by M G Vassanji
Mother, Deepa, and I were gathered round Papa in the shop, poring with him over every detail of the glorious scene. The black taxis, a red double-bus carrying advertisements on its side, men and women in hats, a red mailbox, a newsagent, all the store and street signs. Papa turned a wistful eye to Mother, who acknowledged with a smile; it was his dearest wish to visit that centre of the universe once in his lifetime. It was his Mecca, his Varanasi, his Jerusalem. A visit there conferred status, moreover: you became one of the select group, the London-returned.
He tacked the postcard on the upright behind his table, where it stayed for more than a year, proud reminder not only of his yearning but also of his European “friends.”
Bill and Annie had gone without their parents. To my parents, it was a sign of European irresponsibility that they could send their children on an expensive voyage and yet run up sizeable debts in town. Though Mother remembered graciously that Mrs. Bruce did have a wealthy family in England. But how could she allow herself to send the children by themselves, unescorted, on a voyage that took twenty-four hours, with stopovers in strange places? Suppose someone kidnapped them? Who’d hurt a British child, Papa snapped in reply, they’d have every policeman in the world looking for them. That privilege comes from ruling the world.
The postcard had been written by Bill, who had signed both their names, but then Annie must have insisted on putting down something of her own, for there after his bold writing was the wobbly scrawl “Annie,” struggling valiantly up a hill. She would not let him dominate her. It was mid July, a month and a half since they had gone. Six weeks was an eternity to a child in those days. Saturday playtime at our shopping centre became subdued and lacking in adventure. I recall Deepa, Njoroge, and myself sitting on the cement floor of the veranda outside our shop, playing a game of imagining by turns all the exciting things our two friends must be up to in London: riding double-buses and taxis, visiting all those castles and palaces and bridges we had read about, shopping at wonderful stores spilling over with comic books, toffees and chocolates. If you ran out of something to say in this game, you were “out.”
That postcard clinched the case for my mother: her children too needed to visit places during their vacation. And so it was resolved in our home that all of us would go to Nairobi and Mombasa for the August holidays.
The Africans had described it aptly, an iron snake gliding along the bottom of God’s bowl that is the Rift Valley. Around us the savannah with its sporadic thorn trees, the herds of zebra that came so close you could almost feed them—and there were a few on the train who threw chappatis at them. To our left, in the east, rose steeply the green and jungly Aberdare Range, or Nyandarua, where a band of Mau Mau fighters, the Land Freedom Army, made their home under the leadership of the dreaded Kimathi and Mathenge. The fighters came down from this range to attack European farms, but it was also down the same paths into the valley that many Kikuyu squatters, including our Mwangi, as Mother sometimes called him, had come many years ago to seek new homes on those farms.
The train from Kisumu had come in late, and so we left at a little before dawn from Nakuru, which was as well because we could see more, though the Kisumu passengers were irate for having to wake up from their rocking slumbers. We reached Naivasha as dawn was breaking beyond the mountains.
How can I describe that feeling of looking out the sliding window above the little washbasin, as the small second-class cabin jostled and bumped along the rails, and taking in deep breaths of that cool, clean air and, simply, with wide hungry eyes absorbing my world. It was to become aware of one’s world, physically, for the first time, in a manner I had never done before, whose universe had encompassed our housing estate and my school, the shop and my friends, the tree-lined street outside that brought people in and out of our neighbourhood. That scene outside the train window I can conjure up at any time of the day or night; I would see, feel, and experience it in similar ways so frequently in my life; in some essential way it defines me. This was my country—how could it not be? Yes, there was that yearning for England, the land of Annie and Bill and the Queen, and for all the exciting, wonderful possibilities of the larger world out there. But this, all around me, was mine, where I belonged with my heart and soul.
African herdsmen in skin cloaks waved back at us, women with gourds and baskets on their backs would pause to look up and stare. A little later in the morning, a spotter plane, perhaps deviating west from its course while searching for the forest fighters, accompanied us for a distance, swooping down low in figures of eight, to the delight of passengers.
