Durban — When a former Durban resident reminisces about his childhood years, it usually stirs his arty instincts to draw the warm and comforting images that flash in his mind.
Aslam Khan, 59, has churned out a number of sketches, mostly with a fine-tipped pen on board or paper, depicting sights and scenes from his beloved Grey Street Casbah precinct, where he lived until the late 1970s.
Each time he posts his artworks on the Grey Street Casbah and Surrounding Facebook page, the likes and comments are sure to follow.
“I’m chuffed with the positive feedback I’ve received. I produce the drawings as a means to evoke memories of my growing-up days,” he said.
Having joined the Facebook group about three years ago, Khan said it gave him a platform to reconnect with former friends from his old neighbourhood.
Khan and his family, which included his five siblings, lived in a large home on Stratford Road in the former “Warwick Triangle” area, a short distance from the well-known Kit Kat Cafe.
He went to school at the local Orient Islamic School.
While Khan had many fond memories of the area, dearest to him was living carefree as a child and feeling safe to play and roam about freely. But that bubble of bliss burst in around 1976 when the authorities forced Khan and his family to move to Woodhurst (Unit 10), in Chatsworth, so that an overhead footbridge could be built in the vicinity of Stratford Road.
He said all the houses on his street, including an old church, were demolished to accommodate the bridge.
After another move to Effingham, Khan’s entire family relocated to Pretoria in 1980. From a young age, Khan always had a fondness for art and fed his passion at every opportunity.
Khan’s father recognised his son’s affinity for art and to shape it further, he enrolled him for a short course in art at the ML Sultan Technikon.
His ability to draw earned him recognition during his time at Orient, especially after he entered the “Keep Durban Tidy” art competition in 1977, which drew a large number of entries from pupils around the city.
Khan’s entry, which depicted a dog toppling a dustbin, was judged to be the best.
“Even these days, some of my friends still remember the art competition I won.”
In the early days, Khan, who had a lengthy career working in furniture manufacturing, until recently, enjoyed portrait drawings and his work captured the images of local personalities and random people.
Movie stars like Bruce Lee and Steve McQueen were also subjects of his depictions.
He said many of his Casbah drawings were done after viewing old pictures of the buildings and looking at them on Google maps to get a sense of what they looked like presently.
“People get excited to see the pictures and so their stories of old come flooding back to life. That gives me great joy and encourages me to do more drawings,” said Khan, who has hopes of producing a book on his artworks.
Ishaan Blunden, an administrator of the Facebook page, said Khan’s work was “reinvigorating interest” for the Casbah.
“That’s excellent because it will ensure the promotion and posterity of local history, including the Grey Street Casbah,” he said.
Blunden said people like Khan and Farouk Abdi, another artist who has also produced Casbah drawings, were responsible for ensuring that history lasted for eternity.
Independent on Saturday