goggly

My eardrums have a dull ache with humming noise, my clean shaven head’s pores are topped with early morning dew droplets. In a crisp and cool breezy morning, I have just had a walk outside sprawling garden of Hotel Castle Kyalami. By 8am, I was ready and was heading for breakfast. When asked for the direction, guy at the reception seemed a bit shell shocked but did point me towards an empty hall with a polite request ‘we serve breakfast only from 630am’. I immediately realized my folly of not having set the clock behind 2 hours. My instant reaction was not to portray any surprise. ‘No problem, I shall have a walk’ I said. I walked out without any sweater or warm clothes, sky was still grey but horizon was enfolding a tinge of pink and birds were ready to leave their nest. White, Yellow roses were fully bloomed with other flowers in scarlet and orange laid a colourful spread over green top . From the top of Castle Kyalami, I could see suburbs of Midrand, Sandton twinkled lights. Castl...

After getting a letter from Priest Msimangu, Stephen Kumalo starts his journey from his village town to Johannesburg in search for his missing son Absalom and during this mission, he discovers his sister Gertrude who has become prostitute, brother John – a carpenter and learn about his son Absalom murdering white fighter of racial justice Arther Jarvis who happens to be son of his neighbour. Novelist Alan Paton created these characters from social milieu of pre Apartheid regime in his novel ‘Cry the Beloved Country’. This book was prescribed as a syllabus for English subject for my intermediate science. It was beyond my reach to read this book in English – so I managed to buy Marathi translation of this book and answered my examination paper in English. Little did I know then that after so many years, like Kumalo, I would also visit the very same place and rediscover the essence of South Africa and its struggle to come out of clutches of Afrikaans speaking white rulers. In the process,...