What being South African means to me, from Chatsworth to Edinburgh - IOL

Prev Reddy is proudly South African in Edinburgh.

EVERY year, South Africa quietly agrees to become a nation of tong-wielding pit masters for 24 hours, to celebrate our origins over perfectly charred chops and spicy sausages. But for me, Heritage Month has never really been about the meat, although admittedly it is my favourite part.

It’s more like an annual check-in. The same question, asked in a slightly different voice each time: *who are you, where do you come from, and what does it mean to be South African? The answer is forever changing because we are.

As a teenager, that question showed up in a classroom where “twanging” was basically a personality trait. Everyone was quietly auditioning for an accent that wasn’t theirs - flattened vowels, borrowed slang, the unspoken agreement that sounding too local was somehow uncool. I tried too, for about a week, and it never once landed right.

My “ayos!” kept escaping at the worst possible moments, in a voice that was unmistakably, stubbornly mine.

Eventually I stopped fighting it. Heritage Month, back then, was small and simple: it meant letting my “ayos!” be exactly as loud as they wanted to be, twang culture be damned!

At that time, it dared us to own our roots - be visible enough so that our culture is not foreign to our neighbour. Because I was an Indian boy who grew up in Chatsworth, and being South African meant speaking my language.

In my twenties, the question followed me into Johannesburg, a city that runs on homesickness, complaints about traffic, and still finds time to argue about who has the best burgers in the city. Suddenly I was in a place where there was plenty of diversity - an overflow.

"Who are you, where do you come from and what does it mean to be South African?”

Heritage Day in this new city felt familiar yet worlds apart from the usual - wors instead of sausages crammed with bullet chillies, salt and peppered chops instead of thinly sliced lamb chops that were marinating for two hours. This time I found myself bringing bunny chows or tinned fish samoosas to the braais.

Heritage Day was no longer about identity; this time it was about home. Because I was a proud Durbanite, and being South African meant one bite could transport me back home, even if it were only for a few chews.

Now, as I step into my thirties, after performing on stages outside of South Africa, I keep circling back to the same loaded question: "So, what does it actually mean to be South African?" I’ve landed somewhere different.

I remember one morning in Edinburgh, ahead of my first show at the Fringe. Nervous, anxious, terrified that nobody would show up. I had a South African flag on my back. Within minutes, strangers with familiar accents were shouting “howzit,” “lekker lekker” and the anxiety started to melt, just from the sound of home.

They stopped. Asked about the show. Then texted their friends to “get tickets asap!”. That’s South African hospitality, three continents away, and it’s what kept me going.

I used to answer with diversity, because that’s the postcard version: 11 languages, a flag with more colours than salads at a braai. And that’s still true.

But if I’m honest, what I’m proudest of now isn’t just that we’re different. It’s that our country is big enough, layered enough, to hold all of that difference without breaking apart. And somehow, that’s exactly what lets us wander so far from it, because no matter how disconnected we feel from ourselves or from home, there’s always something that finds us again.

Sometimes it’s an unexpected elaichi in a curry. Sometimes it’s a stranger shouting "howzit" on a wet Edinburgh street. Heritage Month’s heart is diversity. But maybe its spine is connection.

Prev Reddy is an award-winning South African comedian, actor, digital creator, and author based in Johannesburg. He is also the creative mind behind the cultural alter-ego, Aunty Shamilla. His debut memoir, Qualified Disappointment, is adapted from his critically acclaimed hit one-man show, Prev Reddy is a Triple Threat, which made its international premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2024 before playing to packed houses in London in 2025.