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In 1898, young Kirparam boards a dhow in Karachi and heads for the shores of Africa. He knows only that workers are needed for a railway line being constructed there by the British. He survives a storm at sea, marauding lions and the plague to become one of the famous dukawallas who were integral to Nairobi’s growth.
Displaying rare courage, the wife he abandoned in India also sails across the Indian Ocean with her six-year-old child to reclaim her husband. Reunited, they go on to have more children, presiding over a trading empire that provides employment and prosperity to the second generation amid the upheavals of the second world war, racial segregation, the end of colonialism--and the magic of cinema. The third generation ventures out to newer continents–Europe, North America, Australia--for higher studies, and takes up new vocations, even new faiths.
Kirparam’s great-granddaughter Neera knows nothing of his fascinating story until, at the age of forty-two, she sees his portrait at a relative’s house. Her curiosity triggered by this picture, she sets out to uncover the tale of her ancestors, bit by bit--by probing personal histories, during trips to India and Pakistan, and by sifting through archives. Soaked in nostalgia for a bygone era, this remarkable tale recounts a Punjabi family’s adaptation to a new nation and new ways of seeing the world. In many ways, it illustrates how migration shaped multi-cultural societies in the twentieth century, creating today’s globalized world.
ISBN: 0143062158
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Pages : 440
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