Southall musings

London is sometimes portrayed as this huge cultural melting pot with everyone living side by side, tolerating if not always accepting of each other.  In parts this is true, but it also betrays just how segregated and separate different communities still are.   I live in West London, in a part perhaps well suited to me: 2 miles one way and I am in Richmond:  leafy, expensive, wealthy and overwhelmingly white. Here, on a sunny Sunday afternoon the riverbanks are filled with people sitting out drinking their pints of cold lager while cricketers play nearby on Richmond Green.  All the major chains vie for space: Giraffe, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Petit Bateau, Gap, Space NK and so on. From my own cultural background (white, middle class) I should be at home here but despite its familiarity I feel out of place.  Instead, 2 miles the other way and I am in Hounslow – overtly much poorer with a busy Primark, Argos, Marks & Spencer discount outlet, KFC, pound shops, discount shoe stores and the Treaty Centre with its Wilkinsons and Debenhams. It is predominantly Asian, with an increasing minority of Somali and Polish.  This is not my culture and yet I feel more comfortable here while at the same time feeling an outsider. At one end of Hounslow High Street you can buy every kind of spice, halal meat, naan, Turkish bread, olives, fruit and vegetables in the local shops.  Drive past the Treaty Centre to Hounslow West and you go past the new large Quality Foods supermarket, stocking everything you would ever need for an Indian meal: dhal, chapati flour, basmati rice, spices, chillies, coriander, samosas, yoghurt etc. together with a stall selling pani puri, bhel puri and papri chaat to take away.  On this side of Hounslow you will also find the local gurdwara, Laxmi Narayan Hindu temple and Hounslow Jamia Masjid and Islamic Centre.

And then of course there is Southall.  In my 20s, I used to travel across London from Croydon or East London – where I was living at the time – to visit Southall, or ‘Little India’.  I just loved the clothes, the textiles, materials, spices, sweets and food shops.  It was so different to where I had been brought up and, deprived of such diverse cultural variation in my youth, I marvelled that such places existed in Britain at all.  But it wasn’t my culture, or at least not my culture of birth or upbringing, but my culture by adoption which is not obvious to those around me.  I was, and am (less so) conscious of being very much a minority walking down the Broadway there, passing very few – if any – other white people. Going back to my 20s, I also have memories of going there with my then boyfriend.  His family were Punjabi Sikh / Hindu and although all were educated, professional (he was a doctor), all the siblings seemed to occupy the uncertain space of second generation immigrants with one foot in Punjabi culture, the other in Western culture (though strictly speaking he was first generation, having spent his first 2 years in the Punjab).  Such was the way with our relationship about which, although lasting many years, he was never able to be up front with his family.  There is certainly a rich tale to be told there, and perhaps one day I will tell it.  For the moment, however, my memory is of his anxiety and nervousness about walking next to me (a gori) down the Broadway, for fear of recognition by some relative or family acquaintance who would then pass the news back to his family in Birmingham and cause all sorts of trouble for him.  And this was an educated man who in other areas of his life was capable, confident and commanded respect.  Yes I was young, naïve and overly accommodating.  Suffice to say I would never accept such treatment nowadays - I have changed and times have changed as well.

At times, during trips to Southall on my own, I have wondered whether I had been on the receiving end of discrimination, because of my whiteness and ‘outsider’ status in Southall.  Once I went into a well-known sweet shop to buy sweets.  I was the only one in the shop and there were 2 men behind the counter.  I waited patiently to be served, but each ignored my presence and carried on busying themselves in whatever they were caught up in doing.  It was obvious that I was there, and finally one of them turned to me and served me in a fairly ungracious manner.  As with all these things, in retrospect I wish I had said something, made a complaint – which I would do, now that I am older and (hopefully) wiser.  

Another time, I went to Southall with my son – then aged around 5 or 6.  He had decided he wanted a kurta pyjama to wear.   I have no idea where he got this idea from, except that he had many Asian friends at his school, who might have fostered this interest.  So, ever the accommodating parent, off we went to buy one.  Kurta pyjama duly purchased (amid slightly strange looks from the shop assistant), my son said he was hungry, so I found a nearby café with the hope that some fairly non-spicy food would be available for him.  We sat down and waited to be served, and waited, and waited.  People came in after us and were served – but we were not.  I wondered whether I should go up to the counter and order, but others had their orders taken at the table.  Now I was confused as to what the system was.  Finally another customer came to my rescue, who, seeing that we had been waiting a long time, took matters into her own hands and summoned a waiter to come and take our order – finally.  Again, I can only surmise as to what was going on – was it a genuine mistake, or deliberate?

