Thursday, May 10, 2007

Grey Street Memories


Wednesday night we attended Grey Street Literary Trail at Suncoast supernova.Each told a little story of how they experienced life back in the day,how they led movements in the apartheid era and how safe life life was walking around town in the middle of the night,i guess all of our parents tell us those stories,i know mine do since they both lived in streets running parallel to grey street.

I lived in town almost half my life,i am now as the say from "The towns".

I remember Grey street in its own way...

It started when i was 9 years old and i attended Juma Musjid primary school,i played softball on the roof garden of grey street mosque and hit the ball over too many times.I remember friday Juma time going to read namaaz we had to pass through the arcade,buying pies and chips and running through little shops to browse article of no interest.I remember the walk down grey street to my granny's house passing patels to sit with my little brother and our other friends to have a beans bunny.

My high school life also took me up and down grey street,this time it was from the other end up girls high to the library and back.Everyday after school we,d stop at the corner shop beatrice and grey and have our 3.50 bunny's ,then off to the library not forgetting to stop at kulfi to stand and make noise and buy a milk lollies.
I remember ramadaan time going to read taraweeh at grey street mosque,then waiting afterwards for my dad to pick us up or running away with my cousins for a drive on the beach.

Each corner of grey street has memories,thats where i spent most of my youth not that im old...Ahem,but now i stay indoors because it aint safe nemore,me n zai just go to carson's corner to buy bread some days,it usually takes us half and hour to walk up lorne street and around the block.SOme people dont know what's it like to stay in town,i love it,it has it's up's and down's but we used to it and it gives a person character,attitude and makes them street wise.

Lets hope the memories dont fade along with the name.

3 comments:

Twilight Student said...

That post interested me a lot man. South Africa has a unique situation where many city dwellers dont actually live in the city. Thats sad. I'm guilty of it too. We have a brilliant CBD, Grey Street itself is like a time capsule. I try to drive through town as much as I can but we suburbanites are too spoilt, every service that we need is in our backyard. I envy u to be honest. U are one of the fortunate Durbanites who can genuinely say u LIVE in the City of Durban.

S said...

Oh man. I was going to go for this with creative writing class and lecturers at UKZN but then I backed out last minute because of lift problems.

Sounds like fun.

Nadia said...

jonathan -Yeah the total experience itself.

Dew- It Was great and very interesting