Red Wheelbarrow 2008 text FINAL REVISED.indd - De Anza College

Escape from Uganda | Shoba Rao
November, 1971
Ajai looked down from the open terrace of the Casablanca
Café down to the valley below. The magnificent evergreens covered
the valley, gently interrupted by the villas with their red-tiled roofs
and white bungalows with large iron-gated compound walls. He
loved Kampala this time of the year. The rain pitter-pattered on
the concrete tiles outside. The city sat astride the equator and was
blessed with two rainy seasons—one in April, lasting two months
and one in November. Legend has it the city spread over ten hills
was named after a Kigandan expression “kasozi K’empala”, the hill
of antelopes.
He had a troubled expression on his face; things were not
going well in Uganda. News was travelling fast that Idi Amin
Dada started ethnic cleansing and was persecuting the religious
minorities after overthrowing Obote. He heard that there was a big
political turmoil going on and Amin had no love lost with the Indian
community. Many of his friends started leaving Uganda to go and
settle down in the UK and US. Friends and family were trying to
force him to sell his businesses and divest the money abroad.
His businesses were entrenched in the black communities,
ranging from construction and motels to factories and quarries
that mined the local ores. The Israelis were building the airport in
Entebbe and he bid to subcontract with them. Ajai saw how the
properties and businesses that were expropriated from other Indians
were being mismanaged without having properly trained people at
the helm. The Indians in Uganda were highly educated, doctors,
lawyers, teachers, and engineers…the emigration of the skilled
people was taking a toll on the Ugandan economy.
Ajai’s ancestors had come to Uganda 100 years ago as
merchants during the British regime. They had settled down and
made money by their sheer ingeniousness. He chose not to go into
the traditional business of selling spices and instead hung around
with the locals much to the dislike of his late father, who tried to
keep himself and his family in the segregated parts like the rest of
the Indian families.
The café was named after the famous Humphrey Bogart
flick. The foreigners hung out, drinking, socializing and talking
about politics. Some of the Indians did too, although, most of the
Indians stayed within the confines of gated communities. He was
beginning to know the meaning of birds of the same feathers flocking
together.
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