Food writer Meera Sodha has travelled to Uganda with her father, Raj, giving him the chance to revisit the country where he spent his childhood. The journey was deeply personal because he had avoided returning for many years. Raj left Uganda in 1970 as a student, shortly before the government of Idi Amin ordered the country’s Asian population to leave. Although he eventually built a new life in Britain, memories of his early years remained difficult. For his daughter, the trip offered an opportunity to understand her family’s past and the experiences that shaped her father’s life.
Raj’s childhood had been marked by hardship and loss. His mother died when he was very young, and his father’s second marriage brought further difficulties. Meera describes how food shortages, harsh treatment and an unstable home environment affected him and his siblings. Those experiences continued to influence his relationship with food and family life decades later. Meera believes that the care and attention her father showed his own family were connected to the difficult childhood he had experienced. His reluctance to return to Uganda was therefore about more than distance; it was also linked to memories he had spent much of his life trying to leave behind.
The journey began through Meera’s work with Action Against Hunger, an organisation that supports people facing severe food shortages and malnutrition. She agreed to visit refugee settlements in Uganda but wanted her father to travel with her. Although he had previously refused similar invitations, he eventually agreed. Together, they visited places connected to his childhood, including Arua, where he had lived as a teenager. They found familiar landmarks, visited his family’s former shop and met people who still remembered members of his family from decades earlier.
One of the most emotional moments came when Raj returned to the small house where he had experienced some of his childhood suffering. He recognised the building but did not want to remain inside for long. Despite the difficult memories, he later said he was glad to have returned and to have met people who remembered his family. The journey also brought back memories of how he first met Meera’s mother when they were young. For Meera, the experience became a rare chance to connect family history with real places and people, while giving her father an opportunity to face a past he had avoided for much of his adult life.
