Set in the shadow of Kenya s independence from Great Britain Dance of the Jakaranda reimagines the special circumstances that brought black brown and white men together to lay the railroad that heralded the birth of the nation The novel traces the lives and loves of three men preacher Richard Turnbull the colonial administrator Ian McDonald and Indian technician Babu Salim whose lives intersect when they are implicated in the controversial birth of a child Years later when Babu s grandson Rajan who ekes out a living by singing Babu s epic tales of the railway s construction accidentally kisses a mysterious stranger in a dark nightclub the encounter provides the spark to illuminate the three men s shared murky past