The Boy in the Oversized Smock

Book excerpt: This is the simple but powerful biographical story of Mensa. Mensa went to school under the colonial British educational system during the eventful post-independence years. The profession of his parents, who were both teachers, put him always on the move. But his problems of movement were compounded when the parents divorced. Eventually he ended up in boarding school, and he loved it to death because the alternative was a nonexistent home life. The novel captures his life from school to school, hopping from home to home. It is mostly about boarding school life interlaced with wicked humor. A parallel poignant story is the story of kids from broken homes, especially the one in which the woman plays the role of the vanished parent.