On a slightly more light-hearted note: a couple of years ago Susen had asked whether I could get a box of sweets for his aunt and uncle in Birmingham – where we were due to visit on our way to Wales.    So, one morning I dutifully went to ‘Bikanervala’ in Southall, where I knew they sold sweets with the ‘silvery paper’ we both liked.  Completely forgetting, by this stage, that I was white – not Asian - I just began matter of factually pointing to which sweets I wanted in the mix, together with their (Hindi) names.  The person behind the counter obliged without question, but finally – bemused at this white, blonde gori knowing so much about Indian sweets – he asked whether they were for myself.  I said it was for a present – but then explained that my partner was Bengali, and they were for his aunt and uncle.  Some recognition! – and a smooth transaction afterwards.  How weird though – I had forgotten that I was white and blonde, and therefore strange in his eyes to be buying Indian sweets (OK Susen would say ‘Bengali sweets’ – and actually this was the sign in Bikanervala).

 

And so to our visit a couple of days ago.  We had a rare weekday off and decided to go for lunch at Giftos in Southall.  Thankfully Susen has no hang-ups or worries about walking down the Broadway with him – although we do attract some attention by passers-by.  In days gone by, with my ex-boyfriend, I really think I wanted to ‘belong’ somewhere, to a close-knit community that cared about you – in a way that I felt my family background did not.  But the other day, I walk down the Broadway and I have mixed feelings.  Yes, there is community, family, businesses, identity, support and shared experience.  But also, having read ‘Shamed’ by Sarbjit Kaur Athwal (a compelling read, I would recommend), I feel the claustrophobia and stifling nature of close-knit communities – quick to judge on those not adhering to accepted norms.  You appreciate why people like the anonymity and freedom of large urban cities.

As we walk down the Broadway, we stop off at a couple of DVD stalls – looking for both ‘Roja’ and ‘Bombay’, directed by Mani Ratnam.  Fortunately the Sikh stall keeper does not blink an eyelid at my Englishness, and unexpected knowledge of Bollywood.

Once seated in Giftos, we order almost exactly the same as we always do.  I people watch.  Next to us are seated a white elderly woman, an Asian man and a younger fair-skinned Asian-looking man.  I think what the connection might be.  I conclude: possibly an English woman married to an Indian / Pakistani man, together with their adult son.  She is older than most – perhaps a marriage in the 1960s when cross-cultural relationships were very much frowned on, but also a time when integration was more prevalent as the small minority Indian community was forced to interact with the predominant white, western culture.  Later, it was not so imperative as more wives and families joined their pioneering husbands over in the UK.

On leaving Giftos, walking back to the car, I am struck by the Muslim girls in shalwar kameez, dupatta and blazer just coming out of school.  Also the young girls – aged perhaps 7/8 – wearing hijabs – to my understanding, not a requirement of Islam - if ever - but certainly not before puberty.  In addition to the older woman in Giftos I see perhaps only 2 other white people on the street in the time we are there.

And back home to my Indian-English household.  Yesterday (halal) chicken tikka masala, dhal, rice and chapatis to eat.  Today beef stew with dumplings.  A snapshot of (non)-integrated London life.

 

 

 

Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC TV) – Indian Journeys

[caption id="attachment_776" align="alignleft" width="280"] Image courtesy of the BBC[/caption]

“Whenever I come to India I realise how English I am.....”, so says Gurinder Chadha in the programme dedicated to tracing her family history. This is undoubtedly a sentiment with which I would concur, particularly when arriving at Kolkata Airport and being driven into the smells and sounds of the city.

‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ is a BBC series delving into the family histories of celebrities. Recently a programme featured Nitin Ganatra, the Eastenders actor, and I realised I had recorded programmes featuring Meera Syal, a comedian / actress / writer, perhaps best known for the TV series ‘Goodness Gracious Me’, and Gurinder Chadha, a film director best known for ‘Bend It Like Beckham’.

Each family had slightly different journeys in reaching the UK.  Ganatra and Chadha were both born in Kenya before their parents came to the UK following discrimination against foreigners after independence, while Syal’s parents came directly from India. Their family histories are perhaps representative of many Indian families in the UK, some of whom had to struggle when their qualifications were not recognised and they could not bring money - from Kenya in particular.

