It is hard to review a book that packs so much that every page \u2013 if not every paragraph \u2013 has its own story to tell. Each story is as interesting as the previous one \u2013 at times stark \u2013 at times harsh \u2013 bleak \u2013 hilarious \u2013 terrifying \u2013 a page-turner right down to its last nail-biting finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Born during Apartheid \u2013 Trevor is \u201cmixed\u201d \u2013 born to a black woman and a white man. Officially Trevor\u2019s Swiss father isn\u2019t even on his birth certificate. And because Trevor was \u201cborn a crime\u201d (\u201cAny European male who has illicit carnal intercourse with a native female\u2026shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years<\/em>\u201d), his mom could not openly acknowledge him or be seen with him. As a child, his mother would make Trevor walk with another woman who looked like him, while his mother herself walked behind them like she was the maid. \u201cI\u2019ve got dozens of pictures of me walking with this woman who looks like me but who isn\u2019t my mother. And the black woman standing behind us who looks like she\u2019s photobombing the picture, that\u2019s my mom.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The love and strong bond between Trevor and his single-parent maverick mom is evident in every anecdote \u2013 every incident \u2013 sometimes touching, often amusing and always heart-warming. She is his teacher, parent, mentor, guide, disciplinarian \u2013 his team-mate and constant companion. Trevor\u2019s narrative makes the reader feel that everything is an adventure \u2013 the witchcraft, the slums, having no one to play with, asking a girl out, the violence, too poor to eat anything but spiny caterpillars for a whole month, the outhouse toilets (so full of flies that one day when it\u2019s pouring rain, a 5 year old Trevor decides to do his business indoors \u201clike a puppy<\/em>\u201d \u2013 the ensuing furor when his \u201cbusiness<\/em>\u201d is discovered and the entire neighborhood gathers to pray to banish the demon\/s that have bewitched them is a story that can never have been made up).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through it all, there is never a single moment in the entire book that Trevor pauses for any self-pity. Not when he has to live secretly in a black neighborhood but never be seen because of the color of his skin \u2013 not when his mother is \u201cwhooping his ass<\/em>\u201d – not when he is the only boy without a valentine \u2013 not when he has no money for college \u2013 not when he loses touch with his biological father by the time he is ten \u2013 not when his step-father starts getting dangerously violent and physically abusive. The tone is more one of an objective narrator than any self-absorbed plea for sympathy. He tells his story just as he remembers it \u2013 with an aim to share his childhood, his relationships with family and friends and most of all an intimate look at South Africa from deep within its dark and seamy bowels. As if his story isn\u2019t gripping enough in itself, his writing style cleverly draws the reader in with a teaser and sets the tempo for some page-turning heart-pounding edge-of-the-seat suspense – \u201cI was nine years old when my mother threw me out of a moving car<\/em>.\u201d And then you flip pages rapidly – fingers crossed for Trevor \u2013 until you get to the actual narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an Indian, there is so much to relate to in this book. South Africa has tribes \u2013 we have our Adivasis; South Africa has pockets of extreme poverty \u2013 we have slums that have become a tourist attraction; Black vs. White \u2013 we have those who use Fair and Lovely<\/em> and those who have no need for it; Apartheid from 1948 to 1994 \u2013 we can trace our (very much) alive and thriving caste system back to Vedic times. We have everything you have South Africa \u2013 only worse! And now living in America \u2013 in the world of George Floyd \u2013 where Blacks are still protesting the discrimination and oppression from Whites \u2013 well over a hundred and fifty years after slavery has been officially abolished \u2013 it is sadly evident that people are the same the world over. I am reminded of one of the famous quotes from the movie PK \u2013 \u201cKaun Hindu, kaun Musalman … thappa kidhar hai dikha … ye farak bhagwan nahi tum log banaya hai\u201d (who is Hindu who is a Muslim \u2013 where is the stamp on a person that indicates this \u2013 this difference was not created by God \u2013 it is one created by you people)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ever since 2016 and an election gone horribly wrong in the US, I have turned to the late-night comedy shows for both edification and comic relief. I have been watching Trevor Noah for the last couple of years and enjoyed his shows tremendously. Now that I have read his book and hung upon his every word from childhood until the Trevor of today, I have tremendous respect and admiration for him. To be able to infuse comedy into a (mostly) horrifying background and surrounding is a skill and a talent to be sure \u2013 but most of all it\u2019s about approach and attitude. A remarkable story, where in spite of every odd stacked against him, Trevor has emerged shining bright \u2013 a lotus in a mucky swamp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is hard to review a book that packs so much that every page \u2013 if not every paragraph \u2013 has its own story to tell. Each story is as interesting as the previous one \u2013 at times stark \u2013 at times harsh \u2013 bleak \u2013 hilarious \u2013 terrifying \u2013 a page-turner right down to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-550","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awarabadal.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awarabadal.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awarabadal.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awarabadal.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awarabadal.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/awarabadal.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/awarabadal.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/550\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awarabadal.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}