Four months after my birth, I was brought to Johannesburg, or Jo'burg as the locals call it.
The city of gold, that would be ripped off you should you be caught unaccompanied in public or without the aid of a pepper spray.
The city of taxi drivers that were given licenses on the basis they don't follow any rules of the road and where corruption was actually facilitated by high ranking government officials.
My first home was a corner flat situated in crown mines. One street up from the now renowned Fordsburg square. The area then, was in a much better state than it is now.
Pakistani's remained in their home land (well, most of them, at least), woman cooked and mint road was a street just as any other.
A year later we moved.
My dads oldest brother had purchased a set of semi's in Mayfair. It was agreed that, my dad being the youngest of 6, would live next door to my Daddi. This way, they could go on with their lives knowing that their mother was well looked after, and their baby brother had a place to call home.
This was in 1989. By then, I was just over a year old and Mama was 6 months pregnant with my sister.
At the time, my father had a shop just opposite Entrance of the Oriental plaza. I don't remember any of it but we had driven past when I was older and I remember Mama pointing out the shop to us. It was a take-away. Quite a successful one at that too. After some time though, like many other businesses that Papa owned, it dissolved.
You see, Papa was a night person, Mama a morning one. Papa slept at 2:00 in the morning, by that time Mama was already on to her 4th dream for the night.Whilst some people managed to do late nights and still maintain an early morning, Papa wasn't one of those people.
I was never more afraid of Papa than when he just woke.
He reminded me of a grizzly bear, with the puffs of hair that protruded from the collars of his night shirts and from the sides of his ears. Sometimes, you could even hear him growl.
It was only when he had smoked his first cigarette for the day that our anxieties were somewhat dispelled.
I grew up working on my maternal Uncle's farm during the December holidays when I was old enough and I understood, that one of the many secrets to success was in rising early enough to chase your dreams.
In my Papa's case, to open shop.
Eventually Papa lost the take away. His customers weren't going to wait till he woke (at 11:00am) and they moved on to search for someone that would whip up their early morning coffee, in the early morning.
Papa was a genius. Not in the leagues of Einstein but who's comparing? He had matriculated at the age of 15 as a result of a double promotion. He was a mathematical whiz which, ironically, couldn't calculate the cost of running a household.
I guess he just wasn't program to think along those lines (at least his user manual says so).
Mama was creatively inclined even from a young age. Whilst her teacher was explaining algorithms and trigonometry , Mama whiled away her time drafting houses. Nana wanted to send her to America to study architecture. He was convinced she would excel in the field. She probably would have, had she went ahead with his plans for her but Mama chose a different path.
In that, she had disappointed him.
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