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"Pillay's Perspective" began as a leader page column in theSaturdayPaper in Durban. The paper was then known as Natal on Saturday and editor George Parker offered me the spot in a moment of lunacy for which I am eternally indebted to him. George coined the name, "Pillay's Perspective". "Editor's prerogative," he said.

The column appeared every week after July 15, 1995 through October 29, 1999 with two exceptions. (In December of 1995, George took early retirement to live on the beach and contemplate the nature of the universe and I gave up the slot for him to write a farewell piece. On October 22, 1999, I decided — on deadline — that the quality was not up to its usual chaotic standard.) From October of 1997, the column also began to appear in the Cape Times in Cape Town where I was Managing Editor for the following two years.

theSaturday Paper closed in April of 1998. For a several months after that, I published reprints of earlier columns that Cape Times readers had not seen, hence the gap in publication dates. (That in itself was an interesting exercise showing that some subjects, if appropriately written, never go stale.)

I'm at a loss to describe these pieces. They are a jigsaw puzzle of things that I find interesting (which is just about everything). The writing wanders between agony and ecstasy, between brilliance and idiocy, and is sometimes just plain tedious. I am almost never completely satisfied with the way they turn out. But they provide a diary of my life over that period — stepping stones to thought processes over the past years.

Tackling crime the easy way

28 September 1996

I'm starting a one-man campaign to tackle crime while cleaning up the CBD...

WHILE being driven through Harare yesterday, I noticed a number of streets were marked with signs that noted "No entry 6pm to 6am".

"What's that about?" I asked my host .

Zairean flair versus local incompetence

5 October 1996

Maybe illegal immigrants are not such a bad thing after all...

THE Home Affairs building in central Johannesburg has a bunch of illegal immigrants who sleep overnight at the front door in order to be first in line to be processed the following morning.

Blowing the whistle on cheating

12 October 1996

We should try to remember some of the stupid things we did when we were younger...

GOOD MORNING, class. Today's lesson is about cheating during examinations. We will start by . . . Mr Knowler, what's that you're drinking? Bring it to the front of the class and share it with us.

Taking education into our own hands

19 October 1996

After all my moralising last week about cheating in exams, I got a nice solid kick up the butt...

THERE was an interesting correlation between headlines in the Johannesburg papers this week. The Star announced that the

Abortion should not be for whites only

26 October 1996

To deny legalised abortion is racism. Here's why...

WE'VE made tremendous progress since April 1994. We've stood together in sport. Black economic power has surpassed the billion rand mark. But years of oppression cannot be washed away overnight,

Oy vey, some things defy translation

2 November 1996

Ever stop to think about how some words defy translation?

THERE are some words we cannot really express in English. Those of us who have sufficient ubuntu may be able to grok each other while others, no matter their chutzpah, are reduced to angst.

Fertiliser for fundamentalism

9 November 1996

There was a blistering heat wave gripping much of the country this week, but not the Cape Peninsula where the heat was of a different kind...

THERE'S an astonishing variety of shops at Cape Town's V&A Waterfront — that glittering shopping and entertainment palace