The Vidyarthis are icons in printing, media

Tv Presenter Smiriti Vidyarthi, Sudhir Vidyarthi and Girdhari Vidyarthi

The Vidyarthis are known for their formidable forays in media and printing via Colourprint which came into the limelight for printing radical publications in the dark days of single party dictatorship in the 1990s.

But the story of the Vidyarthis started with their patriarch, Shamdass Bootamal Horra, a stationmaster, arriving in Kenya from Punjabi, Northern India in 1896 as part of the Coolies constructing the Uganda Railway. He oversaw the Tsavo stretch, surviving the ‘Man Eaters’ there. He died in 1957. The Horra family name was dropped for Vidyarthi meaning ‘student.’