sister Veena played the girl. With their good-looking father and beautiful mother, both children were striking-looking and both had a natural talent for acting. Despite their thespian talents, Kamal would go on to become a medical specialist and eventually become the head of department in a major United States hospital. Veena studied law and became a barrister in Britain.
During the course of the production, Dennis told me he had been approached by a member of the security police asking what he was doing making a film with a white man. Dennis was incredibly charming. He soon convinced the policeman that we were not making a political film and even showed him my script. The policeman said he was satisfied but we frequently spotted people watching us film that were unlikely passers-by. These were mostly large muscular men with short, cropped hair and a steely look in their eyes.
Meanwhile at night my taxi driving led me into all kinds of bizarre adventures. On my first night the owner of the cabs told me that the majority of their business was fetching sailors from the docks and taking them to one of the many brothels in the city. Durban is the largest harbor in the Southern hemisphere and at the time, in addition to a steady stream of cargo ships, American and British warships called to refuel. The most direct route from Europe to East African nations or across to Asia was through the Suez Canal. Down the East coast of Africa, international political tensions were still running high. Both the US and Britain frequently patrolled the Cape of Good Hope in case the Suez Canal should be closed.
My first customer was a US naval engineer who wanted to be fetched from one of the brothels. I was given directions and set off into the hills of Chatsworth where the man was waiting. The car they had given me was an old early 1950s Plymouth and furthermore, they had converted it from a petrol engine to diesel, with the idea of saving money. Unfortunately, the car was grossly underpowered. Anyway, I found the brothel quite easily and an obliging young man gave me the most direct route to the docks from there. The naval officer was a big man in his fifties, and he was roaring drunk. He told me to forget about going back to his ship; he wanted to visit another brothel. The same young man, probably part of the place’s management, gave me new instructions and we set off.
Chatsworth is a largely Indian area and is very hilly. We soon found ourselves descending a steep hill with an equally steep hill to climb immediately after reaching the bottom of our descent. My Plymouth went a short way up the other side and despite moving into first gear, it simply couldn’t climb the hill. I tried to go back and take a run at it but still couldn’t make it. My previously cheerful passenger became quite aggressive and called me all kinds of a fool. I explained that the engine had been converted to diesel and it was probably a lower powered unit. I also explained that this was my first night as a taxi driver and I had no idea what to do. The American was beginning to sober up and asked to see the engine. He inspected it and shook his head. “Yep, the darn fools’ve put in a smaller engine.” He then had an idea and told me to try and reverse up the way we had come. “Reverse is stronger than the forward gears. It could work.” Of course, this was well before cell phones and there were no houses in the area where we could perhaps find a phone. The officer told me that he would drive the vehicle out. He could see that I was in a bit of a state with my very first customer. Happily, his plan worked and we crawled out of our trap. When we reached the top, he told me that he would now prefer to go back to the ship. I apologized profusely for spoiling his evening. He laughed. “Nar … it was kinda funny. I already had me a great girl and I guess I shouldn’t be greedy.” We chatted amiably all the way back to the docks. Fortunately, I had remembered the earlier instructions about getting back to the ship and I left the man declaring that it had been a great evening. I returned to the taxi depot and told the boss about my adventure. He laughed and said that he wouldn’t send me to the Chatsworth area again.
I drove taxis for about five weeks and eventually became quite good at it. I had a few more crazy incidents. One passenger I picked up was so drunk that he couldn’t talk coherently and could not explain where he wanted to go. After wandering around for a while hoping he would sober up, I eventually gave up and decided to drive him to the nearest police station. On the way there I smelt burning. The front seat of the old Plymouth was a long single seat for both the driver and a passenger. At the back of this long seat was an ashtray for passengers in the back of the car, inset into the middle of the seat. My drunken passenger had pulled out the ashtray and started dropping lighted matches into the upholstery. I turned to look at what he was doing and saw him drop a match into the seat. I immediately yelled at him to stop it and drove to the nearest garage, where I found a water hose that I stuck into the hole left by the ashtray at the back of the seat. I then drove to the police station and frog marched my crazy passenger to the charge office. I explained what he had done to the sergeant on duty and asked that he keep him somewhere even in a jail cell until he sobered up. I added that it probably wasn’t worth charging him, but I would discuss it with my boss and call him back.
The Plymouth was now smelling horribly. It gave off a toxic mixture of burned upholstery and soggy wet material where the hose had reached in to put out the fire. I drove back to the taxi depot gagging and coughing. In one respect it was a blessing as the owner of the taxis fleet decided to scrap the Plymouth. He had just bought a secondhand Dodge in good condition, which he proudly presented to me as my new wheels. Despite my weird experiences I had performed quite well as a cab driver and the boss was pleased with my performance overall. As he handed me the keys, he begged me not to get into any more crazy situations. I said I would do my best but to no avail.
A few days later the police called to say that they had a passenger for us, who was well-known to them. He was a wealthy sugar cane farmer who came into town every few weeks to drink and to raise hell. They warned me that he would ask me to stop at the nearest bar just to “whet his whistle” on the way to the hotel. I was to ignore this request no matter what he said. The cops had booked him into the Royal (arguably the top hotel in Durban at the time). Unlike the glitzy streamlined hotel towers on the beach front, the Royal was an elegant 19th century building with a history of good old-fashioned care of its mostly elderly patrons.
I picked up the farmer who was well dressed but rather disheveled and clearly drunk. Here we go again, I thought. I ignored his pleas to stop off for a drink. He even pulled out a huge wad of bank notes and told me to take whatever I wanted if I would just drive him to a bar. Ignoring this, we arrived at the hotel and, fearing complications, I told the man to wait in the cab while I checked on his booking. He nodded and closed his eyes. I went upstairs to the reception and confirmed his booking, telling the concierge that my passenger had had one or two drinks but was not actually drunk. I gave his name and the man nodded “Yes we know him well,” he said.
I dashed downstairs to the cab again and looked inside for my passenger. He was gone!
Problem-solving takes many forms. In this case I figured that I should locate the nearest bar and asked around for directions.
Over the twenty-plus years that Peter Warren has painstakingly evolved the concept of ExoTech by eliminating the original flaws in all of computer design, he has been confronted by endless problems. Happily, he acquired a methodology which by data evaluation he was able to resolve many problems along the way.
I had no such data. I had simply lost my client and knew that if I didn’t find him quickly I was in deep trouble.
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.