As a young journalist, Seema Diahnan Ramnarain anchored primetime news for a cumulative live audience of a million people.
Diwali in Durban meant climbing into her father’s hot car with boxes of chana magaj, hoping the sweetmeats would survive the heat before reaching their destination.
These days, Seema Diahnan Ramnarain, who now lives in Pretoria, sends the treats by courier.
“Distance doesn’t prohibit tradition. Let’s call it eDiwali!”
For Ramnarain, the much-loved former East Coast Radio news anchor, Diwali celebrates family and heritage and gives her a chance to share the traditions she grew up with with her own children.
“I love Diwali. It’s a proud tradition and one that I love to share especially with my children. There’s the decades-old tradition of the bath with various kinds of oil. There’s homemade Bombay crush to drink the entire day. Diwali is celebrated with our nearest and dearest through the exchange of sweet treats.”
It is also a day of prayer, reflection and dressing up to celebrate a heritage she holds dear. The festival brings together many of the things that have shaped her life - family, food, laughter and a strong sense of where she comes from.
Ramnarain was born in Sea Cow Lake, Durban, and spent her childhood in areas including Kenville and Reservoir Hills. Some of her happiest memories are of playing in her maternal grandmother’s garden.
“Childhood was a happy place; a warm hug that’s everlasting and filled with endless summer days playing in my late, maternal granny’s yard.”
Her grandmother, whom everyone called Ma, was a sprightly force of nature. She grew vegetables in a sprawling garden and sold them at the local market to help pay for building supplies for the family home.
Ramnarain learnt to cook at nine, a skill that remains with her.
“My love for cooking for many people with relative ease comes from her. She taught me to cook at the age of nine and it remains a passion.”
She also developed a love for pickling fruit, particularly mangoes.
“My affinity for pickling fruit, especially mangoes, also comes from watching her pluck those delicious, stringy Durban mangoes from her gorgeous garden, to tending them all the way to the bottling process.”
At age 7, Seema Diahnan Ramnarain still showed her commitment to her love of heels.
Ramnarain’s father, Roy Diahnan, introduced her to golf, horseracing and soccer.
“Of course, I’m a Manchester United fan!”
He was also a co-founder of SeaRay Theatres, a community theatre production company whose productions were popular during Durban’s Indian showband music era in the 1980s. A proofreader by profession, Diahnan wrote, directed and starred in numerous productions.
Ramnarain remembers watching the rehearsals and admiring her mother, Pingla, who wore glamorous saris while adjudicating the sari queen beauty pageants that were all the rage at the time.
At school, Ramnarain was never one to sit quietly at the back of the classroom.
“I was incredibly similar to how I am now. I am easily bored so multitasking is ingrained.”
She entertained school assemblies with comedy routines, wrote plays and had her friends perform in them. She was also passionate about academics and sport.
Growing up, she considered becoming an actor, journalist or lawyer.
“My dad would tell us about being arrested for protesting against injustice and it was hard to understand because I was a child used to looking at life through a lens of wonder and protection. Then as I grew up, I realised that opportunities were indeed limited.”
Her eventual choice of journalism was rooted in a desire to tell people's stories honestly.
“Looking back, it was the pursuit of equality and the need to tell people’s stories authentically that inspired me to become a journalist.”
Her journey began with community theatre. In Grade 11, her mother encouraged her to pursue her interest and Ramnarain auditioned for productions by the late journalist Aldrin Naidu. She was performing in plays while completing matric.
Seema Diahnan Ramnarain at her matric prom.
She secured a scholarship for her first year at the institution now known as the Durban University of Technology and began writing for Young Daily News, a youth-focused segment of Daily News. She completed her in-service journalism training before finishing her qualification, later receiving a scholarship from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.
She initially tried out as a sports journalist before getting a look inside the newsroom. In 2001, she joined the news team as an intern.
Ramnarain progressed from intern to journalist, senior journalist and Deputy News Editor. By the time she left the station in 2013, she was also the Breakfast Show News Anchor.
“I blazed a trail under astute broadcast trainers, including the likes of Mary Papayya and Alan Khan. They took a chance on a kid who they felt had incredible potential.”
Her time at the station was filled with memorable assignments and colleagues who became part of her story.
“Daryl Ilbury, the late Johann von Bargen and I would be cracking up moments before we’d go on-air at 5:30am.”
