SYNOPSIS
In Wembley, Raj Panesar is trying to run an ailing family business which imports fruits from the African state of Tarajia, birthplace of his parents. Raj is soon to marry the gorgeous and clever Meena who is a rising star at a City accountants, but he is having doubts. They marry. Raj is invited to travel to Tarajia to meet fruit growers; Meena is promoted and asked to travel to Bangladesh to audit British aid projects.
In the Kitwana slum in Tarajia, ten-year-old Mosi is bringing in a small wage as a shoe-shine. He is supporting his mother, Layla, and his two young sisters after his father died from Aids. Life is hard and climate change is making things worse. The family are helped by Mwenzi, secretary to embattled Mr Leigh, Cultural Attaché at the British High Commission. Mr Leigh’s nemesis and namesake, Mr Lee, is carving out a career at the Chinese Embassy. The Chinese are desperate for oil, recently discovered in the Northern provinces. Mr Lee will go to any lengths to get hold of it.
The scene is then set to follow the fortunes (and sometimes hilarious misfortunes) of these characters. We see Raj abandon Meena for Imara, a tireless development worker living in the slums. The two embark on a series of adventures involving rapacious landlords, oilmen, mysterious cave paintings, the landscapes and peoples of Africa, and a vintage motorbike. We follow Mosi and the children of the Township - the real heroes of the tale. We see how Meena forlornly follows Raj to Africa, but emerges with strength and dignity, finally making a new life for herself.
The novel (84,000 words) is a modern-day twist on a fairy tale. It deals with important current/ global issues with a light touch, humour and humanity and generous helpings of excitement, romance and adventure.
Sample from CHAPTER 26
MOSI
The attack at the latrines left a mark on Mosi. It was not so much his burns, as they were nothing compared to Hasina’s. It was not even the physical brutality of the attack, although that had been frightening. It was the fact that they could do this to a child, someone even younger than him. So they wanted to destroy the latrines and all those other things that those people in the new building had put up - this was what the landlords did if they had not received enough money. But why couldn’t they have got the people out of the way first? Why did it benefit them to have a child burnt almost to death? These thoughts kept praying on his mind. He had frequent nightmares in which he repeatedly heard Hasina’s screams. At first he assumed that the men had burnt the girl to teach the people a lesson. All poor people must obey the landlord or they will be punished and maybe even killed. This was a horrible thought - it meant that gangsters could come and kill you just because you owed them a few cents. How could anybody be safe, especially as the rents kept going up?
But there was one other thing that Mosi remembered about the attack. It was an image which stuck in his mind. When the landlord’s men were running towards the latrines he had been in their way and had seen the face of one of the attackers. The man looked as terrified as he, Mosi, felt. The men threw petrol onto the latrines, set fire to them and immediately ran off, wanting to get away as quickly as they could. It occurred to Mosi that the men did not like doing this, they may even have felt ashamed. They had been told to do it by the landlord and if they disobeyed they might be killed.
Sample from CHAPTER 28
RAJ
The stars were still visible but fading fast in the blue-grey vastness, replaced by streaks of pink and red. Raj lay, watching and marvelling. He had not witnessed dawn before, and certainly never in an African game park! A cool breeze brought rich smells of damp earth, aromatic plants and smouldering fire. His woman against him, long leg thrown across him, head on his shoulder and braids spilling onto his arm and chest. He kissed the top of her head, enjoying the feel of the heat of her body and her soft breasts. Anxiety, his constant companion over so many years, had left him. Nothing seemed to matter when you saw the big picture.
He desperately wanted a drink, so he carefully extricated himself and reached for the water bottle. He stood up and stretched. The fire had died down. He walked over to the trees, enjoying the cool air on his nakedness. The wildebeest were grazing around the hill. They looked at him quizzically with their strange, long, melancholic faces and then went back to their grass. Below in the valley a number of small deer were feeding, and behind them zebras. Large birds circled overhead, occasionally swooping low on the hunt for small animals.
Then Raj saw him, below in a gathering of trees - a large bull elephant. The creature stood quite still, his trunk frisking a bush. He was clearly a picky eater. He looked up, saw Raj and appeared to nod to him. It seemed like a friendly gesture from one solitary male animal to another. It made him feel privileged, and slightly humbled. How many people had ever experienced this? All the world’s leaders should come and see what he was seeing. They might then realise that we are not the only species on the planet.
Raj was not sure how long he spent looking at the elephant, but was soon aware that Imara was standing beside him. She took his hand and smiled at him. They watched the elephant together for a while and then she led him back to bed.
Sample from CHAPTER 31
MEENA
At Lembard and Leevi, Meena said nothing about the tribulations she suffered. Jonathan, tactful as ever, did remark on how she had lost weight. She quickly retorted, saying that she was glad that her diet was working. She returned to work the next day wearing a new lime green outfit size 8. Everybody, including Jonathan, remarked on how well it suited her.
Her job turned out to be the best therapy for grief, loss and rejection. It gave meaning to her life, and a sense that she was
valued and needed. She buried herself in work, frequently staying until seven in the evening, dreading the prospect of home and loneliness. Her capable handling of the Bangladeshi contracts won her praise and demonstrated a talent for leadership. Further promotion was mooted, maybe one day ‘head of operations in Asia’. In line with company protocol she made sure she kept her personal feelings well in check; and after Mr Stephenson’s strictures she made no further comments, other than the purely financial, about the aid programmes she oversaw. She invented a new mantra which she would repeat to herself at moments of doubt: ‘It’s about figures not facts, stupid!’
She enjoyed the mechanics of work, the ability to finish a job, to put away the files with the feeling of satisfaction. She knew instinctively that the sense of a job well done was helping her to cope with other things in her life that were undone. Figures on a balance sheet were so far removed from the messy reality of life, whether in Wembley or Bangladesh. Any misgivings she might have felt about certain aspects of her work, about ethics, about what she had witnessed in Bangladesh, remained buried.
Remained buried, but how deep and for how long? Sometimes her mind would wander, usually when she was on the tube for some reason. She used to plan her work on the tube, but now she would deconstruct it. She sat, or stood, amongst the crush of commuters and visitors and tried to imagine objective reality, tried to look beyond the conceits, the slogans, the received wisdoms, the hype, the cynicism, the Jonathans. She wanted to calculate what effect she was having on other people’s lives. If she made a phone call now would it save a child in three years time? If she resigned and gave all her salary to a primary health programme in Dhaka would that make a greater impact than staying in her present post? She realised that this kind of thinking could lead to madness - but we should at least to try to understand cause and effect, to examine what was really happening, to judge what genuinely mattered shouldn’t we? Why was the climate changing? Why was there a record number of billionaires? Why did one billion people exist without clean drinking water? Why was shallowness a virtue and honesty a sin?
Needless to say Meena came to no firm conclusions, but it certainly made the journeys go more quickly, and it stopped her thinking about Raj...
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