Gilgil, Naivasha, Kijabe, announced by their name boards and altitudes, the raised signal boxes outside the stations, the railway crossings where cars, people, and cattle waited and stared, the station master waving a flag, vendors and coolies scurrying for custom. At every stop Indians got on or off, and there were people who were known to my family. For in each town was an Indian main street, with the same squat shop-houses of brick, with stores similar to those I was familiar with in Nakuru. The Naivasha station master was a family friend and brought along some hot tea and snacks.
I never saw my mother so happy. She would put her head on my father’s shoulder, hold a samosa or a cup of tea for him, sing Indian love songs about spring and birds and flowers and rain.
Finally we climbed the slopes of the escarpment, leaving the basin behind, and tall trees surrounded us, the ground was red, and there were little Kikuyu farms abundantly planted with corn, banana, vegetables. In the distance behind us the Rift Valley lay in a haze, stretching all the way north, Papa said, to the Red Sea which Moses had parted.
This is Africa, he said to Mother, all this beauty and vastness, dekha hai esa, tumhare desh mein? Have you seen anything like this in your country? She smiled sweetly. This is where I have married and made my home, she said. And this is my husband’s and children’s country.
How happy he was that Mahesh Uncle was not with us, and how sad Mahesh Uncle had looked to see us all going away. I imagine that my mother for a moment did lose her lustre, at Papa’s reminder of where she was born.
Nairobi is a wonderful place, our relatives assured us, it is half way to London. Half way from where? I inquired, and they all laughed with delight. It was four in the afternoon and I had never seen anywhere as busy as the railway station, and after that Delamere Avenue, where a policeman in white uniform and helmet was guiding traffic with white-gloved hands, and then Government Road with its huge grey mosque and clock tower. My uncle Rakesh, who was actually Papa’s cousin, and his wife Shanti had come to pick us up. If only this Mau-Mau Shau-Mau fear goes away, Shanti Auntie said, this is a wonderful city. Rakesh Uncle worked in the Post Office. Part of his job, as I learnt later, was to assist in the censoring of letters to and from the Asians; not only did many Indians write in Punjabi or Gujarati or Urdu, Rakesh Uncle explained, they used codes which the British would never understand. Daitya for the Mau Mau, Bhut-lok for the Europeans, Ravana for Jomo Kenyatta. Have you found anything suspicious or caught anyone? Papa asked. No, Uncle said, but some false alarms.
The first trip out is by repute the most memorable. I did not remember previous travels, of which there had supposedly been two, so this was my big journey into the wide world. We were the country cousins: even my parents looked cowed by the savvy and the modern ways of our hosts.
My aunt and uncle had four children, of whom the eldest two were boys close to my age. It was with them and their neighbours that I learned to play cricket the proper way, competitively, and gilli-dandi and naago and a host of other Indian games. We lived in the Eastleigh section of the city, which was filled with Punjabi-speakers, a lot of whom were connected in some manner with the railway. The Eastleigh aerodrome, used by the armed forces, was close by and sometimes very noisy, especially when the Harvard bombers set off on their sorties to the forests of the Aberdares. But even more so than in Nakuru, the dark nights with the chirrup of insects and the occasional bark of a dog were fe
arful. There was a gun in the house, and my aunt and mother had that look of concern as they saw us off to bed. You could actually speak with people in these streets whose houses had been raided by the Mau Mau, who took away rations and money, and the Asian Home Guard went on foot patrols every night armed with staffs, knives, police whistles, and a coal burner swinging on a chain to keep them warm. On the way from Eastleigh to the other Asian district called Ngara, or to the city centre, you passed the racecourse and then the African residential area of Pumwani, its small yellow houses running into each other, a few small children playing outside and women hanging out clothes, the smell of woodsmoke filling the air. This was believed to have been the hideout of the terrorists until the Emergency police raids cleaned it up. It looked a sad, deserted place, a bedroom community with most of its inhabitants out at work.
