Launch of The Institute for Taxi Poetry by Imraan Coovadia, 08 May 2012, Ike’s Books, Durban.
“It is a rare gift to be seriously funny and seriously serious,” Mervyn Sloman remarks. The accomplishment is that of Imraan Coovadia, speaking about his new novel – The Institute for Taxi Poetry. He speaks to a well-thronged upper floor of recognisable reporters and scholars – most of whom have made the migration upstairs after double-dipping braised-potato spring rolls in the sweet chilli sauce (I saw you buddy – the tweed and suede doesn’t fool me). His interlocutor is journalist-at-large, O’ Toole, of the Sean variety. The event is casual and conversational, buoyed by Imraan’s disaffected charisma and Sean’s researched and imaginative questioning style.
“Last year Imraan interviewed me,” begins Sean, “and his first question floored me.” He had to stare blankly into the audience, eventually dredging up an answer that leads him to say, “I have hated him ever since.” There are gentle murmurs of laughter, and a relaxed atmosphere that avoids the dire and machinic question-and-answer routine (with its hanging epochs of silence) which weary the lesser launches.
Sean begins by remarking on a photograph of Imraan “ferreted” from Google Images, which features the latter in a composed shot taken during his residency in Italy, 2009. He sits before an old IBM laptop. “I always figured you for a Dell kind of guy,” says Sean, “or maybe a beat-up Apple.” “Well,” replies Coovadia, the tilt of head and comic timbre of engaging the question with such mock-introspective seriousness has the audience in shattered
