The Hindu Business Line : S. Africa beckons… for business and fun

It’s the same story all over again, rising food and oil prices leading to a whopping inflation rate of 9.5 per cent. Whether it is Simon, the South African engineer working for a private oil company in Bhubaneshwar I meet at the Mumbai airport, waiting to board a South African Airways flight SA 285 to Johannesburg, or Erick van Zyl from the South African tourism, the message is the same.

The economy is headed for tough times and South Africans will have to brace up for the coming days.

While Simon’s wife has started a vegetable garden in the backyard “to bring down our grocery bill as vegetable prices have hit the roof,” Zyl is devastated that the price of potatoes, “one of our most important staples,” has more than doubled.

“We always buy a 15-kg pack; its price has shot up from 10-25 to 53 Rands. Every month our grocery bill keeps going up.”

The price of petrol has gone up to 8 Rands and it is cold comfort for South Africans to find their currency continuing to deplete against an already weak US dollar; the conversion is 8 Rands to a dollar.

Says Zyl, “Many people say petrol is cheaper here than in the US, but then we don’t get American salaries!”

Load shedding is a new headache in Johannesburg and everyday, different areas of the city go without electricity for two hours. Mining operations have been the biggest victims due to power shortage and shutdowns have been reported due to this problem.

The Mumbai-Johannesburg flight has many Indians; while one Sardarji from Agra is a regular traveller on this route as he has found a good market in Cape Town for his shoes; the nattily dressed Sonia, a woman perhaps, in her early 40s and from Mumbai, says she regularly visits South Africa, “Just to have fun. Oh, I just love the country and trust me no other place in the world has such warm and lovely people and such gorgeous places.

“I have many friends now in South Africa and they are just waiting to drive me all over the place.”

A dialogue soon reveals that it is more than “fun” that brings her here: “I’m a healer by profession and on my return I bring crystal from there which is hugely popular in Mumbai.”

Indian tourists to South Africa are often advised to be extremely careful, as mugging and snatching of bags and chains have been reported.

She dismisses this question with a grunt. “Oh, nothing of the sort; look, if you dress sensibly and behave rationally you will be very safe. Now, if you go to Dharavi late in the evening laden with heavy gold jewellery, you are asking for trouble.”

Bosse is a kind man; not only does he rave about his new employers who “treat pilots like kings,” he helps an elderly couple from California, who have a business class ticket but have been offered only economy seats for some obscure reason, get premier seats.

Surprisingly, he travels by economy, but, of course, near an exit window, with the next seat vacant! But that’s as tiny a perk as any pilot can get.

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