Publications
Partners
I have no recollection of my first meeting with Professor Kgomotso Masemola, but I remember very distinctly, the email that changed my life. It was in the first half of 2014, on the heels of my successful application, to do a PhD in English literature at Unisa. I received an email from Prof. Masemola, telling me how honoured he was that he’d be my supervisor.
What was most remarkable about this initial email was not so much the news that he’d be my supervisor, but the way the missive was crafted. It was written in such a rich and intricate academic jargon that it could barely be read without a dictionary nearby. This is the care he applied to his work, so much that I can tell an article written by him even where his name does not appear.
I would later understand that beneath it all, everything that he did came from a place of great compassion. At our first supervision meeting, I asked him if I was expected to write like him. He assured me that as a supervisor, his duty was to bring out the best in me. This is exactly what he did. His mentoring was intense, and he stretched me to the limits I never knew existed.
READ: WATCH | Saying goodbye to Angie Oeh, the Afrikaans music rebel
I was to learn that Prof. Masemola and I had a lot of things in common. We both had studied at Wits University and we were both inspired by the same person to pursue doctoral studies.
Prof. Mbulelo Mzamane had encouraged him to do his PhD in his alma mater, the University of Sheffield in the UK. Mzamane was my mentor who impressed upon me that I pursue doctoral studies, and more specifically, that I do my research on Can Themba, who was his mentor. Mzamane passed away in February 2014, shortly after I informed him that I had been admitted to do my PhD at Unisa.
This historical fact would be a weapon that Tso (as we fondly called him) would use against me, for when fatigue and self-doubt set in, he would say: do it for Mzamane.
It turned out that I had a slave driver for a supervisor. He wanted me to finish writing a PhD thesis in two years despite being a fulltime government employee, in addition to being a husband and a father.
I would spend months working on a chapter, and he would give written feedback after a mere three to five hours of receiving it. When I was getting comfortable, and maybe somewhat complacent, I submitted a chapter to which he responded in three lines.
He was not impressed and ordered me to rewrite. I took unpaid leave from work and dedicated more time to my research and writing process. One day, I called his office line and someone who spoke through the nasals answered the phone.
I told him that I would like to speak to Prof. Masemola. He responded: “ndim mfondini!” I was shocked to discover that it was him, but more intriguing was the realisation that he could not only change accents, but also that he could switch between languages with ease.
When I asked him about his sudden change of accent, he said when he spoke English, he had to sound like the English, just like when he spoke isiXhosa, he sounded like a Xhosa. Meanwhile, none of these two languages were his native tongue. While his linguistic dexterity can be associated with his nomadic and cosmopolitan life – having grown up in Soweto, with relatives in Limpopo, studied in KwaZulu-Natal and England, and having worked in Eastern Cape, North West and Soweto, Pretoria and the Vaal in Gauteng, I attribute it more to his love for humanity.
READ: Gospel powerhouse Tasha Cobbs to grace SA fans with her presence on two-city tour
Tso loved people and always wanted to see everyone happy and succeed. To him, success was not meaningful for as long as it did not impact positively on others. He had many paradoxes about him: he was an eminent scholar with an incisive mind, yet he could converse comfortably with a township drunkard; he was streetwise and also endowed with scholarly erudition. He was a township boy who got a PhD in English from England.
We happened to stay in the same neighbourhood and supervision meetings would extend to weekend “consultations” and hospitality, where I would not only imbibe in his intellectual wealth, but also raid his library and indulge on copious amounts of meat.
He became my extended family. He attended my daughter’s tenth birthday party (tagging his daughter along), graced my book launches, and watched my plays. He celebrated my PhD graduation like it was his own.
I was also privileged to form part of his milestones in life. I was there when he was inaugurated as a full professor of English at Unisa; I shared the joy with him when he got the National Research Foundation (NRF) B-Rating; we were overjoyed when he became the deputy president of the South African Humanities’ Deans Association. I celebrated with him when he became the executive dean at Unisa and at Vaal University of Technology, respectively. Together, we shared our anxieties and setbacks, our joys and triumphs, and our dreams and aspirations.
Tso also liked finer things in life. On a random day, I found him wearing a bowtie in the office. I asked what the occasion was, he told me he did not need an occasion to look good. My image of a professor was someone with unkempt hair, who wore thick reading glasses, oversized tweed jacket, khaki pants and tattered shoes. Not Professor Masemola. He always argued that you didn't have to look like a hobo to be an intellectual. His zest for life was evident in his sartorial choices. He wore designer clothes, expensive glasses, and drove flashy cars.
A few years ago, he bought himself some brand-new wheels – a flashy BMW X 6. Shortly thereafter, he was hi-jacked at gunpoint while driving from work at night and taken to the outskirts of a township outside Pretoria. The assailants took his bank cards and withdrew the money until they reached the daily limits. They beat him to a pulp when he couldn’t remember his wife’s PIN. The assailants became remorse-ridden when he started praying nonstop. Puzzled by his unwavering faith, they wondered if he was a man of the cloth in addition to being a professor. Although he never got his BMW X6 back, his life was spared and he lived long enough to buy himself a Porsche and a Maserati thereafter.
Tso made academia look cool and gave me something to aspire to. A true inspiration. He was an eminent scholar who broke down the ivory towers of academia and lifted as he rose. He was assigned to me as a supervisor, but I found a brother in him. He is partly to blame that I am now in academia fulltime. I may not be driving a Maserati like he did, but I am in a happy space.
READ: Theft of royalties in SA music history, musicians not benefitting from revenue
Visiting him in hospital over the last few months, and a few days before he took his final breath, was the most miserable experience for me. I had conversations with him, even when he could not speak. One last word to him: I will become a professor like you wanted me to be, or die trying.
*Siphiwo Mahala (PhD.) is a senior fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study and a senior lecturer in the English Department, University of Johannesburg.
