Sunday Times E-Edition

I might be a young-looking 40, but don’t ‘wengane yami’ me

NDUMISO NGCOBO COLUMNIST

The human race has an unhealthy obsession with age. It’s an understandable preoccupation. With every ticking second, we’re hurtling towards the grave or being scattered over the Indian Ocean from an urn, as this columnist has instructed his family. My preference would have been having whatever organs can be salvaged (good luck with liver, kidneys and pancreas) before being taken to a butcher and having the meat dropped out of a chopper over the Hluhluwe Game Reserve to provide some lucky hyena with a scrumptious “leg of man” Sunday lunch. But I married and sired squeamish stock.

The fixation with age and, in particular, staying forever young is universal. This is why Bob Dylan, who ironically seems to be pulling off the perfect prune impersonation nowadays, wrote the song Forever Young. Not a day goes by on “the socials” without someone posting a picture with the caption: “Janet Jackson looking smoking hot at 55.” Or Sade at 63. Or Gladys Knight.

Of course, with eight-figure bank accounts, Botox and skilled surgeons, looking younger is simple. Though it goes wrong from time to time. Smokey Robinson looks like a porcelain doll on meth. If you placed Cher next to her likeness at Madame Tussauds and offered $1m to whoever can tell the wax figure from the human, 34.7% of people would lose. Naturally, some folks are born with vampire DNA such as the musician Pharrell Williams.

There are few societies more ageist than the black South African. This is all in the name of “respect”, which is a main ingredient in this phantom philosophy commonly referred to as ubuntu. Yes, I said it. I said it here in the Sunday Times Lifestyle section. Ubuntu is an aspirational but non-existent lofty ideal that South African black people pontificate about but never practise. It is not much different from kindness, truth, Christian values and other pipedreams. Defenders of this ubuntu fantasy are quick to point out that this generation has veered off the original path and how, back in the day, Zulus practised it religiously.

I guess this is why Zulus are still lamenting the woman I consider the true architect of the Zulu Kingdom, Shaka’s paternal aunt. Mkabayi ka Jama was never meant to live past the day of her birth. She was the second born of a set of twins. And according to the dictates of “our culture” that is steeped in ubuntu, she should have been killed on the spot. This is the same ubuntu that spawned names such as ivezandlebe and ingane yesihlahla (a child conceived in the bushes) for kids born out of wedlock, fathered by married men. Ubuntu, my black, hairy arse.

We are a people who love to address each other using ageist monikers. When I started doing the drive time show, Uncaptured, at Kaya

FM, colleagues addressed me as

Bhuti Ndumiso or Abuti Ndumiso, the prefixes referring to my age. Within the first month I had nipped it in the bud and because my younger colleagues were uncomfortable calling me Ndumiso, I allowed them to address me as Mapholoba, which though not strictly my clan name, I could live with.

The same phenomenon manifested itself with our erstwhile president Jacob Zuma. In ANC circles, it is understood that when folks talk of uBaba, that’s who they’re referring to. And he seems to lap it up. The few times I’ve met him, including an interview in 2012, he greeted me in his legendary warm tone: “Unjani mfana wami” (Hello, my son). You can argue that he was being affectionate but there was an unstated declaration that he expected a level of deference from me, a disturbing expectation in that situation. It was an innocuous profile interview that I thoroughly enjoyed, but still ...

I am told that I am cursed with a milder version of that Pharrell Peter Pan syndrome. I confess that when people tell me I hardly look 40, it feeds my vanity. Zulu women on the “other side” of 50 have this irritating habit of going around addressing anyone younger aswengane yami (my child). Over the years I’ve realised that it’s a cynical attempt at pulling rank in social settings, à la Msholozi. Wengane yami is almost always followed by some form of dressing down or a favour.

A few days ago, the cleaner at the guest house I’m staying in comes to my room and ngane yamis me before asking if she can skip cleaning because of some long story involving her transport. I tell her it’s fine, but I ask her if she doesn’t mind me asking how old she is. As it turns out, this “child” of hers is exactly 20 months her junior.

There are few societies more ageist than the black South African. This is all in the name of ‘respect’, the main ingredient in this phantom philosophy commonly referred to as ‘ubuntu’

Humour

en-za

2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://times-e-editions.pressreader.com/article/282905209583919

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