Thank you for the gift of friendship
Steve Biko, Tupac Shakur, Brenda Fassie, River Phoenix, Amy Winehouse, Aaliyah, The Notorious B.I.G, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Marley, Malcolm X, Bruce Lee, Lebo Mathosa, Gift Leremi, Ayrton Senna and more recently, ProKid and Hip Hop Pantsula. These are just some of the names that are frequently rattled off whenever people talk about significant lives that were prematurely cut short.
It is not so difficult to piece together the common thread that binds them. All had mind-boggling achievements at early ages. Take Steven Bantu Biko for example.
I am 47 years old and I am astounded by how a young man in his 20s was able to formulate and articulate advanced ideas with such breathtaking clarity. When I was 30, the same age he was at the time of his tragic murder, the grey mush I call my brain was preoccupied with banalities such as which shirt would enhance my chances of “scoring” at the local News Café.
The other thread that connects these people is that they hurtled through life at breakneck speed, almost as if they anticipated that they were living on borrowed time.
Tupac Shakur had only released four albums at the time of his murder, aged 25. But seven albums of his music have been released posthumously, beginning with The Don Killuminati in 1996. This is because he was a prodigious composer who churned out songs at the speed of light.
Most of us know similar human beings who hurried through their
short lives at a frenetic pace.
Last week I could not file my column. I was too busy with funeral arrangements for one Ndabezitha Zamani Mbatha, one of my closest friends, who passed away on Sunday evening. He was 31 years old. Other than family, former colleagues and his vast network of friends (and by “vast” I’m talking Pacific Ocean dimensions), no-one has ever heard of this fellow. Well, except for regular readers of this column.
I have shared personal stories of some of our escapades. One was about what a crybaby I am and how I met my partner-in-crying with him. Another story would be about how he once locked me inside his BMW in the January heat until I felt my soul ebbing away from my panicked body.
Other than being totally selfindulgent, there’s another reason I’m writing about this uber smart, brutally frank, argumentative, volatile, pathologically impatient, restless, hard-drinking, shockingly vulgar, yet generous and gentle soul. That reason is that my description of this man will resonate with many of you. Practically everyone has come across such characters — and many of them have had untimely demises.
Ndabezitha was in a perpetual rush that left me fatigued. The man never slept.
Once, circa 2016, he managed to hoodwink me into accompanying him to another friend’s dad’s funeral in Barberton. The man lived for road trips. He picked me up from my East Rand house around 2pm and promptly started driving in a westerly direction. When I pointed out that Barberton is in Mpumalanga, he waved at me dismissively and mumbled: “We’re just going past Khanjana’s house in Midrand first.” I was fazed. How is Midrand even remotely on the way to Barberton coming from the East Rand?
But that was another thing about him — his insatiable need to connect with friends at every opportunity — and to connect friends with other friends. However, what fazed me that weekend is that when I booked into my lodging for the evening, he waved me off and mumbled something unintelligible. As it turned out, he had stayed up the whole night at the wake and never slept at all.
When your life ends at age 31, sleep is a bloody waste of time. Speaking of wasting time, the man was impatient, bordering on the impetuous. I cannot count the number of times he charmed shop attendants (especially the female variety) into helping us jump queues, much to the chagrin of other customers.
A few weeks ago we get to his corner Spar to buy a bottle of 2l Coke. There were only two customers in front of us. He stood there for a “patient” 20 seconds before moving to the front of the queue, dropping a R20 note on the counter, showing the till operator the Coke and walking out.
All I could do was shrug and follow him, hissing admonishments.
His impatience also manifested in how quick he was to get into angry, violent screaming matches barely disguised as “robust debate” with everyone around him.
At his funeral, speaker after speaker repeated his signature refrain during his outbursts; “Mus’ ukuba yisidomu, maan!’ (Stop being a slow thinker!) But anyone who knew him knows that he was just as impatient to return to cordial relations afterwards.
After a particularly vicious yelling match between us which might have involved us squaring up outside his house earlier this year, I was woken up by a WhatsApp text from him at around 9.45am; “Fuze, nakhu kushona ilanga bo. Kanti sinatha nini?” (Will you look at the time! When are we having a drink?)
We’re in the midst of alarming revelations of male toxicity, rape and murder. If there’s anything that Ndabezitha taught me, it is the normalisation of the verbal expression of feelings of sadness, happiness and love between males. I cannot count the number of times he looked at me with moist eyes and said: “I love you, mnganami.”
The last time I saw him, on the day he died, when I hailed an Uber for him, his last words to me were: “Thank you mnganami for the gift of friendship.”
I will pass this on to my boy children.
‘When your life ends at age 31, sleep is a bloody waste of time’