After thousands of mostly Indian men were brought to Kenya and Uganda by the British to build railways and other infrastructure, many stayed and created successful new lives in these East African colonies. Shah includes the context for the expulsion, so we can see the spurious grounds Amin’s government based their dislike of Asians on. He’d come to the house one morning beaming as he clutched a box of mandazi…to celebrate the birth of his daughter, Aber…Jaya asked him to bring Aber to the house one day…but they’d never had the chance.” Jaya recalled a time, a year or so after she had arrived in Uganda, back when both of them could still run fast across the yard when it rained and when they both had luxurious heads of thick, dark hair. “She’d picked up everything she knew about in snippets, a life compiled by patchwork. Unlike his employers, December has nowhere to run to, so his choice is between hiding where he is or risking being smuggled out of the country. There’s also a question mark hanging over the fate of their house servant December, who is Acholi – one of the Ugandan ethnic groups being persecuted by Amin. Neither Britain nor India will take all of them, so they must leave separately. Thanks to the legacy of colonialism (which is the reason many Asians came to Uganda in the first place), the family have a mix of British, Indian and Ugandan passports. It’s not much time for them to make the necessary plans. And then Idi Amin issues an edict that all Asians must leave Uganda within 90 days. Slowly that background becomes foreground, becomes almost all their lives revolve around. But in the background of their life is Uganda’s increasing anti-Asian violence, the curfew imposed on them, and the sounds of gunfire at night. Pran is planning to expand his shop Asha is settling in with her in-laws. They live in the leafy Kololo Hill suburb of Kampala with Pran’s parents, Jaya and Motichand, and his brother Vijay. It’s 1972 and Asha and Pran are newly married. It’s a good book don’t judge it harshly for my delay. In September we agreed to start reading the book. Cue months of Covid- and non-Covid-related reasons for us delaying our get-together until in August I finally posted H’s copy of the book to her. The author, Neema Shah, kindly offered to sign the books with personalized recommendations and I thought here was a great opportunity to do a readalong with my friend H, who I was planning to see soon. Back in March, I bought two copies of Kololo Hill in an auction to raise funds for British-Ukrainian Aid.
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