By Subry Govender
Working as a
labourer on the sugar plantations, rice fields and vegetable gardens on farms
near Port Shepstone was recalled at a birthday function for a local 96-year-old
great-grand mother recently.
The event was
held in honour of Mrs Papathy Govender at the home of her 73-year-old daughter,
Ruby Naicker, in Marburg, on Saturday, October 22 2022.
Family members from far afield as Johannesburg and Durban joined a large number
of their local Port Shepstone relatives to celebrate the legacy of Mrs Govender
who toiled on two farms near Port Shepstone all her early and adult life.
Mrs Govender was born on September 30 1926 at Batania Farm, which was
leased by her father, Kanan Govender, after he had completed his five year
indenture on a neighbouring sugar estate.
He had come to the former Natal Colony from a village in Tamil Nadu in India as
a teenager in the 1880s. He was recruited to work as an indentured
labourer by a sugar farmer in Port Shepstone.
Kanan Govender,
who was famously known as KanKan, used his influence to lease a 20-acre farm in
the Batania area. Here he planted sugarcane, vegetables and rice.
The young eligible bachelor was soon introduced to a young lady who was a
local girl. He married the young woman, Alyamma, and after a few years he
married his wife's sister, Mariamma, as his second wife.
He lived
with both his wives at Batania Farm and conceived 17children.
Mrs Papathy
Govender, who was the eldest from his first wife, toiled in the fields with her
two mothers. Life was tough.
"We worked very hard every day from early as 5am until our tasks were
completed,” she told me in the Tamil language.
When she was 15 years-old, her father made arrangements for her to marry
Narainsamy Govender, the son of a neighbouring farmer, Mr Jitla Govender.
The wedding took
place at her father-in-laws Izotsha Farm. They stayed in Izotsha where their
first four children were born. After some discussions with Papathy’s parents
they moved to Batania where they continued to work in the fields as ordinary
labourers.
"Both my
husband and I worked in the fields here at Batania and had to bear the
hardships. But after a while my father-in-law insisted that we should move back
to Izotsha. Here too we worked in the fields again, looking after the sugar
cane and rice crops and vegetables. Life was very difficult and I recall
that many a time I used to carry cabbages on my head when I was fully
pregnant."
Her husband, in
addition to working in the fields, was also a laundry man.
Mrs Papathy Govender and her husband were parents to seven children - four
daughters and three sons.
Except for two children, Radha and Baby, the rest of the children - Pushpa,
Ruby, Sadha, Krish and Jaya - are all settled in and around Port Shepstone. All
the children also worked in the fields before completing their schooling and
entering other professions.
Mrs Govender continued to live on her father-in- laws farm even after her
husband passed on at the age of 45 when the youngest son was six years
old. She was 35-years old at the time of her husband’s death.
Of her siblings of 11 children, only she and a sister, Thanga (82), are still alive today.
And from her second mother’s six children, two daughters, Ambie 71, and Goindu 85, are still around.
Mrs Govender has 16 grand-children (one late Delon), and 21 great-grand-children. One great-great-grand-child will be born soon in Cape Town.
She currently lives with her son, Sadha, and his wife, Reena, in Marburg. According to family members, 96-year-old Papathy Govender is still very strong and helps with the house-hold chores of washing dishes and folding washed clothes.
“She is enjoying
her advanced age and I suppose this is due largely to all the hard work she had
done during her early life and after marriage”, said her third daughter, Ruby
Naicker.
“By holding this
event, the family wants to celebrate her life and legacy, which for us is unprecedent.” Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com Oct
22 2022
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