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Phase 2:

The discreet charm of Nairobbers

Dharam relaxed in an aisle seat in the economy section. It was a DC9, an improvement on the Dakota they used to run on shorter internal flights a couple of decades ago, on his last visit. Going to his ancestral village in the Punjab was not something he looked forward to. He had no choice but to fulfill the promise to his dying mother that he would perform a puja ceremony in their ancestral village within five years of his father’s death. This was probably the last time he would go to the village, or even India itself. Times had changed, he had adopted the ways of his new country, Great Britain, and of India he had only unpleasant memories of cringing relatives, alms-seeking priests and beggars. True, he was born here, but his childhood years went pleasantly by in the cool highlands of Kenya, first in Nyeri, that lovely town just below the foothills of Mount Kenya, and then, by the time he got to high school, in Nairobi. His father had got himself transferred for his sake, enabling him to go to a good high school. The house in Eastleigh was not far from the newly opened Eastleigh Secondary School for Asian boys. His younger sister, Pratima, would go to Pangani Girls School when she finished Standard 7 at Arya Girls Primary, a private, Hindu school. Dharam had always mixed well with other Indian boys, Gujarati Hindus or Punjabi Muslims. He took Urdu in vernacular class with other Punjabi boys. Dharam had come to love the poetry of Mirza Ghalib in the Urdu class conducted by Mr Sadiq. He was also good at math and science, and leaned towards engineering as he grew older. Independence came to Kenya when he was still at University in England, in his second year. By then, Pratima was already married, and there was talk of finding him a bride in Kenya. He had met Guddi on a visit home, quite liked her, and gave in to the pressure to get engaged to her. His father had said that the future in Kenya was uncertain, that he and Dharam’s mother would consider migrating to England themselves after Dharam’s wedding. The plan was to buy a house in Birmingham, where Dharam had a job. His father had been putting in funds in a savings account in an English Bank over the years and had accumulated enough to invest in a house.

Dharam went through a lavish, traditional wedding ceremony in spite of the fact that he had cut his hair, no longer wore a turban and had even stopped using his middle name, Singh. The young couple spent their honeymoon on the south coast at Jadini’s and were soon gone to Britain. Guddi settled down well in Birmingham in the new detached, centrally heated house. They were blessed with two children within the first three years of marriage and Dharam’s parents got their immigration papers in good time to help out the young family, permitting Guddi to start her new secretarial job. His father’s view that things would only get worse for Indians in East Africa proved prophetic when Idi Amin took power in Uganda, followed by an exodus of thirty thousand Asians into Britain. Those Brits could always be relied upon to do the right thing, his father used to say. Dharam’s mother had a harder time adjusting to life in Britain.

Dharam did well in his career at Laylum’s. His one regret was that Pratima had married a man who had chosen to become a Kenyan citizen and decided to stay on. He will rue the day he decided that, Dharam’s father used to say. And Dharam agreed.

After a happy decade spent with their growing grandchildren, Dharam’s parents passed away within a year of each other. His mother had made Dharam promise that he would personally perform a puja at their ancestral village in the Punjab in honour of his father within five years of his death. The time had now come to honour that pledge, and Dharam organized a visit both to India and Kenya, taking a triangular fare from London to Delhi to Nairobi and back to London. He had been to India as an adult only once, and had no particular desire to go there again, but for the ceremony he was duty-bound to perform. A visit to Kenya he looked forward to, and intended to try and persuade Pratima and Jaswant to consider migrating to Britain.

Dharam landed in Nairobi within a week of performing the puja ceremony in India and planned to stay at his sister’s house in Westlands for a whole month before returning to England to his regular life. He was pleased to see his sister’s family do so well. There were two cars in the family, several servants, TV and video. The 320S his sister drove was the new compact Mercedes.

