Deneshree Govender

Two troubling thoughts stick in my mind after chatting to the lively and entertaining Deneshree Govender. One is that she’s an overachiever of the type whose job applications get rejected for being “overqualified”.

The second is that as a whip-smart woman who happens to be Indian, she believes her skin colour and gender still play against her. When she cites South Africa’s latest employment equity rules that attach importance to colour rather than qualifications, I check my calendar – yes, it’s 2024 and race is still a problem.