Friday night: Ferial Haffajee
It’s neither the hood nor high society. But a Friday night in Johannesburg’s suburbs of Mayfair and Fordsburg is an evening in a community.
At the Fordsburg Square entire families are out at play. There is no strict age policy. The very old and the very young mingle with teens out playing the mating game.
There’s also no discernable dress code. Women in hijab (the long dress and head- scarf of the Muslim faith) chat with others in saris while their daughters don Diesel. There’s no entrance policy either. Beggars hang out on the outskirts and informal parking attendants have a field night with the constant traffic.
Restaurants surround the square, catering to all tastes: there are two grills, a chippery, a cake shop and a Milky Lane. We choose the outdoor tandoori grill where the new generation of Pakistani immigrants has brought their entrepreneurial talents to this industrial heartland.
Three men with few words other than “hot or mild?” and “thank-you very much” put half and quarter chickens on the hot open-air grill where they are basted, turned and coaxed to the orange tandoori perfection that many Indian restaurants have trouble getting right. For R20 a half, they throw in a roll, some hot chutney and a serviette on a good night.
>From there on you grab a concrete seat and bird-watch with the best. Fathers in kafiyahs (Muslim skull-caps) keep an eagle eye on their teenage daughters who in turn eye the slickly dressed young men, some of whom look like they’ve stepped out of the pages of GQ magazine. These cool young ones shun the pavement food and chose pizzas from the Domino’s franchise across the road from the square.
The phrase may be horribly cliched, but the square is definitely East meets West meets South African. Turbanned waiters from the Jaipur Express (a restaurant in a redecorated railway carriage) are as Indian as the butter chicken and paneer they serve. The other lads in their Golf GTIs and heavy-duty speakers may share the same roots, but with their swank and bumps, they’re patently South African male.
Fordsburg and Mayfair are the suburbs of choice of a new generation of Indian and Pakistani immigrants who began flocking here in the early Nineties. They gather on the square at the weekend and if you’re a first-timer, a browse around the shops they’ve opened is interesting for the very different range of goods available from the richly coloured punjabi suits (Indian pants and top ensembles) to ordinary groceries imported from the subcontinent. The square is caf culture without the coffee or alcohol. Occasionally the shopowners lay on live entertainment. The musicians on offer sing mainly in Gujerati or Urdu and on those weekend nights space is at a premium.
Instead of after dinner mints, Shalimars around the corner from the square offers a delightful array of brightly coloured Indian sweet-meats and other delicacies. Dripping with syrup and decorated with pistachios and almonds, these treats are an age-old craft passed on through the generations and the perfect nightcap to an evening of good, clean entertainment. But if you want to end on a high, the paan man who sells betel nut leaf cones wrapped around a range of pungent spices and little sweets must be your last stop. Many say that the betel nut induces a mild feel-good sensation.