Eb Koybie: A memoir of shenanigans between Durban and Bombay

"In this part memoir and part satire, Ebrahim Essa chronicles a quirky childhood growing up in the 1950s in an Indian township on the outskirts of the South African port city of Durban. Here, he bunks school to watch Hindi films, irons his brothers clothes to access banned imported comic books and tries to outrun gangsters in the Grey Street Casbah. Just as he begins to win at life, apartheid education prompts his father to send him to India to study, He spends 21 days on board the SS Karanja nervously snacking on Lemon Creams before reaching Bombay. But studying in India isn't all that it's made out to be. It's worse. He battles jaundice, long-drop toilets and electricity cuts during the '65 India-Pakistan war. Ebrahim Essa tickles and pokes even as he documents a fascinating period in the South African Indian community."