Still, it was an exciting, hustling, bustling metropolis to which we had come: half way to London with indoor public garages and drive-in cinema, Woolworths and Nairobi Sports House and other fancy shops, River Road with pakoda-andchai shops and cheap cobblers, and Indian Bazaar with its smell of spices. Across from Woolworths, which sold comic books and English sweets, and Enid Blyton and Biggles novels, was the New Stanley Hotel; outside it was the famous patio restaurant where dozens of Europeans in smart clothes and hats sat at tables waited upon by liveried African waiters as they surveyed the action on Delamere Avenue. It was here that Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner had stayed to film Mogambo, now awaited with great anticipation in Nairobi. But even if the New Stanley and its patio restaurant had not been marked “Europeans Only,” we would never have dared put our feet inside. All we did was stand outside in a large group and gawk rather shamelessly through the palm-frond barrier at the edge of the patio.
The Railway Club Fete, on the other hand—Ticket 1 shilling, women and natives 50 cents, children free—was open to everyone but was actually for the benefit of Asians and Africans. The former came in flocks of ten to twenty. A band played marches, a fierce-looking Sikh policeman in scimitar-shaped whiskers walked about pompously, every now and then raising a finger and telling off naughty children, and local schoolboys performed gymnastics in which they formed a human pyramid and dove through hoops of fire. There were some skits, including one about recent arrivals from India, and another rather risky one, about a gang of Mau Mau. In the latter, the fighters went to a European home and were met by the cook, who was dressed in a livery of long white kanzu and red fez. Why do you dress like a woman, the leader of the gang gruffly scolded, don’t you have any dignity as an African? If I didn’t dress like a woman, how would I be able to help the likes of you? retorted the cook. He lifted up his fez and, lo and behold, on his fuzzy hair a packet of Kit Kat, some matches, and a leg of chicken.
At another show, the world’s strongest man, Aurangzeb Bhim Singh, short and squat, mightily muscled, dark as chocolate, walked out in front of a moving car and with his two hands stopped it, pushed it back! And more: he lay down before the stopped car, and all were invited to step forward to confirm that the vehicle was truly sturdy, Empire steel and chrome and rubber. Some of the onlookers took up the challenge and knocked on the panels and bumpers, kicked at the tires, tried lifting the vehicle from either end. The engine was started, and slowly the car began to move, and the front wheels rolled right over the chest and legs of the reposing strongman!…and slowly so did the back wheels! Aurangzeb Bhim Singh stood up to tremendous applause, then graciously allowed spectators to feel his body. It’s real, Papa confirmed to an amused Mother, having pressed the man’s biceps, prodded his ribs and stomach, pressed his calves.
It was a dizzying day with foods and games and prizes and shows of all kinds. With us, besides my uncle and aunt and their four children, was another adult, introduced as Aruna Auntie. She was slim and pretty, with a long braid down to her waist, and she wore a dark blue shalwar-kameez. She instantly took a liking to Deepa and me, holding our hands as she took us around and bought us candy floss and ice cream. She was a wonder at the shooting range and won a large round doll at a lottery, which she presented to my sister. And she also seemed to get along marvellously with both my parents. After the fete, when she had been dropped off at her home (not without all of us being invited in for more food), the adults couldn’t stop speaking about her, and I overheard that she would be visiting us in Nakuru. They all thought that Mahesh Uncle would get along remarkably well with her. I just couldn’t wait to see the two of them together, as my uncle and auntie.
The classifieds of the East African Standard, appearing alphabetically every Thursday, week in, week out, began with the same first notice: Abrahamson London Gents’ Tailor, for your up-to-date Saville Row suits. A new suit from this prestigious outfitter was what Papa, with Mother’s permission, had promised himself since Nakuru. And so six of us—my aunt and uncle, my parents, my sister, and I—went into the shop on Government Road. It was dark in a posh sort of way, walls lined with shelves of suiting, illuminated with tube lighting, smelling of fresh new cloth. There were chairs and recliners to sit on, framed pictures of male models in suits. My father was served by an Indian assistant. After a lot of agonizing discussion a material was agreed upon, and finally came the time to take the measurements. There was also in the shop a European couple, picking a suit. When the assistant produced a tape and began measuring my father’s inseam (much to the amusement of Deepa and me), the European cried out, Ay, you going to use the same tape on me as the coolie? My father’s face crumpled, my mother turned red. No sir, said the assistant, apprehensively eyeing each of his customers in turn, We use a different tape for Europeans. A white man hurried in from the back unravelling a tape, and my family walked out of the shop in silence.
