Samosas and stereotypes

The crowd well dressed people, sipping wine and nibbling at little triangular objects, had been on their feet for close to an hour, listening to tales of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Despite the inspirational nature of the material, they were, understandably, growing just a little restless.

Then the distinguished white-haired gentleman mounted the podium and told them the story of the small boy who made his fortune selling those savouries on the roadside…

Many, many years ago in a small village in central Kenya, a young Kikuyu woman — no longer able to contain her curiosity about the strange snacks that the dukawallahs at the trading centre ate so often and with such relish — ventured over to a group of women draped in multicoloured saris chattering away to each other in their strange language and gestured to the frying pan filled with the spitting brown triangles.

The women smiled and offered her one; she popped one into her mouth and nearly spat it out again; it was hot!

Then a little explosion of flavours erupted on her tongue. As she rolled her eyes in surprise and pleasure, they smiled and nodded some more, thrust another little magical triangle at her and said several times, “Samosa”.

Several weeks later, her son sat outside a little shop on the main road with a bowl full of these curious little shapes.

His fellow villagers circled around him warily before one of them ventured to taste one.

Soon, hands were reaching into pockets and coins were being exchanged for samosas.

Smiles appeared all round and more people began arriving, attracted by the excitement. The little boy’s fortune had been made.

This romantic tale of entrepreneurship and cultural exchange, related by elder Kenyan statesman Bethuel Kiplagat last month at the Nation Museum in Nairobi, is both historically inaccurate and symbolically spot-on.

The economic, social, cultural and culinary dialogue between India and East Africa is much, much older than the first encounter between dukawallah and Kikuyu, and the samosa and chapati testify to this with their ubiquity, so much so that most people are unaware not only that these are Indian foods, but even that the words themselves are Indian.

But the symbolism of the reluctant but ineluctable attraction between the two cultures, African and “Asian” and their respective geniuses, speaks volumes.

The occasion was the launch of the second stage of a grammatically challenged concept called “Revisioning Kenya” — a campaign to support innovative entrepreneurship and develop visionary thinking among both the African entrepreurs being supported and their South Asian sponsors.

This was not intended to be just another pious workshop that just another NGO was obliged to pull off so they could tick the box and secure next year’s allowances for more workshops and more 4wd cars.