From India with love for education

The conventional theory about autobiographies is that they are too self-gazing.  Critics argue that more often than not those who seek to tell their stories are obsessed with their worth; that autobiographers hide more than they tell.

But there is also conventional wisdom that one can’t do much in society without loving oneself first before truly loving others.

So, there is a sense in which the love for the self that one inevitably has to endure when reading autobiographies is good. To read Rainbows in my Clouds is to meet someone who is totally in love with the world around her. Probably this is the first attribute of a good teacher, which is what Mrs Radhika Lee is.

This story carries you with it in the clouds from Cherai in Kerala, India, to Mombasa, then Nairobi. It is a story of nostalgia, of school and growing up, of teenage hood and dreams of adventure, travel to the unknown, settling in Kenya, immersing oneself in teaching, starting a family – its moments of joy and pain —  and settling down to manage a school.

Rainbows in my Clouds contains several stories – love, friendship, betrayal, abandonment, teaching, success in life, life in India of the 1960s, Kenya of the 1980s and 1990s, commitment to the cause of education — all in which Mrs Lee is a character who

withstands forces that would have made weaker minds and souls despair.

The writer teaches literature at the University of Nairobi