Black Chin, White Chin’ is Ronnie Govender’s fictionalised account of the lives of Tamil and other indentured labourers in the South Africa of the 1930s and 1940s, based largely on the real-life account of his Uncle— Chin Govender.

This novel is an important record of the difficult times that Indians faced in South Africa. The word ‘indentured’ is used several times in the novel— a polite word for ‘slavery’. The tough times under South African rule, the beginning of the nascent Natal National Congress and apartheid rules, all seen through Indian eyes, sets this book apart.

Govender’s life is chronicled from the time he angrily leaves his home in Durban as a young man. We journey with him through East London and finally to Cape Town, as he works his way up from a wine steward to becoming a successful owner of a hotel.

People living in tough times have little thought for the future. In this book, an uneasy but convenient liaison develops between Chin and a European lady, Greta, who is the owner of the hotel that employs him. Simultaneously, he becomes intimate with an old family friend, the daughter of a coloured couple, Grace.
And then there is his wife, a Tamil girl, Mogie. The undercurrents of Chin’s feelings for the three women in his life: Greta, Mogie and Grace forms an absorbing sub-plot of this tale.

There is also the pivotal character of Govender’s mother Amurtham, who is very much the archetypical Indian mother, struggling, sacrificing but never losing faith in God or family.

The identity crisis that all immigrants go through, especially the second generation, comes across very subtly, but very surely, like the dust settling across a slum situated on the outskirts of a polished city.

Readers of novels based in the colonial period will be familiar with the Anglicisation of Indian names, objects and traditions. Similarly, the English officials at the Immigration Offices in Durban distorted several surnames. ‘Gounder’ became ‘Govender’, ‘Nayager’ became ‘Naicker’, ‘Mudaliar’ became ‘Moodley’, ‘Nayar’ became ‘Nair’, and so on.

Lots of anglicised references (velkoo for villakku, kudle - kadalai, koongo - kungumum or kumkum) lend the book a colonial air because of India’s British heritage, but that is where the similarity ends. Here, the second and third generation Indians continue using these terms, something that makes one think of the interesting colonial carry-over.

There are some areas where the novel could have been tighter but it is tough for a writer to work on a biography within the structure of a novel. And to be fair, these areas do not detract from the novel’s interest.
When I turned the last page, I felt I had been transported to a different era that seemed vaguely familiar, given my South Indian roots, and yet disturbingly different. The images of several characters remain long after the story is over.

Black Chin, White Chin
Ronnie Govender, HarperCollins, pp 280, Rs 295.