Culture-Society

For years Northern Uganda towns and villages were little more than dead places. A way of life forged over centuries was slowly grinding to a halt. The railway line and lifeline that linked the vast and fertile mineral rich region to the capital city of Kampala to the south where life was normal and business booming was dead. Road links within and to the outside world were impassible

Kenya’s World famous Writer Ngugi wa Thiongo has said of his Kenyan life that he had always assumed the presence of European influence. But he was, even as a writer, Ngugi said, totally unaware of the Indian presence in his life. Till one day in 2006, after he published his childhood memoirs. As he reread the work, the Indian presence in his life and throughout Kenya sprang at him from all over the pages. India he now realized had always been, even more than Europe, a part of his experience

Twice he was the Vice Chancellor of the prestigious Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Twice he took over the leadership of the college at a time of great upheaval on campus and in the country at large. The first time was in the heyday of 1977 towards the chaotic end of the eight year rule of Dictator Idi Amin.

You couldn’t mistake the look of surprise in the new student reporting to the Ahmadu Bello University for the first time at the beginning of the new school year. As everyone in Nigeria knows this is the period when the North-East wind blows and the land is drab and grey. Now however, once through the gates of the Ahmadu Bello the new student discovers an entirely new world. Whereas it is dry and dusty outside the gates, within the campus, the eye meets well watered and lovingly tended lawns, shrubs and parklands. Here the air feels different.