But things generally had deteriorated in Nairobi. Incidents of robbery, from snatching of jewelery to bank raids, occurred frequently. There were lots of guns about. A new type of crime was on the increase. Cars were often being hijacked at gunpoint, the occupants usually robbed, sometimes raped or killed. The police had organized a flying squad to deal with the increased incidence of carjackings. The flying squad was notorious for being trigger-happy and often killed innocent people who happened to get in their way or simply mowed down any suspected person with a hail of bullets from their automatic weapons. Civic services were breaking down. The phone system failed a lot of times, the supply of electricity was often interrupted, roads were full of potholes and now even the water supply was turned off for a good part of the day. Dharam felt uneasy about the state of things in Kenya and was planning to urge his sister and her husband to consider migrating out of Kenya, to Britain, America or Canada. But they were adamant, defending their decision to stay on in Kenya, arguing that the crime rate in New York was far worse than that of Nairobi.

One day, he decided to rest at home when Pratima went down town to do some shopping with her friend Manju. Pratima suffered a traumatic experience that day. She and her friend were carjacked from the centre of Nairobi, taken to a forest and robbed and abandoned.

Pratima, and her married friend, Manju, were in the habit of driving to downtown Nairobi about once or twice a week. They would usually drive the compact Mercedes that Pratima had, running around in flowing silk or chiffon saris, visiting hairdressers, shopping at the meat and vegetable market on Market Street, stopping by at the flower shop and bakery at the Westlands Shopping Centre. They would normally park at the metered stalls on Market Street.

Dharam had been driven into downtown Nairobi many a time by Pratima and knew the drill she followed. She would drive around Market Street, around the stores called ‘Dharamshi Lakhamshi & Co.’ and ‘Shahtex’, looking for an empty spot to park. Street kids would direct her to any empty parking spot in the area, earning a few shillings in tips.

Dharam had observed with fascination the operation of the cartel of kids that controlled the parking. There was one lame youth, probably about 14 or 15 who walked around on crutches collecting silver coins from drivers; his job was to oversee the feeding of the city council coin meters for parking. He would know roughly how long a driver was to be gone, and then feed the meter at about intervals of every half hour, a shilling or two at a time, until the driver returned and was ready to take off.

The way Pratima had things organized, there would usually be a few extra shillings left in the hands of her overseer by the time she would return to her car. The lame overseer she liked controlled the territory near the Dharamshi Lakhamshi & Co. store. He was reliable and she was glad to see him limp along to her car and greet her with a smile. Never had he failed her or not accounted for the money he was entrusted with, although of course he usually got to keep any leftover change. She had a good relationship with Mrefu, ‘the tall one’, and she used to worry about him if he ever failed to turn up. Of course, he was her protection against theft of windshield wipers and hubcaps.

On the day the carjacking occurred, Pratima had in fact parked the car at the big Juma Mosque parking grounds, away from the familiar territory controlled by Mrefu near Dharamshi Lakhamshi & Co. When Manju and she returned from the African Heritage shop on Kenyatta Avenue, three well-dressed men were standing near her light-blue Merc, having a little discussion of their own. As Pratima approached the driver’s side, the fellow in the middle had opened his leather brief case and pulled out a machine-gun. The other two also sported guns, pointing at Manju near the passenger door.

“Fungua mlango,” shouted the guy with the machine-gun as he stood behind Pratima. It took only a second for Pratima to realize this was a carjacking. Conventional wisdom in such cases dictated that one was not to resist but simply do the carjackers’ bidding. She pulled out the car keys from her handbag and handed over the keys to the man. He snatched the keys from her hand, but then pointed with the nozzle of his gun to the backdoor on her side and shouted:

“Ingia dani.”

Pratima remained cool, taking a look at the gun and the face of the man. It was a young, handsome face, with well-chiseled features. She noted the excitement on his face, his nostrils expanding and contracting in quick pulsating motion.

“Take the car,” Pratima said in Swahili.

“Ingia dani!” the man commanded her. This was serious business.