I recognised many of the celebrities’ traits and culture. Like me they were all second generation, but often with a deep-rooted insecurity regarding their identity. Were they Indian, wearing Indian clothes and going to festivals, speaking Indian languages, or were they English? You learn these insecurities are perfectly normal amongst the second generation. The celebrities all spoke their parents’ language but could not read or write it. They spoke to their parents in English, and responses were in a mix of languages. When they spoke an Indian language, I realised there was a slight hesitancy as if unwilling, but then the words flowed.

For the Kenyan-born Ganatra and Chadha, the sense of insecurity and dislocation was perhaps even stronger given that they had 3 different cultures to assimilate: English, Kenyan and Indian. Ganatra’s antecedents had come to Kenya from Gujarat to work as labourers on the railroads in the 1890s, and had stayed setting up shops in the newly built Kenyan railway towns. Chadha’s great-grandparents had come from the Punjab as policemen and later set up trading posts. From the photos their lives in Kenya seemed comfortable with a strong sense of community. I was surprised there were Indian schools for the children, temples and gurdwaras, but their development is indicative of the size of the Indian community in Kenya. What was interesting was the continuous contact with relatives in India, bringing brothers to work in Kenya, the sending home of money, frequent journeys and long stays in India to, for example, marry off sisters. So those familial links were always strong and maintained.

After Kenyan independence in 1963 Indians were forced to choose between their British passports and adopting Kenyan nationality. There was increasing tension between the black majority and Indians, and many chose to come to the UK from the late 1960s onwards.  Chadha recounted how her father was unable to find suitable work in the UK and felt himself forced to shave off his beard, a religious prerequisite for a Sikh, because of discrimination, and then found work as a postman. Ganatra’s father, meanwhile, found it difficult to raise finance for his business ventures but eventually paid back his first loan, for £2,000, early.

Syal differentiates herself to some extent by focusing on the fact that her parents had a “love marriage” which must have been unusual in its time, perhaps the early 60s, and that they crossed the religious divide, one a Hindu and the other a Sikh. I presumed the marriages of Chadha and Ganatra’s parents were arranged. Syal’s background seemed the most comfortable in India with a grandfather being a journalist in pre-Independence India.

Of the three celebrities, Ganatra’s ancestors appear to have come from the most impoverished background. Ganatra was shocked by the fact that his maternal grandparents were married at the ages of 6 and 10, but what was heart rending was that so many of his uncles and aunts died at a very early age. Often the deaths were not reported but researchers found details of the death of an aunt and Ganatra was given an official death certificate. These early deaths were attributed to the high rate of complications in pregnancy and birth in young girls married before their own bodies were fully mature, as well as the high cost and limited availability of food, and diseases like malaria.  It was probably famine and disease that forced Ganatra’s grandfather to take a very hard labouring job in Kenya.

What is surprising at times is how little awareness of family history there is or that facts have been glossed over even from two generations previously. Perhaps there is a desire not to talk about some elements of family history. Ganatra was not aware of his grandparents’ early marriage or of the deaths of family members. In addition, Ganatra did not seem to know about the political tensions that drove his parents out of Kenya. Chadha believes she has a black African cousin but family members alternately support and deny the notion. Her family believes they may be related to a noble house. Amongst my own family anecdotes there is an assumption that my paternal grandfather was doctor to the King of Nepal. I had visions of going to Kathmandu and trying to ascertain the provenance of the story.

Towards the end of each programme the celebrities try to find their home village in India, or in Chadha’s case in what is now Pakistan. Often that is quite moving, particular for someone like them who is a product of a trans-national diaspora. Ganatra found a man who knew his family and, without prompting it seems, knew that they had gone to Africa.

The celebrities also try to find records of their families.  Unlike in the UK where it would be a matter of looking at censuses, and registers of births, deaths and marriages, such government records did not exist in India. Instead family histories are noted by priests in books or on cloth going back several generations.  However priests, have to manually go through the records as there are no indexes. Syal’s family records are noted on a single piece of cloth to prevent fraud. The sexist nature of Indian society becomes apparent when it is revealed that the records only follow the male line.

I have over time researched a little into my family history. I have records and documents of my grandfather’s medical student days, one uncle painstakingly wrote me out a comprehensive family tree, and I have visited the house in the grounds of a hospital in a small town in West Bengal where my father was born. I have collected more information, and with the help of cousins, and surviving uncles and aunts will try and visit more places relevant to our family including houses that are still family owned.