A photograph from that vacation shows my mother and father seated on a sofa, me standing beside Mother, Deepa beside Papa. Deepa has on a striped dress with two bows in front, and her hair has been styled into two braided loops at the back. White socks, black shoes with buckle straps. And I am attired in shorts, a dark blazer over a white shirt, and a wide tie. It is a black-and-white photo, but the tie, I recall, was red and embossed with yellow and blue cranes. My mother was in a sari that day, and she sits up straight, ever so slightly turned toward Papa…a beautiful, mysterious young woman. Papa is in a suit and tie. The photo was taken at A. C. Gomes, up the street from Abrahamson’s. The suit was made by Ahmad Brothers, the third or fourth name from the top in the Thursday Standard classifieds, who also promised London fashions, but at half the price and using the same tape measure for Asians and Europeans. And for Africans?—I don’t know.
Long stretches of brown grassland dotted sparsely with thorn trees. A herd of giraffe grazing quietly, staidly; the one closest to us bounded a few steps away. The wonderful thing about these creatures is that they seem quite oblivious to human existence, and unlike impala or gazelle they take only the slightest, the most necessary, safety measures. Zebra in the distance, and the little dik-dik. The train came suddenly to a stop and didn’t move for a long time. Elephants had been crossing the tracks, but two youthful ones had refused to budge from the rails, despite protestations from the rest of their herd and the occasional train whistle. Finally some passengers—among them my intrepid father—came out to watch, and as they approached the scene, a couple of adult elephants made a trumpeting charge. The passengers fled inside their train, and the two elephant youths got up sulkily and lumbered away into the bushes. This happened just outside Makindu, on our way to Mombasa. Outside the station was a Sikh temple, to which my mother went to pay her respects. If there was no Hindu temple, she said, a Sikh one could do just as well. She brought for us some halva prasad from there. The train started only when the Indian station master had seen her to our compartment.
The track we were traversing now, whistle blowing, engine roaring, was the setting of my grandfather Anand Lal’s favourite stories, and he was with us in spirit. It was on this route that the man-eating lions had so terrorized the work gangs, bringing tra
ck construction to a complete stop. We did not see any lions but were assured that they were around. The long journey to the coast, the descent of five thousand feet progressively into a hot and humid climate, the vegetation clotting and greening around us until we were in the midst of dense growth and population, palm and mango trees and villages of mud huts and men in white kanzus and kofias and women in colourful khangas or covered by the black veil, everywhere dusty and dirtier than we were used to but also more relaxed and freer, was a voyage into enchantment. By the light of kerosene lamps men sold roasted meat, cassava, and corn, little dukas stayed open selling the odd item, men sat around on stones or tree trunks or on the ground, as we passed by and slowly approached our destination. We had left early in the morning, at dawn; when we reached Mombasa it was nine at night.
It was such a different world, all abustle and rich in variety and extremes. All the Indians ran small stores, it appeared, including our hosts, who were friends of the family. Boys and girls played on the unpaved sides of the street, beside their homes, barefoot and in rather ragtag clothes. Most residences were behind shops and crowded. The bathroom facilities were primitive compared with what we were used to, and repugnant. Mosquitoes and flies were abundant, as were beggars and crazies, as also were fruits and vegetables of all kinds, sold on the street, brought along by hawkers, or available in the large souk. The language was hard to understand, though it was spoken in abundance among Indians, Arabs, and Africans. Music blared from radios in various languages, people sang as they worked or walked on the streets. There were processions to celebrate weddings, football matches, circumcisions. The Europeans did not come to bother anyone, from their resorts and homes by the beaches. And there was no fear of the Mau Mau. In the evening boys and girls played tag or hide-and-seek outside their open shops, where Indian men also sat playing cards and availing themselves of the enticements of a passing coffee-seller. From nearby roadstands would come the aromas of corn and cassava and meat being roasted on open fires.
