A Passage to Kenya

Before they became independent nations, Kenya and India were both part of the British Empire, and the State of Goa, now reunited with India, was ruled for centuries by Portugal. This book is a literary journey through their complex, inter-related colonial past. More broadly, it is a `biography' of the fascinating region that borders the western Indian Ocean and an account of the extensive traffic and intercourse between the peoples of its diverse shores. Drawing on first-hand sources, the author creates a historical collage of the colonial era, highlighting the gross inequities of that exploitative, global, economic and political system. Given the growing inequality of present-day globalization, he implicitly raises the question: are new players across trans-national boundaries stepping into the roles of colonizer and colonized. Although not a dominant theme of the book, the author's familial history, in particular, the life of his adventurous paternal grandfather, who emigrated from Portuguese Goa to seek his fortune in British East Africa, and that of his father, who was born in Kenya, educated abroad, and returned to play a significant role in pre-independence Kenyan politics, provide a connecting chain through the narrative, linking chapter to chapter, from start to finish.