Writer: Sinethemba Bizela | Photographs: Supplied
The telenovela Inimba (2025–26), by Siphosethu Tshapu, has impressively sustained public commentary, especially on social media. The last time I remember a television drama animating the public like this was Intersexions (2010), a drama series whose sequences mirror the interconnectedness of episodes and their characters’ sex lives, thereby dramatizing how people infect each other with HIV. Intersexions shows the complex nature of HIV and how the virus debunks myths about sexually transmitted diseases. It is precisely the dramatic irony that gets the public talking when we learn who infects whom while the characters themselves do not.
Similarly, with Inimba’s Qhawe, we knew her real mother before she could. The story of Zoleka and Mthetho Mabandla, popularly known by his clan name “Hlathi,” is intriguing. After getting married as a young couple, twenty years ago, Zoleka grabbed the opportunity to study and work in the United States. Hlathi gets estranged by this and tries to prevent Zoleka from taking this lifetime opportunity. Failing to refuse his wife from going abroad, Hlathi spitefully takes the baby, Qhawe, away from her. He does more than that, actually; he also takes in Zoleka’s cousin, Thumeka (Zenande Mfenyana), to cohabit with him so that they raise the baby together. Thumeka falls in love, catching feelings and fire in the sheets of the Forest Man! She also falls pregnant twice! And she gives birth to Likamva and Yanga.
Zoleka comes back to South Africa to work for Khusela Tech as the CEO, at the expense of the long-acting CEO, Zondo (Siyabonga Shibe). Zoleka then finds a newly graduated tech enthusiast who wants to be an intern at Khusela, where she is now in charge. Zoleka uses her power to hire this young woman through blind nepotism at this moment. As viewers, we know that this is her baby, Qhawe, who was taken from her by Hlathi and Thumeka. Zoleka would later learn that this is her child, but Qhawe would not right away know that Zoleka is her biological mother. She is nonetheless curious about this phenomenal woman she has been reading about.
Qhawe is also intrigued by how Hlathi and Thumeka want her to stay away from this powerful woman, despite having seen her at their house. Hlathi tries to prevent Zoleka from having a relationship with Qhawe because he is backed by Thumeka, who fears that the renewed bond between Zoleka and Qhawe might rekindle Hlathi’s love for his wife. A woman’s gut, indeed. Eventually, Hlathi falls in love again with Zoleka, and they live as a happy family with Qhawe, who has been told about her real mother. Qhawe then learns that her prince charming, Mawethu, played by Prince Grootboom, was her mother’s toy boy. Their mother-daughter relationship crumbles.
Inimba, a mother’s birth pain, indeed women’s solidarity, as a thematic line throughout Zoleka’s experiences of being cut off from her own child by a Xhosa traditional patriarch who expects nothing but obedience from his wife, is also felt by many women viewers throughout the episodes. Thus, their act of throwing stones at Hlathi is justified. The man has not been open to the idea of a wife who is more powerful than him. He has been struggling to come to terms with this shift of power in their relationship. He tries hard to use Xhosa customs to assert his masculinity because he knows clearly that this terrain empowers him over Zoleka. He even tries the impossible: to domesticate an executive woman. The women viewers who sympathise, and indeed share Zoleka’s inimba, a mother’s birth pains, highlight Hlathi’s villainous character and problematise him further.
Zoleka finally divorces Hlathi and replaces him with the powerful Lazarus (Loyiso McDonald). However, Hlathi unfairly demands an equal share of Zoleka’s assets, even though Zoleka acquired her wealth when they were not together, yet they are legally married. He then comes to his senses and allows himself to be bought out amicably. He forgets about Zoleka and marries Thumeka until he learns that Zoleka is four months pregnant; a war begins. Bavumile is his son, whom he has always wanted with Zoleka, and Lazarus, sadly, is infertile. This fact boosts Hlathi’s ego, and he goes as far as humiliating Lazarus in public.
The tables have turned now. Hlathi is cut off from his own child, and Bavumile will bear the surname of Lazarus. Can men also have inimba? Or, with men, does it end with empathy because inxeba le ndoda alihlekwa liyabotshwa, a man’s wound is not made fun of but is bandaged (taken care of)? Thus, Zoleka and Lazarus use their power to defeat Hlathi and have Bavumile as their own, with Hlathi allowed only minimal visitations. This divides the viewers into two sympathetic blocs: the Zoleka camp and the Hlathi camp.
However, inimba mayibenye bafazi! Pain must be one, women! This expression means one woman’s pain must be felt by other women. It calls for solidarity among (black) women, because there is also Thumeka. She has been exploited by Hlathi, taking care of him and his children, but never considered for marriage or for post-school training. On the other hand, Zoleka is finally having an opportunity to be a mother, but Hlathi attempts to take away another child from her.
The inimba thematic strand, which also bears the title of the telenovela, gets conspicuously highlighted as Likamva gets into a fatal car accident after a long fight with his mother, who disapproves of his lover, Zethu. It is a hit and run by Lwandle Zondo, who is drunk and frustrated by being framed by Linda at Khusela. Mrs Zondo’s inimba instinctively protects her son from going to jail, concealing, with her husband, the truth about her son’s actions. It is within inimba not to be consistent with the truth when your own child is involved with hurting or killing another woman’s child. Inimba tells us to protect (y)our own at the expense of other women’s children. Likamva is brain dead, and Qhawe’s heart condition worsens, and she is left with a few weeks to live. So, what must be done? Must the two Mabandla kids die together or save one at the expense of the other? It’s both a serious moral dilemma and a philosophical conundrum that spirals from one episode to another, a credit to Tshapu’s conceptualisation, the directors involved, and the team of scriptwriters writing for the show.
Moreover, Qhawe needs a heart transplant, and Likamva might just be the match because they share genes through Hlathi. Thumeka is adamant. Lazarus persuades Zoleka to consider Likamva’s heart. When Qhawe finally gets her brother’s heart, we are left imagining the possibilities that would be made by this transplant. We imagine whether a love triangle between Qhawe, Onga, and Zethu will be enacted by Likamva’s heart and Qhawe’s mind. However, the series’s writers play it safe. Instead, the storyline takes an opposite trajectory. Qhawe ends her seeming love triangle with Onga and Mawethu.
Thumeka has faith in her God that her child will come back. Science clashes with faith! Then these two women’s inimba collide. It culminates in an Orwellian realisation that other women are more equal than others, as Zoleka wins and gets a heart for her daughter. The machines get switched off for Likamva. Thumeka’s inimba cuts her deeper as she breaks down. For when inimba is not one, the other woman weeps. And, indeed, she never recovers this. She then takes the doctor’s stethoscope and tries to listen to Likamva through the chest of the sleeping Qhawe. Strange works of grief. Upon seeing Hlathi confiding intimately with Zoleka, Thumeka becomes overwhelmed and decides to walk away from Hlathi’s life, exiling herself with Yanga in the Eastern Cape. Inimba’s first season ends simultaneously with her marriage, while Lazarus kneels before Zoleka, asking for a hand in marriage.
*Sankara Bizela is an activist, social and cultural critic, residing in Johannesburg.
