The ‘basket economy’ has returned to Chatsworth Kiru Naidoo
THERE is a quiet revolution going on in small business in Chatsworth. As those ugly Section 189 retrenchment letters start coming in by email (simply because nobody can get the South African Post Office to deliver the post), people are looking for creative ways to get back on their feet. Multiple qualifications and years of experience count for a lot less than they did a decade ago. Anybody with a job even a poorly paying one, should count themselves lucky.
Economic and financial troubles are not just affecting South Africa. Right across the planet, ordinary people are feeling the pinch and very often a punch. In May, the British Guardian newspaper reported that, ‘an estimated 700,000 UK households missed or defaulted on a rent or mortgage payment last month, according to data issued days before another expected rise in the cost of borrowing’.
The story may not be too different for South Africans faced with crippling interest rates. According to a local property agent, the rental market is booming as fewer people are able to secure bonds or meet their monthly payments.
Further afield, researcher Neeraja Kulkarni met scores of farmers under pressure from loan sharks and middle men in rural Karnataka as she looked into horticulture value chains in South India. In June this year, she wrote ‘India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) estimate that approximately 10,881 farmers died by suicide in 2021. But an analysis conducted by Punjab Agricultural University suggested the real number of farmer suicides in Punjab is almost five times of the NCRB data’.
Faced with the "shame" of being unable to pay their debts or the risk of losing their land, as many as 30 indebted Indian farmers take their own lives every day in India, according to physician and human rights researcher, Professor Ganisha Kaur. There do not appear to be any contemporary sociological studies in South Africa on the relationship between debt and suicide.
Our local situation is not likely to get that desperate. Faced with testing times, people are constantly on the lookout for fresh opportunities. Very often these are completely different from anything they may have done before. This should be exciting terrain for economists and social scientists.
On one of my long WhatsApp calls, to fellow Chatsworthian and curator of the 1860 Heritage Centre, Selvan Naidoo, I ventured the thought that these difficult conditions should prompt us into writing fresh economic theory. He was quick to point out that when the colonial government in Natal imposed a ₤3 tax on Indians who had completed their period of indenture to force them into re-indenture or repatriation to India, they (community) pulled out all stops.
While there were those ready to challenge the oppressive law through active and passive resistance, yet others looked for new means to earn additional income.
"Our folks fried vadas, samoosas and athirasam and went door to door with a basket hawking those snacks to pay the tax or put children through school,” he recalled with pride.
The ‘basket economy’ has returned to Chatsworth though not necessarily in the same form. Social media is awash with adverts for all manner of home industries.
One clever note on Facebook reads, ‘big business will not notice what you buy but you can change the life of someone in a small business”.
Strolling along Florence Nightingale Drive in Unit 3, one is struck by just about every house frontage plastered with advertising. One can find a tax consultant, upholsterer, nail technician and florist within a radius of fifty metres. The real boom though is in food. Heritage food recipes have made a remarkable comeback. The humble leaf of the amadumbe plant has been revolutionised into spiced patha rolls, pies and braised curries - a variation on the round slab sandwiched between two puris.
Sour porridge once reserved for special religious observances jostles for table space in the homes of the well-heeled in the company of the traditional mixed vegetables curries, pumpkin and cabbage.
One of the most sought-after speciality is Thamaray Moodley’s brand Aunty Pam's Kitchen. Their family (entrepreneurship) goes back to the turn of the last century, hawking vegetables in the Early Morning Market. She would help out in the market before heading off to school and was often teased by other girls (who didn't have to work) that she smelled of cabbages. She looks back on those taunts as a badge of honour.
The family then ventured into the curio business in the Victoria Street Market. When that business faltered as Covid bit into tourist arrivals, she along with sister Jodhi and brother Roothiran summoned up family recipes to launch their food business both in the city during the week and in a Chatsworth market on a Sunday.
On the beverages side, Sagie Naicker has added a new flavour twist to the Bombay Crush invented at Mullah's Cafe on 64 Victoria Street a hundred years ago. One would hardly have imagined bubble gum, lime and other fruity flavours where the pink strawberry was king but Naicker has made the popular milkshake an art.
He worked at the Stables Market for over 20 years until bureaucratic bumbling by the city fathers reduced that market to empty rubble and put scores of people out of work. Naicker now works out of local markets in Chatsworth and supplies batches to other businesses happy to be an outlet for a fellow small business owner.
Another legendary eating house is Aunty Rumba's Kitchen which is a social media sensation with the claim that anyone who comes through her hatch at the Fragrance Street Market will ‘eat a full stomach’. Her famous bunny chows are made from mutton from a local butchery, bread from the small bakery around the corner, spices from notable purveyor Manilal Ratanjee, and those must-have up to date potatoes from traders on her shop's doorstep.
Everything local except the sheep which come trotting from their pastures in the Karoo. The survival revolution is very much alive in Chatsworth proving that hard times cultivate even stronger people.
Kiru Naidoo is the author of the memoir Made in Chatsworth, which has found new form as a documentary made for cinema. The Made in Chatsworth documentary, produced by Anivesh Singh of Micromega Publications, showcases small businesses, artists and community leaders from Chatsworth. It will premiere at the Avalon CineCentre at Suncoast on December 8 with further screenings at the group’s venues in Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg.
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