Braz Menezes
.Matata means 'trouble' in Swahili, as Chico discovers after jumping ship on a journey from India to Africa in 1928. Instead of his original destination of Mozambique, he arrives in the British-ruled Kenya. With some skills and much sweat, he navigates the channels open to him under the racially segregated structure of the colony, while doing all to keep his Indo-Portuguese heritage alive, and dreaming only of retirement to his beloved Goa. Enter son Lando. Just two decades later all Chico's plans are on hold. Just Matata, narrated by Lando, from the perspective of a eleven year-old boy, brings history to life in these multi-layered stories that straddle two distinct colonies in mid 20th century - the bucolic and romantic Goa (Portuguese India) and the adventure-filled and yet precarious world of British Kenya. These tales transport the reader in dhows and steamships across the Indian Ocean; and in ox-drawn Scotch-wagons, horse-carriages, steam locomotives and bicycles between the two cultures. Sin, Saints and Settlers sum it all. From cashews and the coco-de-mer, the stories, alternatively funny, sad or evocative, deal with the enduring dichotomy between generations, races, cultures and love, and the transformational impact of destiny-changing events in life's perpetual journey.
Just Matata