While the three celebrities and I are second generation, although the Kenyan born-duo’s families might have been in Kenya for 2-3 generations previously, there is a strong connection to India but it remains to be seen how future generations will feel the pull of India. There might be an interest in some elements of culture like food, clothes and Bollywood, but there might be little interest in exploring India and family history. Almost certainly future generations will not speak or understand any Indian languages. My understanding is that, while members of the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean retained some Indian culture, they feel emotionally distant from India.  My generation was almost forced to assimilate as there was little Indian culture in the UK to explore. Like the three celebrities I found the pull of India greater as one gets older but balanced by a greater security to explore the culture and my roots.

 

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Could you be married without knowing it? What the UK might learn from India

I have never been a big fan of marriage here in the UK and have avoided it myself (so far!)  It carries with it a history of patriarchal baggage to my mind and a 1950s – type image of being the perfect housewife, content to be cook, cleaner and nanny inside the home and nothing more than an appendage to your husband.  Historically, marriage has not been kind to women.  In the 19^th century (UK), married women did not even legally exist, their identity being subsumed into their husband’s.  So, a married woman could not own property, sign her own legal documents, keep her own salary, enter into a contract or pursue an education against her husband’s wishes.  Even in the 1970s a married woman could not obtain a mortgage without her husband’s signature and rape wasn’t criminalized within marriage until 1991 (and sadly still not criminalized in India).  Women were, and still are, expected (though not legally bound in the UK) to change their surname to their husband’s – an important marker of one’s own identity and family history.  [Though I notice that in a recent European Court of Human Rights case, the judges ruled that to legally require a woman to change her name – as in Turkey – was discriminatory (1)].

Nowadays, although law reform and social change have made marriage more of an equal partnership between men and women, its popularity is still declining.  So, just as same sex couples are set to gain the same right to marriage as heterosexual couples in the UK, statistics show that cohabiting couples are as likely to have children as married couples.  Living together – before or instead of marriage – is so accepted now that even Prince William and Kate Middleton lived together before their marriage.

For cohabiting couples in the UK, however, there still persists the myth of the ‘common law marriage’ with either partner assuming they have acquired some rights (for example to property or businesses) by virtue of having lived together and/or had children.  Unfortunately this is not the case and can lead to much hardship and unfairness on the breakdown of the relationship.  A patchwork of other laws have to be relied on (such as trust law or the Children’s Act 1989) to attempt a solution and although the Law Commission recommended legal change in its 2007 report on cohabitation, so far nothing has been done.

In India, by contrast, marriage is still an expectation in most people’s lives.  Relationships outside marriage – while perhaps becoming more common in the major urban centres – are still not accepted and marriage at a young age (including child marriage) is still widespread (child marriage is illegal in India, although still sadly very common). Anyone who saw this week’s edition of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ on BBC1 featuring East Ender’s actor Nitin Ganatra will have learnt how his own grandparents were married in Gujarat at the ages of only 6 and 10.  Registration of a marriage, however, is not (yet) compulsory, which can lead to disputes over the existence of an actual marriage (2).

With this background, it was therefore with interest that I read about the recent Madras High Court judgment in the case of Aysha v Ozir Hassan.  Jayna Kothari, an advocate in Bangalore and a founder member of the Centre for Law and Policy Research (3), has written about the case elsewhere, and I draw on her analysis here (4).  Briefly, the background was that Aysha had been in a relationship with Ozir, with whom she had 2 children.  She claimed they were married, but had no proof of this.  The relationship broke up and Aysha was left to care for the 2 children.  Aysha then made an application to the Family Court for maintenance for both her and the 2 children.  The Family Court initially rejected her claim for maintenance because of the lack of evidence of a marriage but this was overruled by the High Court who referred to hospital records where Ozir had said he was her husband.  On this basis, the Judge granted the maintenance sought by Aysha.  The Judge’s reasoning was that since the couple held themselves out to be married and had lived together, their relationship was in the nature of a marriage.  There had already been a precedent for this kind of decision in 2011 – although not relied on by the Judge here - where the Supreme Court had laid down a number of conditions for cohabiting couples which, if met, would hold their relationship to be in the nature of a marriage (5).  So far so good – and already it goes further than UK law would allow.

But the Judge didn’t stop at that.  He went on to say that all sexual relationships are in the nature of marriage – and couples could therefore not separate without getting a ‘divorce’ – so all sexual relationships carried all the consequences of a marriage.

