Just Another Saturday Night in Udaipur (Kenya?)

Last Saturday night, I attended a party some distance from Udaipur—twenty-two kilometers outside of town to be exact. The party was held at a private residence, a high-ceilinged one-story place with a curving, interior marble staircase leading up to the roof. The house was secluded, surrounded on three sides by fields and fronted by a long, gated gravel drive and well-manicured lawn. Music could be played as loud and for as long as partygoers desired; there were no neighbors to complain. The roof was spacious and open to the stars, which shone with cool brilliance at this remove from the city. Food, beer, and transportation were provided free of charge—I, along with the others in my group—four Americans and three Indians—was picked up in Udaipur by private car and taken directly to the house.

The provenance of the party wasn’t clear, I think, to anyone in the group. It was hosted by a forty-something Indian, Surendra, who was acquainted in some manner with several East African university students who occasionally attended parties thrown by one of the Americans, Andrew. I had been led to believe that the party was a housewarming, but this proved not to be the case, as more of the truth emerged on our ride there. Shakil, who drove three of the other Americans and me in his little white hatchback (about half of the cars on the Indian road seem to be little white hatchbacks), owned the building in which several of the Africans rented. “They are my tenants,” he told us, more than once, by way of explanation. The party, in fact, was a celebration of the end of exams and the close of the academic year for the Africans. Andrew, by virtue of his acquaintance with both the Africans and Surendra, their apparent benefactor, had finagled an invitation for us all, not that it had probably taken much—foreigners, especially white ones, are hot commodities for any Indian celebration.

Ownership of the house was apparently shared by Surendra and Shakil, who were old friends. It was a retreat of sorts for each when necessary; both lived in the city, Surendra with a wife and thirteen-year-old son. Shakil had been a national field hockey team trainer and coach; Surendra was a businessman—he pointed out one of his gas stations on the ride home. I think that the house was newly built, which would explain the housewarming rumor, and why Shakil had difficulty finding it in the dark, as well as why he seemed uncertain as to which rooms lay behind which doors. We were the first car in our group to arrive, and the house was dark—we had expected the party to already be under way. “We may die here tonight,” someone joked. However, within fifteen minutes two more cars pulled up, disgorging our friends, the Africans, food, and an ample supply of beer. Things were, as they say, about to jump off.

In all, perhaps twenty students from East Africa —primarily Kenyans and Tanzanians, in addition to a few Ugandans—would populate the party, along with the eight in our group and a handful of Indian students. The night wore on, and the groups mixed with increasing confidence—talking, dancing to Akon, Sean Paul, and Fifty Cent, and enjoying the warm evening and delicious isolation (something to be savored in India). I discussed the Kenyan political situation with some of the students, talked about my limited experience of their country, and led one woman to cackle when I ventured a “How are you?” in her native tongue, Kamba.

Around midnight the music suddenly stopped. I was standing to one side of the roof, my view of the dance floor obstructed by the shelter of the stairway, which projected from the roof’s surface. I continued talking for a few minutes more, unconcerned, until shouting from the dance floor brought me around to investigate. The floor had cleared—in fact, nearly the entire roof had cleared—except for three Africans clustered together, the shouting, in incoherent Swahili, coming from a short but muscular Kenyan in a red t-shirt. I didn’t know his name, but I had found him to be jovial and spirited earlier in the evening—he had cracked several jokes for my benefit. Now he was agitated beyond reason; he had to be restrained by the other two from rushing downstairs. “His father is a poor man!” he shouted in English. “He is nothing!”

An incident had occurred near the dance floor that I was forced to reconstruct from disparate fragments of story. It was generally agreed that the Kenyan had been bumped into or had bumped into someone else, likely a Tanzanian named Eric; that words were exchanged; that someone, probably the Kenyan, had been pummeled to the ground and then repeatedly kicked by Eric and two other Tanzanians who had just arrived, uninvited; that a couple of the Americans had intervened to rescue the Kenyan; that someone had broken off a beer bottle and brandished it threateningly.

Some minutes after I had gone to investigate, Eric, chubby and baby-faced, in a white turtleneck with navy blazer, returned to the roof to make peace. As I stood among a clutch of Africans surrounding the two antagonists, Eric approached the Kenyan with hand extended. They seemed ready to shake until Gavin, another Kenyan who, not incidentally, was falling over drunk, reached from behind his compatriot and delivered a slap to the side of Eric’s head.

Things degenerated. Most of the partygoers collected in the driveway and front lawn. Both the Kenyan and Eric made their way downstairs, the former continuing to vituperate the latter and require restraint. Meanwhile Surendra turned his maroon Chevy SUV around in the driveway and part of my group piled in, preparing to leave, while others, myself included, continued to tend to a peacemaking role. At one point the Kenyan broke away from his handlers and pushed Eric over a two-foot drop-off between the driveway and lawn, sending him sprawling on the grass. When he rose Eric shattered a bottle on the coping that fringed the lawn and made for the Kenyan, before being restrained. “We should either get Eric or other guy in the car and go,” I said.

Geoffrey, a Kenyan, had another idea. “We should just let them fight now and everything will be fine tomorrow,” he said.

“Just get into the car and go,” a Kenyan named Michael told me softly. “We will take care of it.”

I told him that I didn’t think it was right to leave. However, after watching the Kenyan’s belligerence intensify with every passing minute, and perhaps fearing a general riot, I headed for the SUV. The Kenyan was raving almost incoherently. “I am richer than you!” he screamed at Surendra. “I am richer than all of you!” As we spent precious minutes corralling the rest of the group into the SUV, the Kenyan climbed into an open door and began to rant at its occupants. The vehicle was a “basket of shit.” Eric was a “cockroach”—shades of the Rwandan genocide. Meanwhile Geoffrey had turned on Gavin and knocked him to the ground with an open hand, before planting his foot at the base of Gavin's neck with a thud.

Andrew was having the greatest difficulty extricating himself from the crowd, and when the SUV finally took off, he wasn’t yet inside; he was forced to run beside the vehicle, hopping in at a gallop. The Kenyan chased after the car, beating his palms against the back window and bellowing menacingly. The gate at the end of the drive still had to be opened, but the SUV and its cargo—five Americans and four Indians, including Surendra—were safe. Shakil and the property’s caretaker—a middle-aged Indian—were left to quell the unrest.

Once on the road, with the success of the evacuation assured, Surendra seemed to sigh. “No more Africans,” he said. I protested, as did others. “They only want to fight,” he told us. Silence reigned for much of the ride back. A few minutes outside of Udaipur, Andrew received a phone call from Michael. Things had calmed down.