When we called our member, Ms. K. Purkayastha, she was enjoying her morning cuppa. Having lived for many years in Lagos, Nigeria, she reminisced about her time there during our chat.
Many people in India misunderstand African countries, assuming they are poor and filled with jungles and wildlife. The reality is quite different. Nigeria, for example, is a West African country with several large cities, and Lagos is one of them. We never lacked anything. To put things in perspective, I purchased my Staffordshire dinner set in Lagos. In fact, I feel our lifestyle was better there than here. We lived in an apartment with round-the-clock help. Here, our help is part-time—they come in the morning, perform their duties, and leave. For the rest of the day, we must manage everything ourselves.
In Lagos, the locals spoke Yoruba. My son learned the language and could converse with them. I made do with English, which served as the lingua franca. The Sindhi community first established trade and business there, and today, Indian community halls can be found in most big cities. The Indian communities would come together to celebrate festivals such as Holi, Diwali, Durga Puja, Lakshmi Puja, Saraswati Puja, etc. The Sindhi communities weren’t particularly enthusiastic about Kali Puja, which is probably the one Bengali festival I don’t remember being celebrated there.
I enjoyed visiting the cocoa plantations in Ghana, though I missed out on seeing the coffee plantations. Ironically, I would drink high-grade coffee exported from African countries like Ghana to the West, processed there, and then traded back to Africa for sale. I have always enjoyed expensive coffee and still retain my taste for it—some habits die hard, I guess! When I visited India, I would bring back Darjeeling tea, but I always found the coffee in Africa to be excellent. Ethiopia, I believe, is the largest producer of single-origin coffee beans.
It wasn’t just the coffee that made my life in Lagos comfortable; the people were lovely and full of life. I look back on those days with fondness. Kolkata is home for me, but Lagos was truly a home away from home. In Lagos, I never felt like a foreigner.
(As narrated to Support Elders by our member)
