Test Cricket India South Africa

Ah!  It's December 2010.  Sachin Tendulkar and his team mates are in Durban, my hometown for the South Africa vs India Second Test cricket.  I mention him because his name is always in the papers.

I'm clueless about cricket so i have no idea why there are always numbers after his name 100 or 200.  I'm an African and all we had were soccer fields.

The official policy of racial segregation called apartheid divided South Africans from the cradle to the grave.  Whites had superior education that enabled them to run the country and the economy.  Africans had a curriculum designed to serve whites, Indians and Coloureds.

The school system interpreted apartheid extremely well.  Cricket and rugby were played in white schools so test cricket had white players and white audiences.  Olympic sports were taught in white schools so white players represented their country in the Olympic Games.

Indians lived in their own areas and Africans in their own townships so, what I didn't know is that South African Indians love cricket.  I only discovered this after 1994, when people who never talked to each other opened up.

Now cinema, that's another story. I grew up in Durban so my mother took me to the Shah Jehan, Raj, Avalon and other cinemas.  Indian cinemas were not breaking any law because apartheid regarded Indians and Africans as black, but it regarded Indians as higher than us Africans.

Very few of these cinemas remain because cinema has moved to shopping malls.  There's also DVD piracy and the internet.  The Majestic in Fordsburg, Johannesburg is now used for social events.  Have multi-plexes in your city also shut down local cinemas?

Nonqaba waka Msimang is the author of Sweetness the novel.
www.dorrancebookstore.com

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