My father Rashmi was born and raised in Jinja – a Ugandan city on the shores of Lake Victoria. His dad and mom have been Gujaratis, from north west India, who had crossed the Indian Ocean to British East Africa earlier than the Second World War, the place my grandfather grew to become the director of a giant Asian-owned meals firm.
My household have been topics of the British Crown – although not British residents – and my father grew up through the Empire’s lengthy sundown years. India itself gained independence in 1947. And the Union Jack was lowered for the ultimate time in Uganda in 1962.
My father has nothing however fond reminiscences of his formative years, enjoying cricket and dodging hippos beneath equatorial skies. The climate was good day by day, he tells us. So too the meals, the great thing about nature, the power of the neighborhood he was a part of. Still is a part of.
But he additionally grew up in a semi-segregated society. Children of various races attended completely different faculties. There have been white-only golf equipment and swimming swimming pools. He recollects little hostility between the races, however separation there definitely was. This was the life he knew till shifting to London as a scholar in 1964.
So on the time of Amin’s ultimatum, my father was now not a resident of Uganda. But his dad and mom have been. So too many aunts, uncles, cousins and pals. They had no selection however to flee their houses, abandoning possessions, reminiscences and a entire lifestyle.
Many got here to the UK, as a part of the 27,000 Ugandan Asians the British Government…
