Devi Sankaree Govender: Dad’s cheers, incredible career & (almost) no fear
This year marks five years since she’s left Carte Blanche to explore new avenues and perhaps, herself. She is still chasing crooks, but now on her self-produced The Devi Show. Of course, knowing that she’s chasing criminals and seeking justice for those who’d been wronged while we’re most probably testing out the menu of a newly launched restaurant, puts us on a bit of a guilt trip. But, then we remind ourselves that some people (or most?) weren’t cut from the same cloth as Devi Sankaree Govender. She’s one of the country’s top journalists, after all. We sat down with her at the beautiful Aurum Restaurant’s Wine Library to do our own bit of journalistic research into what it takes to be Devi.
Like the crooks she’s been interrogating for the biggest chunk of her career, we were also almost caught off guard by how small this fiery journalist really is. Still, when she walks into a room, her confident presence demands respect and we can only imagine the thoughts running through a guilty man’s mind when she stands in front of him – evidence in hand – and he realises that he’s been caught. Devi Sankaree Govender owns the space she walks into and with her natural outspokenness, she’s certainly not afraid to say it as it is.
A Secret Power from Her Pa
The 5th generation South African grew up in rural KwaZulu-Natal’s Umzinto. Her parents had only two daughters and with her being the eldest, she says her dad had given her the ultimate superpower by raising her as his son. “I was lucky, because I didn’t grow up with a brother. It was just my sister and I. So, we never had that situation in our house where our brother was the king. We were my dad’s princesses and we could do anything.”
She also had a close relationship with her grandfather – a farmer. “I always say: ‘Ek’s ‘n boeremeisie,’” Devi proudly throws some Afrikaans into the mix. “Because it’s true.” Her grandfather was the type of person who always gave back to his community – something that clearly runs in the family.
Big Dreams and Dad as Cheerleader
Devi watched the first-ever Carte Blanche at the age of 15. While she’d never seen televised investigative journalism before, she told her parents there and then that one day, she was going to work for those people. Many were skeptical about her ambitious dream, commenting on her accent and that she “looks too Indian.” In fact, few believed that she would ever be able to be on a national channel. Still, her parents supported her dream and one could only wonder – had her dad not raised her as his son – if Devi would have gone down a different path. “When you’re Indian, you’re going to become a doctor,” she explains. But, the go-getter girl from Umzinto, who played with fire engines on cars, had always been different. And she preferred it that way. “Different was always good.”
Even in an era when children were meant to be seen, not heard, Devi was an incredibly inquisitive, talkative child. “I always had questions. About everything and anything. And it was only later – when I read Malcholm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point – that I realised that by the time I’d gotten to radio (which was my first job) I had done the 10 000 hours!” She laughs as she remembers how her dad – now 83 and sadly diagnosed with advanced Dementia – would say she talks a lot. She also vividly remembers him sitting in an audience with the biggest smile on his face as he looked at her. “It doesn’t matter what it was. For speech contests (I did a lot of that when I was at school); school concerts – he was there.” While her late mom was the bedrock of their family, her dad was the one who made the decisions and granted her permission to be who she needed to be.
Covid’s Innings on Devi’s Destiny
Growing up, Devi soon learned two important things: That she was good enough and that her love language was service. It comes as no surprise then that she made her dream of working for Carte Blanche a reality even before she turned 30. She worked there for 18 years before taking the leap of faith and starting The Devi Show, which now airs on both eTV and ENCA. “I kept feeling like I was starting to lose my excitement and passion. You must be happy to go to work. Especially on a weekend, because with journalism you work 24/7.” She says that the confusing part comes in when you reach your dream too early. “Because now, what’s the next dream?” In the back of her mind, she always knew that she wanted her own show. She wanted to be an executive producer, where she could manage a budget and pour her soul into something that’s her own.
Welcome To The Devi Show
Her time at Carte Blanche came to an end just as the Covid-19 pandemic struck and she had just joined eMedia to do a talk show. “Who was I going to put on the couch with social distancing?” she asks. But, her confidence and self-belief proved its power and in the middle of hard lockdown, she swapped the talk show for a reality show, chasing crooks. “I think I’m really good at chasing crooks. It makes me want to get up in the morning. I obsess about my crooks. I like roleplay even before the interview happens. It’s crazy! They’re like the true love of my life,” she says, and she hasn’t looked back since.