“Haya,” Pratima murmured and got into the back seat as the man held the door open and shut it on her. From the other side, Manju was shoved in by the other two men. One of the men pushed Manju in further and shoved himself beside her. The second fellow came in from the other side and sandwiched Pratima between himself and Manju. The handsome guy with the gun was already in the driver’s seat, inserting the ignition key and starting the motor.

Pratima quickly looked outside. There were people watching the incident from about 25 yards away. No-one was shouting or making any move. Pratima was struck by the nonchalance of the crowd, all African bystanders. Surely they could see something was wrong! The driver reversed and in a deft maneuver got the car jerked off into Muindi Mbingu Street. Pratima was seated right behind him. She observed the neat hairline at the back of his head. She saw Manju adjust her sari and then realized her own sari had fallen off from her shoulder and her chest was visibly heaving. She put the sari end back on her shoulder and wrapped up the front of her chest.

They were speeding through the big Ngara roundabout near the Globe Cinema and the car was soon on Forthall Road, doing, perhaps, about 80 kilometers.

The three men were conversing in Kikuyu. They passed a traffic cop just after the Pangani shops but he was busy dealing with a matatu vehicle he had stopped. They never stop you when you need them Pratima said to herself, as she sank further into her seat. They were discussing the women, Pratima could tell; she had observed the driver eye her through the mirror on the upper middle windshield. In fact he had caught her glance at him and had smiled faintly.

At that moment, the thought flashed into Pratima’s mind. He looked so familiar because he reminded her of her own son. About the same age, his features were somewhat similar. A squarish face with a sharp nose, side whiskers well below the lower earlobe. This man looked a bit too much like Nitin. It was to be her saving grace, Pratima realized later. She did not like the fact of the driver stealing glances at her from time to time. He was ogling her. She turned towards Manju and saw the two men around them in the back seat take a good look at both herself and Manju. The guy next to her was pressing hard on her hip.

Manju was of the generation of the new young women who had grown up in the prosperous ‘70s and ‘80s; young women of the new generation enjoyed a lot of freedom, but Pratima had remained conservative. She was happy with Jaswant, who owned and operated a furniture-making business in the industrial area. Jaswant drank with the boys on Friday nights and played golf on weekends.

The car was approaching the Muthaiga roundabout and Pratima hoped it would follow the Thika fork. Her heart sank as the car took the left fork for Kiambu and Karura Forest. Pratima got truly worried now. There were lots of lonely spots and side roads into Karura Forest. This could be the last half hour of her life. She thought of her family. Nitin had turned 19 and had completed his A levels, ready to go to University in the UK. Sheffield College of Engineering had given him a place for the coming September.

Reeta, her daughter, was doing her O-levels and was on the verge of adulthood; what an attractive young woman she would become. The family had committed itself to the new Kenya. They were all citizens and liked the country. They even socialized with new African friends and business associates. It was a good life. They had not been attracted to the idea of living in the west. Dharam, Pratima’s brother, had migrated to the UK and was always waxing lyrical about his life there. Pratima had visited his new home, in the industrial, midlands city of Birmingham. She had not liked the way the immigration officer had questioned her when she flew in, nor did she like the condescending way the people treated her.

There was no question that her own country had been going down. If only the politicians controlled their greed. The civic services had been breaking down. The telephones did not work, the water supply was irregular, power cuts were frequent. Everything could be fixed with a little magendo , greasing of the palm. And the horror of the new crime wave! Daring robberies occurred all the time, guns were used by robbers to kill, the police themselves were often involved in the crime and were utterly useless in providing protection. Only last week she had raised the question of possible migration out of the country with Jaswant. They had both decided that once both the kids had been sent off to University abroad, they would take stock and review the situation.

The car was speeding down a valley. They were now approaching Karura forest. She heard the men talking with each other. One of them was pointing to a dirt road just after the bridge at the bottom of the valley. The car slowed down. It was going to turn! Pratima started shaking with fear. She started saying the jappa prayer in her mind.

“Pull yourself together,” she told herself.

