LALLS

The story of Vikram Lall's rise and fall begins in 1953, more than half a century after the great European powers divvied up the African continent at the 1885 Berlin Conference.

"I couldn't help feeling that both Bill and Njoroge were genuine, in their very different ways; only I, who stood in the middle, Vikram Lall, cherished son of an Indian grocer, sounded false to myself, rang hollow like a bad penny," he recalls years later in exile.