Apart from the thrill of catching crooks, Devi has always been someone who wants to leave things better than the way in which she found it. If not, she at least wants to be remembered for trying. She also wants to make people smarter and through The Devi Show, she gets to do both.
To the Youth Who Want to Bring Change
Devi believes it’s harder to be a young person these days. “It’s harder to find a job, money’s scarce, our social fabric is torn, the majority of young people grow up in single-headed households (normally just a mom) – it’s tough.” On the other hand, while she had to wait for a radio or television station to give her a job, today’s young people are fortunate enough to have cell phones. “That’s your TV station, that’s your radio station, and you launch yourself from that. But, understand that it takes hard work.” She also emphasises that you cannot be a one-trick pony. You need to know what you want to do and what you need to do to get there. Diversifying yourself is future proofing yourself.
She latched onto another superpower very early in her life: Finding your happy place. “What are you good at?” she asks into the room, now filled with yummy treats specially prepared by Aurum’s talented chef. She suggests you find that one thing that you’re not only good at but also enjoy so much that it doesn’t even feel like work. “If you find where that spot is for you, pour everything you have into it.”
Did you know?
Devi is actually a qualified Afrikaans teacher! “I think I’ve been a teacher my whole life. I like taking difficult concepts, making it simple and explaining it.”
Don’t Get Too Comfortable
According to the former Carte Blanche presenter, being a head girl at school wouldn’t get you far when you start working. “You’re the bottom of the pile and you’ve got to work yourself up. It’s a seniority thing. You’ve got to be able to take that, convert it and work yourself up to a point where you are the best of the best. But, in saying that, the good thing I took out of that is: Whenever you feel that you’re at the top, you must move from that job and find yourself another place where you’re starting at the bottom all over again. Because life is about growth. It’s not about feeling comfortable… You have to push yourself.”
Thinking back to her very first-ever interview, Devi certainly wasn’t comfortable. In fact, she says she was nervous. But, “nervous is good. Even now, nervous is good. Because if you’re not nervous, then you’ve got a fat head. And if you have a fat head, you think you’re too clever and if you think you’re too clever, then what difference are you going to make?” Devi still gets nervous, but she says it keeps her on her game.
Start With Your Circle of Influence
She describes herself as lucky for having had a front row seat in South Africa’s history in the last 32 years of her career. It’s also with that in mind that she says: “You can’t just sit and watch things happen and do nothing about it. I don’t believe that you need a television show or a podcast or a radio slot to bring change and to make people think differently and to have other viewpoints. We have our own circles of influence and that’s where it starts. Your friend group; your family – start there. Your cousin group; your colleagues. It’s just about throwing out other ways of thinking and while words have power, we often want someone else to have that power and forget that we have it ourselves.”
The Dangers of Doing What Devi Does
The reality of hard journalism is that it’s not always safe. Devi has been assaulted before. “It was in 2005, on a story for Carte Blanche on a group of appliance repairmen in Durban” she says. “Absolute skelms. It was the third story I’d done on them. We sent in a washing machine and marked the parts and then they tried to charge us for the parts – it was a consumer story. And when I went to confront them, I walked into their store and they locked us up in the store and beat us up.”
Over the years, she’s gotten smarter in how she approaches certain interrogations, though and she’s learned to calm people down. And, while she isn’t intimidated by size, she believes that being so small herself has been beneficial many times. “They would hold themselves back and think: ‘Ag, she’s so cute, man,’” she jokes.
Devi’s Top Tips for a Young Journalist
1. Know that the research never stops.
2. Keep asking questions. There’s no such thing as a stupid question. Every question gets you closer to understanding something.
3. “The one thing I’m learning from young people now, is that they take care of their mental health. You don’t have to kill yourself doing this job, but you need to stay true to it.”
4. Be yourself, because that’s what’s going to win the game.
In the end, Devi is proudly South African and positively so. This is her home. And, amidst all the chaos she gets to see every day, she also gets to see and feel the magic of Ubuntu. Somehow, her father saw that twinkle in her eye and he allowed her to fly. Now, she gets to have an opportunity to try and make the world a better place – one caught-out crook at a time.