Ramnarain took helicopter rides with the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board to report on the sardine run, earning the nickname “Seema Sardine!” She also rode on a motorcycle to cover the Comrades Marathon during the years when Russian twins Elena and Olesya Nurgalieva dominated the race.
On her 25th birthday, she was on a Gift of the Givers humanitarian mission to Niger.
“Consumer journalist Wendy Knowler was determined that I celebrate and found a matchstick that she stuck into a chocolate for us to pretend we had a cake. I blew out the ‘candle’ and seamlessly went into a live broadcast with Daryl using a satellite phone that was almost as long as my arm.
“I’ve spoken a lot about being passionate about doing what sets my soul on fire. The spark was ignited at East Coast Radio. It’s truly a great place to ply your passion. It was never ‘going to a job.’ It was always about going to fulfil a calling.
"Recently, ECR celebrated its 30th anniversary and asked a few of us to recount our favourite memories. It’s impossible in a place that gave so many of us our big break; whether that break was about finding our place in the world, or a career highlight."
Seema Diahnan Ramnarain on an ECR postcard in 2009.
But the stories that meant the most were not the ones that came with excitement or recognition.
“All passionate journalists will tell you it isn’t about the accolades you accumulate, and I was privileged to win a few, it’s about the impact you make on ordinary people.”
One experience that remains with her is hearing Rob Matthews speak about his daughter, Leigh Matthews, who was murdered in 2004.
“To hear Leigh Matthews’ father, Rob, express love for his daughter as he recounted her death in 2004 is an experience that’s life-changing. To be able to convey the emotion of what Rob Matthews felt, with empathy and care, was an honour.”
In 2013, after winning a national broadcasting prize, Ramnarain moved to Pretoria to become the first Director of Content Development at the then Department of Trade and Industry.
“It sounds idealistic but having come from a scholarship background the need to give back is a tenet of life for me. What better way to serve than to work in the public service?
“I’m an insufferable optimist. I always have a ‘why’ and after many ‘whys’ I ended up learning about the all-important Public Finance Management Act from the Department’s Chief Financial Officer, Shabeer Khan, who’s now the country’s Accountant-General.”
Ramnarain later headed communications at the Department of Higher Education and Training. Today, she leads communications at the EPPF, the country’s largest self-administered retirement fund.
“Again, the call to serve people is the common career thread.”
Beyond her professional life, Ramnarain edits CVs and coaches young people for job interviews, having seen how many struggle to present their abilities or find out about opportunities.
At home, her husband, Sunil, and their children, Amani and Aadhi, occupy a central place in her life.
“I’m incredibly blessed to have four beautiful chambers to my heart. My better half is my husband, Sunil, and our children, Amani and Aadhi, occupy the main three. Sunil is truly Mr Big and like the character in the series Sex and the City is committed to supporting my belief that ‘shoetopia’ exists – a perfect world with the best high heels for me.
“My fourth chamber holds my mom, siblings, in-laws, and a close circle of friends. With the most cheese I can find, I say this with total sincerity: I quote the Fast ‘n Furious lead character, Dominic Toretto, “I don’t have friends. I got family.”
Losing her father remains her greatest personal challenge.
“To go from having someone phone in to discuss the news headlines I just read to not getting those calls anymore was earth-shattering.”
Over time, she has learnt to recognise his presence in the details of everyday life.
“I realised that those we love and lose may not be around us physically but if we look hard enough, they’re in plain sight in the same insatiable sense of humour in my children, in the breeze that whispers across my cheek when the nervousness sets in before I take to the stage to direct a programme, and in the hope I feel looking at the sun rise.”
Seema Diahnan Ramnarain's meaning of success has changed over the years.
Her understanding of success has also changed. As a young journalist, she anchored primetime news for a cumulative live audience of a million people.
“Success, now, is feeling consistently good about the effort in doing a job well because the impact is felt by the people I serve.”
Ramnarain lives by: “Life is too short to marinate in tomorrow’s problems. Live today.”
This sentiment fits Diwali, a celebration that brings families together to reflect on the past and look toward the future.
“As I get older, what truly matters is the legacy that will be left behind. And it’s not what’s left behind for people but what will be left within them. A life spent in service becomes immortal in the lives it has lifted. I aspire to that most days.”