Remembering Amichand Rajbansi: a life of controversy and service

LOVED him or hated him, you just could not have ignored him. He was constantly in your face in the media and at most community events. In the light of the long-awaited documentary/film of his life being released this week by my friend, director LX Seth, I decided to pay homage to Amichand Rajbansi, a true son of Durban.

- RAVI GOVENDER

I knew him well, as he was a keen follower of my newspaper columns and a diehard fan of my Friday night radio show for which he did a spectacularly innovative advertisement. We met up quite often at social functions, and we enjoyed an amicable and congenial relationship. Neither a slap in the face from an over enthusiastic AWB supporter nor being labelled an apartheid government stooge would sway him from his mission: to give Indians a voice in government; in the country.

Political analyst and now, man about town, Kiru Naidoo, once said: “What made Rajbansi relevant was that he was able to speak the language of the marginalised and alienated in the poor areas of Phoenix and Chatsworth.”

If the Bengal Tiger, as he was known, had survived until now, this year he would have celebrated 83 years of living. An eventful, sometimes riotous, but certainly, a roaring life.

Rajbansi was born on January 15, 1942, in Clairwood. His dad, Ethwaroo Rajbansi, was a builder and carpenter, and his mother, Suminthra, was a housewife. He had one brother, Devraj, and three sisters — Kalawathi, Bidda and Shanthi. The young man attended Clairwood Secondary School and thereafter college, where his major subjects were history and psychology. It was there where he developed a love for debate and public speaking.

In between becoming a sports administrator, a noble vocation seemed to have been part of his life. His first wife, Ashadevi, whom he married on December 31, 1967, recalled in a Sunday newspaper in a columnist’s interview that she fell in love with Rajbansi when he was her Standard 7 Latin teacher at Chatsworth High School.

To quote: “I was hopeless at Latin and he gave me a good hiding,” she said with a slightly hysterical giggle.