A peek into Zanzibar and a life gone by:

It was about 25 years ago that my wife and I lived in Zanzibar, an African Island. This used to be known as the center of slave trade in the 15th century which was abolished in 1822.

Zanzibar has a beautiful tropical climate suitable for spices and is known for its excellent quality of cloves and many other spices. Bright mornings and heavy rains in the afternoon made us enjoy the rain and it reminded us so much of our Kerala days. We stayed in an apartment designated for our estate manager and it was close to one of the most beautiful beaches in Zanzibar. I was forced to stay there due to the sudden death of our Project manager who passed away after a cardiac arrest. Due to this, the Estate manager had to accompany the body to his native Village at Kerala and as requested by my Director, and I had to stay there for one month. So I rushed from my office at Mombasa, to Zanzibar to take care of the plantations and plant.

Just to give you a perspective, Zanzibar was a socialist Republic under Tanzania State. Most Zanzibaris are short in height. When I enquired about the reason for this, I was informed that about the slave trade business of the 15th century. This was new information to me at that time and had such little knowledge about it. Google, Wikipedia were not available those days and so we depended on some details from locals. They took us to the old port where this was going on. There were some old barracks-sheds, a few meters away from that place. Slaves were apparently bought and brought to those old barracks from far away African and Asian countries and were housed there. When there were a sufficient number of people collected, the traders called ships and sent them away to European and American countries.
Once the ship arrived, they were called one by one and were asked to pass through a tunnel: gauged like a “GO” and “NO GO” passage. Those who passed this gauge were sent to the ship directly and those who did not pass this measure, mainly of a particular height were sent back to the Zanzibar Island. That was the reason why Zanzibaris were shorter in height. They worked in plantations on the island. This trade business started doing good business and by the 16th century, regular companies were formed , supported by the governments of their respective countries. They were bought and sold and were treated rather inhumanly. They lived in pathetic conditions often resulting in large scale deaths.


We enjoyed our stay at this small but beautiful island with its stunning scenic beauty and enjoyed interacting with the innocent and sincere locals. I recall how we used to finish our dinner fairly early and devoted time to read inspiring life stories including our favorite story of Lee Iacocca. Quite unlike today where we kill time by watching television programmes.

My main job was to set up a processing unit for Natural Rubber latex and convert them into rubber sheets of marketable quality. The World Bank helped us set up rubber plantations in the Islands of Ngunja, Pemba, Mnemba and so on. They spent the allotted money and largely left the place after the investment for local teams to run the management of it subsequently. In a matter of seven years’, the plants grow to the tapping stage. Due to lack of experienced persons, the locals were found to take the latex and roll them into balls and invariably collected these in huge numbers. To their misfortune, It started attracting insects and with continued rains and climatic changes, started emitting an excessively foul smell. I still recollect the time when some traders brought them to me at a throw-away rate; this was also a time when natural rubber was in short supply widely. On enquiry, it was found that they were from these estates. I remember suggesting to them that they process them in a professional way and agreed to help them set up a modern unit there. I bought all required machines from the rubber growing state of Kerala, India and shipped tappers and managers too from there. To my pleasant surprise, the yield there was almost doubled and sometimes trebled that of the local Indian Estate. After completing my job at the East African Plantations, I left to another small Island in the Middle East called Bahrain, close to Saudi Arabia. Here again, the job was to start the first Rubber Factory to produce special rubber and Polyurethane products for all GCC countries. Being a pioneer company, although plenty of concessions were given by the Government of Bahrain under the able leadership of its rulers, we experienced mountains of setbacks at every stage to establish it as a lead medium factory and it was indeed rewarding when we managed getting an award for excellence in the shortest span of only four years! While there were a lot of hurdles as a professional, this was the most satisfying job carried out by me.

But my beautiful days at Zanzibar are marked in my memory as enchanting and many of my friends always ask me to go down my Zanzibar memory lane