HANDSOME PLAITS AND CANDYFLOSS

“YOU heard Dhana is going

Wayliss,” muttered Mosie as she and Fahdiya meandered through the market. There was no love lost between the pair. Their ancient war goes back to the playing fields of Glenview Primary in my beloved Bangladesh district in Chatsworth.

Dhana and Mosie started out as “twins” born to different mothers on the same day at RK Khan Hospital in Unit 5.

When Mosie’s teenage mother received a gift pack and a scolding from Dr Ginwala for delivering the first baby on the birthday of a big toiletries company, she handed the talcum powder and lotion to Dhana’s mother in the bed alongside.

Although living on the opposite ends of 3A and 3B with the Chatsglen post office as their dividing line, the girls were almost Siamese. Their mothers sewed them identical frocks usually with smocking on the front.

They lost their milk teeth at the same time blaming it on the toffee apples Dhana’s father Veloo bought for five cents on the beachfront.

He was a waiter at the Pink

Pather. In between the oppressive meal shifts he wandered around Newton’s where he had a free run of any fairground ride he wanted.

After their annual Christmas pilgrimage window-shopping on

West Street, Veloo arranged endless trips on the carousel for the girls and, of course, the fluffy pink candyfloss now responsible for their diabetes.

All was well until Handsome transferred from Depot Road. He was God’s gift right down to drilled dimples on both cheeks. Amar

Akbar Anthony Soobiah was even summoned in the assembly by the austere headmaster Fulchand as Handsome. He was an orphan from Malukazi shuttled between relatives until Uther adopted him as her own.

Back in the day, the bite of the Group Areas Act meant that one could live with one’s own children in only the council houses.

It was the threat of a kiss from Handsome’s pink pucker that led to plaits being pulled during the lunchbreak.

The girls became sworn enemies. “I’m very sorry Mrs Kandasamy, dieting is not for me. I come way like a Jojo tank when I drink that Wayliss water,” tittered Fahdiya. She had little patience for Dhana and Mosie’s relentless feud, secretly counting them both as her friends.

“You two must Live, Love,

Learn,” she offered, referring to the divine Merebank girl Ashie Muthusamy’s recently published motivational book that is ratcheting up a storm on the best-seller list.

“Tell me about this Handsome, is he still around?” ventured Fahdiya as she walked into Mosie’s painful poke in her ribs.