Obituary: Shan Pillay – Eddels, Jaguar Shoes, Divine Shoes (19/01/1936-28/05/2024) The quiet, ever-present photographer

Pietermaritzburg, KZN, SA – In the first place, my deepest condolences to Nellandran and Pritha and Uncle Shan’s five grandchildren. His passing on, as I’m sure you know, is not just a loss to your immediate and extended family and his close friends and colleagues, including in the media sector – but to all of us in the community. Such was the impact he made.

Not just Shan Pillay, but his camera became an integral part of the community. Shan was the ever-present, everywhere photographer. At community, political, social, cultural, religious, sport and other functions. But he never asserted himself. He was always there but constantly in the background, quietly clicking away.

I rarely saw him without his camera. It was his constant companion. You sometimes wondered whether he went to bed with it. Or how he managed without it when he was having a bath or shower. And wasn’t his wife, Govindamma, jealous of the camera?

For being a photojournalist wasn’t just a job; it was him being himself. It was his life. And he found himself through a long journey. Quite distant from where he started.

He came from a poor family. And had to leave school at 15 to support them. Like so many others in the Indian community, he found a job at Eddels shoe factory. Nellan said that he was a clicker and couldn't reach the machine so he had to stand on a crate. But, of course, that didn’t deter him. Little did.

He moved to Jaguar Shoes in 1965. His leadership skills were recognised and at age 25 he became the director of production, the first person of colour to occupy that position.

But being in the leather industry – he was restless; it’s not what he most wanted to do. In fact, from an early age, he was very keen on photography and journalism, partly inspired, Nellan tells me, by his older brother.

He worked initially in 1957 for the Golden City Post. Also, for the Daily News, Mercury, The Graphic, Witness and Sunday Times Extra.

I first met him, I think, in the early 70s through Uncle Bobby Naidoo of Empire Watchmakers by way of my involvement in table tennis. They knew each other well and what they had in common also was promoting the Tamil language and culture, for which, of course, Uncle Shan has been highly credited and received recognition, including being awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters by the International Tamil University in Maryland in the United States, at a ceremony in Madurai in December 2017.

Everybody knew Shan at the time. Not least because he and his twin – his camera - were always there. He was a pillar, an institution in the community. It’s not an exaggeration to say that he was one of the most well-known people in the community.

I didn’t know him as well as others of you here. But, somehow, he was there in different moments of my life. I remember him gently complimenting me for winning a high school speech contest, for my role as secretary of the table tennis union and for becoming an MP in 1994.

He seemed to have a sense of personal pride in that and made me feel that he always knew I would become one someday. In that brief moment, he was embracing me as part of his extended family.

And a coincidence – the last constituency matter I attended to, the night before he sadly passed away, related to a member of Uncle Shan’s family that he had raised with me. I’d been trying to reach him on his cell phone through calls and messages over the past two weeks.

Usually, he responds fairly quickly. I wondered if he was sick or out of the country, and rang Babu Baijoo, and he checked with somebody in Uncle Shan’s family and came back to say that Shan was in hospital.

Shan’s humble background, experiences in the leather industry and his observations of people and society inevitably awakened a social and political consciousness in him. So, he identified with the Natal Indian Congress, the United Democratic Front, the ANC and the cause of democracy in our country. But he didn’t take any leadership roles. Correctly. As he was a photojournalist. A professional. He had to keep his distance. And he wasn’t for the cut and thrust of politics, anyway.

But he was very determined, very driven. How else would one explain how he kept on being a photojournalist even while he ran three shoe factories? Govindamma’s death in 2010 must have shattered him. But he soldiered on. And he was active until recently.
I read that he was an avid fan of Tamil movies and made several trips to India to meet leading film stars. Now look at that drive!...

His life has many lessons to offer us. One of them is that while formal education is important, it’s not everything. You can succeed against the odds. Coming from a background of poverty which prevented him from carrying on with his schooling, he still achieved and, as Mr Ravi

Rajagopaul just said, left a huge legacy.

For his family too.

And that legacy includes seeking to serve others. Which comes across repeatedly in the tributes paid today.

Look at what his grandchildren have just said! What can I say about Shan that isn’t overwhelmed by their moving, evocative tributes to him? He was a friend, said Zaid. Hilal wanted to give up his Honours degree and instead of getting upset, his grandfather was so understanding - and said you must do what makes you happy. Kevoli said that his presence lingered long after he left a room. How many grandfathers would receive the tributes he has just been given?

And there’s another lesson offered by his life. You can have all the degrees in the world – but if you don’t have the character, the personality, the moral bearing, the sense of service to others, you are a limited person. You become a fuller person through serving others, through being a part of others. This is partly what is meant by the concept of Ubuntu that is an important part of the culture of our country.

And look at his extended family. It cuts across religions. And look at the people present here. They cut across the races. Ultimately, it’s people that matter. Not their race or religion.

Shan encouraged others and shared his knowledge and experiences with new journalists and photographers.

Shan had a quiet, pleasant smile and easy manner. He wasn’t like most photojournalists - pushy. And in simply being who he was he was more successful than most. Through his camera he brought people and events alive. He gave them perpetual meaning. He recorded history.

Shan’s camera captured some very crucial moments in our political history. Perhaps most of all, the All-In Africa Conference in 1961, where Nelson Mandela delivered his last speech at the Arya Samaj Hall before he was imprisoned. Yusuf Bhamjee said that as he remembers it,

Shan told him that the hall was full and he and a colleague couldn’t enter it. So, they entered through a window or the ceiling and ended up on the stage. Yusuf’s not entirely sure – but this is how he remembers what Shan said. Well, whatever - Shan was there – and took his photos. Here again - what comes across is Shan’s determination, his drive…

His camera is a repository – a museum – of the community’s and Pietermaritzburg’s history and social life. His photographs need to be preserved in a library or museum. They need to be put together in a book so that the past can be brought alive in the present. Especially for the young who take so much for granted and don’t know enough about the hardships and stresses their parents, grandparents and great grandparents went through. Not just the discrimination they suffered under apartheid, but the poverty many had to endure.

As a man who saw photography as a craft, as an art, he must have initially found a cell phone camera a culture shock, where you just blindly, unthinkingly, without a care for light and shadow, just press a button and shriek in delight at the usually dead photo you see on your cell phone screen.

Ranjiv Nirghin, President of the Midlands Hindu Society, was absolutely right when he told the Witness that Shan Pillay was “an ocean of knowledge and a library of experience whose passing shall leave a void in our community that no other will be able to fill.”