She would rather be killed than violated. She would not be able to face the shame if that happened, she would kill herself if the worst happened. Somewhat calmed as she reached that decision, she now turned to take a look at the others in the car. Manju was trembling and had her eyes closed. Of the two, Pratima knew she herself had better reserves of control and strength. On the other hand, Pratima knew an intriguing secret about Manju. Manju had been having a clandestine affair with her African boss. Somehow Manju could possibly draw on that resource, be able to deal with the lust of these men, talk them out of it, she did not know. The important thing was to keep one’s wits about one. Pratima was now petrified, cowering in her seat, unable to speak or make any move.

The car pulled up on a grassy knoll by some evergreen trees. The driver and the other two men stepped out and held a discussion. The spot was lonely and there was no sign of any person within miles. Then the driver approached Manju’s door and Pratima’s door and yanked it open.

“Toka inje!” he shouted.

Pratima did not like the look on his face. There was anger and lust there. He did not look handsome any more.

“You, come with me this way,” he said in English.

In fact, Pratima was surprised at his perfect elocution. One of the other men had already gone behind the trees and come back. The driver now said something to him in Kikuyu and the man headed for the car. The driver was holding Pratima by her hand and leading her towards the trees.

She realized this was her last chance to talk. She was thinking of Nitin, his muscular, youthful body. This lad was probably a year or two younger than Nitin. Would Nitin ever stoop to do something so heinous as this man was about to do? No, no, no, she told herself and found speech.

“You are like my son, his age, his height, even his appearance. If you do anything to me it is like doing it to your own mother!” she said. The words in Swahili poured out in a torrent. Her voice was distraught.

“Quiet!” he shouted and pulled her further into the bush. They could not be seen now by the others. She had observed that one of the other two men had escorted Manju away to the other side of the knoll. She had just caught a glimpse of the third man going back to the car. He was trying to pull out the long cushion off the back seat.

“You are my son,” she said firmly, stopping and looking into his eyes. She mustered as much emotion and strength as she had into her eyes.

“Tell me what your name is,” she said, continuing to look into his eyes. He blinked his eyes for a moment. There was hesitation.

“Chris,” he said.

“You are my son forever. If you do something now, I will die and think that my son is also dead,” she said the words without knowing what they meant.

“Chris, where is your mother?”

He had stopped walking. The man with the car-seat cushion emerged from behind the tall acacia tree and approached them. He got to within five yards of them and then dumped the cushion on the grass and abruptly turned back towards the car.

“You will have to kill me before I lie on that cushion,” she said and then added, “in any case, you have to tell me if your mother is alive. She is not alive, is she? I am your mother now,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I can love you like a son. I have a husband at home. You are my son,” she said. She held his hand tightly and said, “Hug me like you would hug your mother.”

Tears rolled down her eyes. He saw them and weakened, she knew.

“Hug me now, please.”

He did not move. She went close to him and put her arms around his shoulders and drew him to her chest. He pulled away with a jerk and shouted out to the man who had brought the cushion in.

“Kiguru, go take that cushion back to the car.”

He seemed angry. He turned to her and said, “Let us go back to the car.” He then shouted a further order to Kiguru, pointing in the direction where the third man had gone with Manju. He seemed angry for some reason.

They were now back near the car.

“Give me your purse, and take those bangles and earrings off,” he ordered. Pratima did as she was told and handed him the three pairs of gold bangles off her hands and then unscrewed her pearl ear rings out, handing them to him.

Manju now appeared with the other two men. She looked disheveled. Her sari was off her shoulders and was dragging behind her. She staggered in, huffing and in tears. Pratima heard Chris issue commands in Kikuyu to them, then he said to Pratima:

“Just hand in your bag and your jewelery. Ask your friend to do the same. Nothing will be done to you.”

Pratima nodded in agreement. Manju went to the back seat of the car and produced her handbag, giving it to Chris. She then took off her bangles and earrings and handed them in as well. Chris and the two men then got into the car and Chris revved the engine up. He waved at the women as the car turned and took off, back in the direction of the main road. The women remained on the spot they were standing on.

