Feisty free-thinker always bucked the trend

SANDY Kalyan has cut all ties with the DA, a party she was devoted to for 20 years.

“Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, gave the T-shirt away,” she laughed during an interview with POST last week.

She said while change was common under new leadership, the party was no longer “on message”. It was heading into neo-liberalism, and was no longer centrist but had moved to the right.

“It is not in sync with what I signed up for in 1999.”

Although Kalyan prides herself on being a “double MP”, a member of Parliament and a member of the Pan-African Parliament, she is certain she will never return to politics.

“That chapter is finished. I’ve served my country and served my party.”

Kalyan joined the DA in 1999 when it was still known as the Democratic Party (DP). Just five years into a new democratic order, it was unusual for a person of colour to join a party that was not regarded as a traditional liberation organisation.

Known as a feisty free-thinker, or a typical rowdy middle child as she described herself, it was not unusual for her to buck the trend.

Although she got her first taste of politics as a student during the 1976 uprising while at the then University of Durban-Westville, she never harboured ambitions of becoming a public representative. She opted for a career in education and then psychology.

A chance encounter with former DA leader Tony Leon convinced her to get into politics.

“As I studied political ideology I realised I’m actually a liberal and the DA was the closest in terms of liberalism as I saw it, and centrist.”

She said her studies made her realise that the ANC was confused; at times capitalist, at times communist and sometimes socialist.

The Freedom Front was too far right and to an extent, the Minority Front (MF) as well because of its identity politics.

And so the DP was the best fit for her at the time.

“I joined the party because of the personality which was Tony Leon and the fact that he didn’t practise identity politics. There was a level of intellectualism that was there too."

One of Kalyan’s first tasks was to help her party get votes in Chatsworth, an MF stronghold, and she succeeded, much to the dismay of that party’s leader, Amichand Rajbansi, she recalled.

While she and Rajbansi had a good relationship, initially it did not start off well.

“When I first went into politics I offended him so badly because, of course, I was scoring political points. I said the promises of the MF are as false as that wig that Rajbansi wears.”

Kalyan said her mother was horrified because the quote was in the “bloody” newspapers.

She viewed it as just politics and didn’t realise that it was offensive as she was new in the field, brash and scoring points.

However, Rajbansi forgave her and Kalyan said later he was always extremely good to her. He would often tease her for being in the DA and tell her to join him in the MF.

“Sandy, you are in the wrong party, that’s a white party,” she recalled him saying.

Kalyan said that at the time when she joined the DA it was mainly a white party and people saw it as only defending the rights of white people. However, it stood for values that she could identify with and values that she could espouse.

She said it was centrist, it was not far right or far left.

Kalyan said she genuinely believed that if they changed the face of the party, more people would be able to identify with it because the Indian community was quite liberal, diverse and accepting.

Today, though, the DA was “regrettably” a far cry from the party she represented in Parliament for 20 years.

“If I were in the party now as it exists, I don’t think I would be comfortable with the direction the party is heading in.”

She resigned as an MP in 2019 and her last active duty for the DA was before last year’s local government elections.

After reopening her psychology practice she also wanted her patients to be unconstrained by her political views.

Now retired from politics and permanently back at home after years of flying between Durban and Parliament in Cape Town, she finally has the time to indulge in her various passion projects.

Kalyan runs her psychology practice pro bono from her home in Gillitts. She works with the South African Depression and Anxiety Group.

She also assists refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo with various skills.

While she already has a doctorate in hypnosis, she is ready to tackle her second PhD and has applied to Unisa and Oxford University to accept her as a student. In the meantime, when she has downtime, she puts on music and dances her heart out.

She also recently returned from a visit to Los Angeles in the US where her son Adhir and his wife Emily Wilson, both actors, live with their daughter Mira. Kalyan’s daughter Kirthi is a lawyer in Guernsey in the Channel Islands near France.

While Kalyan’s interests are eclectic – she loves reiki, consults her astrologer Mahesh Bang once a year and used to be a home economics teacher – it is her fetish for soft stuffed toys that is most surprising.

She loves sitting on the two-seater couch which was bought for her traditional wedding to her husband Jitendra 40 years ago, while happily surrounded by the toys. However, her favourite stuffed toy is Paddington Bear. She even travels with one in her handbag. And there is a storage outside her home where all her toys are kept.

“I love Paddington because of the stories. Paddington’s stories are of survival. I love the resilience of it. There’s this bear facing all the challenges of the world,” she gushed.

Paddington Bear is the main character in a children’s series written by Michael Bond. There are 28 books written about the bear which faced the troubles of the world when he was sent from his home in Peru to London, armed with a jar of marmalade. He is discovered while sitting at the train station in Paddington, hence the name.

And while Paddington makes her happy, it is her spirituality that keeps her grounded.

A devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba, she is proud that despite the diverse lives of her children, they still light their prayer lamps. But Buddhism and the cause of the Tibetan people are also close to her heart.

An outspoken critic against the atrocities committed by the Chinese against the Tibetans, she has met the Dalai Lama several times.

She was also initiated into Buddhism by the Dalai Lama in Bengaluru, India.

Those meetings came about when former DA leader Athol Trollip asked her to undertake a trip on his behalf to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader.

“Being a politician offered me opportunities that I wouldn't have had otherwise,” said Kalyan.