He may not have been the strongest contestant but one saw Irshaad mainly as a victim of the twisted sisters, two thoroughly horrible girls who were cruel, condescending snobs.
Angie was absurdly obsessed about him and absolutely determined to be irritated by him, whatever he did or did not do. She positively revelled in her hatred of him and missed no opportunity to needle and provoke him.
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The antipathy seemed a class thing and related to her apparent need to blame someone else for her feeling irritable and anxious, rather than owning her feelings as they arose from her own physical and mental discomfort.
Amanda kept criticising his ‘listening skills’ and tendency to interrupt - but as she rarely stopped yapping, nobody had the stomach to constantly listen to her and the only way he could ever say anything was to interrupt her.
Never short of a trivial and long-winded observation, Amanda was convinced that her every utterance was of massive importance and demanded to be listened to in reverent silence and awe. She kept calling him the tribe's "step-child" in a highly offensive manner that suggested there was something despicable about anyone being a step-child.
Looking back on the game
Irshaad is now happily back home in Cape Town, enjoying his work and his family; and his girl friend is visiting from Germany.
I commended him on the awesome amount of self-restraint he showed in the face of continuous provocation. Even convocation of saints would have been tempted to grow furious and fight back, but he said he has been known to be short-tempered and one of the main things his family warned him about was not to lose his temper whatever happened.
So he paid special attention to this and succeeded remarkably well. At this rate, he could give lessons in anger management, having remained calm when viewers around the country were throwing cushions at their TV sets!
He said he really, really wanted to stay in the game and beat the attempts of the others to unsettle him. He seemed to have recognised the useful truth that when somebody is so obviously devoted to annoying you and will be thrilled to see you angry, the best way to frustrate them is to remain calm - so remaining calm isn't a feeble, inactive, weak response, but a powerful and strong way of responding to provocation.
Interruptions and confusion
He agreed that Amanda talked a lot and said that if you try the usual social conventions of responding from time to time, she yelped and protested about being interrupted. Perhaps if she were not so long-winded, she wouldn't get interrupted so much.
Angie's fierce antipathy greatly puzzled him. He said, "I still sit at home and wonder why she got so angry about me".
He recognised that she was right out of her element, was tired, sleeping badly, was hungry and so on, and that she probably felt the need to vent. But he said he didn’t understand why he was the chosen one. Why was he unable to avoid being the lightning rod to her lightning? This is where I think the snobby element arose - at some level she appeared to feel that he had no right to be there at all and not to be interacting with her.
"We're from different worlds" said Irshaad, "I'm from a lower class / middle class background and she isn't. At least not in her mind."
Bull in a China shop
He had loads of energy, but tended to be a bit of a bull in a china shop, rushing off vigorously without applying much thought.
Yet despite his physical strength he was unexpectedly ineffective in challenges and became known as a "loose cannon". He often appeared to disengage his brain when his muscles came into play.
He said he's very excitable and explained there was an element of the eager to please puppy who tended to knock things over in his attempt to be loved.
He hurriedly accepted a crucial role in rowing a canoe, for instance, without revealing that he hadn't the faintest idea of how to do it. He admitted this was very difficult, especially with the odd-shaped Malaysian oars.
But it seemed typical of this man - and admirable - that after his eviction but before he left the island, he found a similar skiff and similar oars and spent hours practising until he had mastered the necessary skills. So, if you need a good Malaysian oarsman in Cape Town, Irshaad's your man!
Then there was the time he tackled Hein as though the tug-of-war was a rugby match and caused his team to be disqualified.
He claimed he was already cross because he had (probably wisely) recommended to the team that they should have placed him at the end of the line, a balance to Hein and they had ignored his suggestion, which he found frustrating. Especially when he proved to be right and they were overwhelmed.
He saw that Angie was likely to get hurt by the way the rope was moving and said he tackled Hein without thinking of any negative consequences. Angie, of course, didn't appreciate his urge to protect her from harm.
Life after the game
Meanwhile, he's is continuing with his freelance work in graphic design. This is enterprising of him, using his computer to produce everything from fliers to documents for local people and companies. As for the future of the game, he'd like to see Lorette or Mandla win it, but said he thought Grant has a very good chance of winning, as he's shown much skill in scheming successfully.
He didn't seem to have visible alliances, but he insisted that from the start he had an "unspoken alliance" with Mandla and Lorette, and with Viwe while he was there.
He said they didn't need to speak about it but they knew they would not vote against each other. He became vulnerable when he lost their availability to support him. He tried for a new alliance with Dyke, but Dyke wouldn't buy it.
He said he was pleased he took part and is satisfied that he learned a lot.
Almost all evicted contestants say that, but few can convincingly describe anything valid they actually learned about themselves. But Irshaad can.
Apart from having learned an admirable capacity for self-control in the face of determined provocation, he said he discovered that he liked himself and had identified areas in need of further work - such as more social skills and a better ability to influence social processes of the sort he ran into in this game, without being excessively manipulative.
(Professor M. A. Simpson, aka CyberShrink, October 2007)
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