GANAS GOVENDER FAMILY – OTTAWA PIONEERS OF MUNN ROAD

                                     (Ganas Govender and Mrs Thirupura Sundaree Govender)

 

"OTTAWA WAS A SPECIAL PLACE BECAUSE OF THE CLOSENESS AND COMRADESHIP THAT EXISTED BETWEEN NEIGHBOURS AND THE PEOPLE IN GENERAL"

 

 

 

 

 

(Mrs Thirupurra Sundaree Govender with her children -  from L to R -  Nava, Rajen, Vasie, Papathy, Baby and Poobal.)

By Subry Govender

Fetching coal from the now disbanded railway line between Ottawa and Mount Edgecombe, collecting wood from nearby gum trees, plucking herbs from the cane fields and eating lots of litchies, are some of the memories recalled by one member of a pioneer family who lived in the Tin Town area of our village.

Vasie Govender is the 60-year-old daughter of Ganas Govender and Thirupurra Sundaree Govender, who lived with their large family in a house just off Munn Road in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. In addition to Vasie, the Govenders had three other daughters and two sons. They were Papathy, who is now late, Baby, Nava, Poobal and Rajen.

Ganas Govender used to first live with his parents, brothers and sisters in Park Lane (now Gazzard Road) since the early 1900s. He moved to Tin Town after marrying Thirupurra Sundaree in the 1940s.

They lived in a wood and iron house, which was situated a short distance away from the Ottawa River from where the family, like their neighbours, used to fetch their water for drinking and house-old chores.

Their immediate neighbours were the bachelor, who used to be known as Fishy; the Beacon Jaggernath Family; the Daddy, Kandasamy, Nanda, and Radha Naidoo family; the Jack, Amoy, Tip Top, Baby, Savithree, Ruthnam (George) and Saroj Naidoo family; and the Vadi, Bala and Roy Chetty Family.

The other families included the Sailor family; Harry, Seebran family; Bobby Singh family; Johnny and Sookaya family; Soobak family; Freddie Subramoney family; Munna Dutt family; the Dilraj and Inderjeeth Duttoo family; Barley Manmohan family; the Moonsamy Mottay Naicker family; Marley Sayed family; Bugwandeen family; and the Hiraman teacher family.

Life was not easy in those early days but Vasie and her three sisters and two brothers enjoyed the close relationship with the neighbours and the family spirit that reigned among the people.

(Some members of the Ganas Govender family who joined neighbours in celebrating the life of a first generation indentured labourer, Mrs Muniamma Coopoosamy Govender, who was born at the Blackburn Sugar Estate.)

“We used to visit each other’s homes without any problems and all of us were treated with respect and kindness,” said Vasie when I interacted with her about her family history.

Another memory is the richness of the environment in which they lived.

( Rajen, Vassie and Poobal)

“Picking wood from the gum trees, fetching coal from the railway line, plucking herbs from the cane fields and Mr Parthab’s farm, eating fresh organic vegetables planted by our parents in our very own garden, borrowing grocery items from our neighbours, looking forward to lunch time at school, going to Tamil school and on the way back picking up fallen tamerind from huge trees for snacks, are just some of the things that come to mind.”

They also enjoyed attending the prayer services for rain that used to be held at the river; porridge prayers held by her parents and neighbours and the Chariot prayers at the Ottawa Sugar Estate.

 

                          (Ganas Govneder)

 

Her father, Ganas Govender, worked for the South African Railways in Durban. He and some of their neighbours - Freddy Subramoney, Johnny, and Jack Naidoo – used to get up very early in the morning to travel to work by train to Durban. They used to board the train at 5am at the Ottawa station and only return late in the evening at 6pm. In those days at the Ottawa station there used to be one bridge for “non-whites” and one bridge for “whites only”.

“The separate bridges did not make any sense at all because there were hardly any white people living in the village. The only whites were those working for the railways.

“Our parents worked very hard to give us a chance in life despite the discrimination and racism they had to put up with.”

She recalled that her father and their neighbours played their full role in building the new Jhugroo Government Aided Indian School.

Before his marriage to her mother,  Ganas Govender lived with his parents and their extended family in Park Lane.

His brother who also lived in Park Lane was Nadas Govender, who worked as a builder.

Their parents had their roots in a little village in the district of Coimbatore in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India.

(Mrs Thirupurra Sundaree Govender)

Vasie’s mother, Thirupurra Sundree, became well-known in the Tin Town area as “Papathie Auntie” because of her kindness and humility. Coming from a large family of 13 brothers and sisters from Pietermaritzburg, she married Mr Ganas Govender when she was only 13-years-old.

Life was tough and she and her husband worked very hard to develop and build their family.

 

 

According to Vasie Govender, her mother who passed away at the age of 85 in 2012, played a major  role not only in bringing up her own children, but also her grand-children and great-grand-children. Her father passed away 40 years earlier in 1972.

 

 

The Ganas Govender extended family has grown to more than five generations and number more than 100 descendants.

Most of the descendants are today self-employed and involved in the upholstery, printing, finance  and other small-scale businesses.

The only sibling who still lives in Ottawa is Rajen and his family. Baby lives in Tongaat, Vasie in Westville, and Nava in Verulam.

According to Vasie, the Ganas Govender family will never forget their “growing up” lives in Ottawa.

“What made Ottawa such a special place was the closeness and comradeship that prevailed among us. We enjoyed all the special prayer days like Deepavali and Eid and the prayer services that the residents used to hold annually at the river side in Tin Town. This used to be called ‘prayer for rain’ and it was no magic that at many times we used to get rain the same evening or the days after.

“Another feature of our growing up years was when families used to take their clothes and wash them in the river. We also used to join other children to play Surra on the wide sand field.

“Yes, nearly all of us were very poor and our parents just made ends meet but life was beautiful. We will never get that kind of life again.”  Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com April 30 2024