Blow-by-blow account of a legendary boxer
BILLY Nagiah oozes pizzazz. He was a knockout, both as a boxer and as a salesman. His handshake is firm and commanding, tempered only by the warmth of the welcome on the doorstep of the Merebank home he keeps with his wife, Rachel.
Sixty years earlier, they would have been the power couple of Somtseu Road’s Magazine Barracks – one of the labour compounds housing Durban’s municipal workers of Indian origin.
It was racially segregated from the time of its establishment in the 1880s, long before the apartheid Group Areas Act came into effect.
The workers there were the early urban proletariat, although some were also indentured to the municipality. Colonial indenture began in 1860, with the last shipment of human cargo from India in 1911.
Although successively condemned as unfit for human habitation, “the barracks”, as it is nostalgically treasured in the memories of its former residents, was home and haven.
Billy and Rachel beam when recalling the lives their families created, in spite of the hardships.
His mother died when he was 6 months old and he was brought up by her brother, a Mr Pydiah, who also put him through school.
He has an enduring affection for his uncle.
Rachel’s mother, Rebecca, was a famed midwife trained as a “bag nurse”.
She would buy food for new mothers so they could have a measure of nutrition while breastfeeding their newborns.
Through a combination of medical skill and prayer, Rebecca once saved the life of a baby who had turned blue and whose parents feared the worst. Rebecca’s mother, Appamma, was also a highlyregarded midwife.
When the Durban City Council declared the beachfront and other choice parts of the city white group areas, the black spot of the barracks was razed to the ground.
Its people and their meagre possessions trekked to townships 25km away.
Most of them were destined for the semi-detached and six-family tenements of Chatsworth.
The Nagiahs, soon after getting their notice of forced removal, set