Pratima turned to Manju. Manju broke down into sobs.

“Oh, my God, what shall we do now?”

“How far did they go with you?” Pratima asked.

“He had me on the ground, but the other man turned up as he was still fumbling,” said Pratima, “and then they packed up, just like that. What did you say to that driver fellow? I think he issued the orders,” Manju said.

The two women remained silent for a while.

Then they worried about their security in the bush. The car was gone, they had no money. There could be wild animals, or people who might want to rob them. They started walking on the dirt road they had come on. They walked a few minutes and then saw an old man with a walking stick walking towards them. As he got close, Pratima approached him.

“Jambo, mzee, saidia sisi,” she said, “ntaka rudhi uku Nairobi.”

The old man nodded in sympathy. He said a few words in Kikuyu and pointed in the direction they were going. That seemed to be the way to the main paved road to Nairobi. The women walked another hundred yards and then stopped for a rest on a stone culvert. Soon a bunch of children arrived from the direction where they had left the old man. One of them spoke Swahili and said they were sent by the mzee to help the women. They escorted the women to the main road, asked them to turn left and wait there for a lift.

In less than 10 minutes a car came along, going in the direction of Nairobi. All the children waved at it to stop. Manju and Pratima also waved their hands. The car stopped. It was a van driven by an Asian man. His family was in the back. The women squeezed into the long back seat where room was made for them. They told their story to the driver as he took off.

The children waved goodbye.

Dharam was apprehensive about his own security in Nairobi on this visit. He persuaded his sister and brother-in-law to join him on a four-day game park retreat at the Game Lodge in the Samburu Game Reserve. There had been hold-ups and robberies even in game parks, but security had been beefed up and he felt the intimate atmosphere of a game park and its natural surroundings would be a good place for Manju to recuperate in.

Ever since the carjacking and the robbery, Manju had been having nightmares and been breaking down and sobbing several times a day. She had been saying that she had thought of suicide and would certainly have committed it had she been violated.

On the second day they had all gone for a game drive and had witnessed a cheetah hunt. A herd of tommies was stalked and chased and a young one felled by the sprinting cheetah.

“These western tourists, they come from thousands of miles away to see this!” said Dharam as he swung his beer mug to drink the pre-dinner toast.

Pratima seemed depressed.

“These western people deal with tragedies and crises in their lives much more aggressively than us. They are not passive. If a tragic thing happens they take action, fight back,” said Dharam. He stopped. He had to be sensitive. Pratima may take offence. She was silent but had nodded her head.

Dharam decided to drive the point home. Now was the moment.

“What you did was wise and sensible. You kept your wits about you and in fact saved yourself from the horror. You have to be proud of yourself, not be ashamed or embarrassed. You can go public and talk about it, even make money by selling your story, as they would in America. You don’t have to go that far, but for God’s sake, do not talk about suicide. You have been a hero!”

Tears streamed down Pratima’s fair face.

“It was horrible, how close I came to it. Jaswant and I have talked about migrating, difficult as it is going to be.”

Dharam was pleased to hear those words.

“Look here, do not worry about the kids. Reeta can stay with us as long as she has to, at our expense entirely. The thing to do is get her student’s visa forthwith, and then apply for your family’s immigration. There are ways of getting into Britain.”

There was a smile on Pratima’s face, but she knew sorrow deep down. A lifetime’s commitment, everything in her life that had meaning would be wiped out. The idea of suicide was not as irrational as it had sounded. The idea of leaving the country was death, her brother could never see. That is what was really cowardly, she now knew for certain. Dharam had no true feelings for the country that had nurtured him, or the wonderful people that lived in the country. He had a simple mind and she would, for the moment, humour him. She smiled demurely as she thought of Chris and his handsome face, that hug was warm and friendly, she had already developed a fond memory.

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