This was an interesting development.  You can imagine the calculations going through the minds of some more liberal types – trying to work out how many times they might have been married without even realizing it!   Despair at the undermining of Indian culture was another reaction – for example one reader commenting in the Times of India (online), ‘Our Indian tradition is entirely different from this court ruling we have a belief marriage is fixed in heaven and married life is holy one sex is a part of married life.  I really do not understand where our lives are leading by such kind of ruling by courts’ (19 June 2013).

The consensus of legal opinion, however, seems to be that making all sexual relationships into marriage was probably not really central to the Judge’s decision, so doesn’t set any new precedents.  The Judge in this case was probably just interpreting the law as he saw it to ensure justice for Aysha and maintenance for her 2 children and lack of appropriate words or language may have hampered the Judge.

Nevertheless, interesting times in India.  If India follows the Western route, in increasingly downplaying the importance of marriage – with many more cohabiting couples – these are issues that will continue to occur.  And if cohabitating couples are given the same rights as married couples (following the 2011 Supreme Court case - above), what effect will that have on the future popularity of marriage in India?  Will it still be essential - if not for legal rights, but for divine or social blessing?  Maybe the UK should keep an eye on developments in India as a way forward for cohabiting couples here in the UK.

(1)   Leventoğlu Abdulkadiroğlu v. Turkey

(2)   This is set to change shortly with the passing of a new bill.

(3)   http://clpr.org.in/

(4)   Her article is available at http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/indiaatlse/2013/07/15/what-rights-marriage/#more-1727

(5)   See the case of D.Veluswamy v Patchiammal.  The conditions are a) the couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses b) they must be of the legal age to marry c) they must be unmarried and so qualify to be married d) they must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to society as being spouses for a significant period of time.

Masala Zone – Restaurant Home Cooked Indian Food

Like Roti Chai this is one of those places we have been meaning to try for a few months now and so a quiet Sunday recently saw us taking the bus to the Covent Garden branch just behind the Royal Opera House for lunch. We had also been recommended Masala Zone by one of Asma Khan’s Bengali friends so it was somewhere we had to experience.

Masala Zone has a strong restaurant pedigree with others in its London stable including Amaya, Chutney Mary and Veeraswamy. It has a number of locations in the capital. The restaurant suggests that the best food in India is not found in restaurants but in the home and in the form of street food. The thali, a complete meal on a tray, is the centre piece of its menu and intended to replicate the combination of the home and the street. Furthermore, it suggests that its food is a far cry from that of the average curry house in the UK.

The restaurant has clean, modern lines, and the furnishings are simple but adequate. Unlike Wagamama’s or Busaba Eathai the tables are separate. In the Covent Garden branch Rajasthani puppets are suspended from the ceiling which gives the restaurant plenty of India related atmosphere, character, and colour.

On that Sunday afternoon the restaurant was quiet and we received an immediate warm welcome. There was quite an international clientele with Arab women and Indian families from India, who perhaps were taking economical options after the fall of the rupee.

The menu consists of street food, individual curries, and thalis which are small quantities of each dish presented in small bowls on a large stainless steel tray. The restaurant did have a number of special offers which rather confused us but we stuck to the main menu. Sue chose the Pre-theatre Thali with the Chicken Mangalore and I the Grand Thali with Goan Prawn. Otherwise our thalis were identical. Our thalis comprised rice, chapatti, dhal, cauliflower curry, potato curry, onion bhaji, raita, a small salad and coriander chutney. Immediately we felt the quantity of rice would be inadequate so we ordered more.

We found the thali worked well with well-judged combinations and quantities, rice apart. I found the cauliflower and potato curries to be very good and I could have eaten a lot more in theory. However, my Goan Prawn curry was rather bland and disappointing. But Sue’s Mangalore Chicken was very tasty, judging by the small bite I had. I’m not generally a great fan of chapatis but these were well-cooked and prepared. The thalis were surprisingly filling and we both struggled to finish ours, and weren’t able to tackle any desserts.

I would concur with Masala Zone’s marketing in suggesting that the food is better than that of the average curry house. The service was swift and professional. Apart from my bland Goan Prawn curry my only criticism would be that the breadth of the menu andd special offers might be confusing, particularly if trying to introduce people to a relatively new way of presenting Indian food in restaurants.

Our bill was £42 including service which included two rounds of mango lassis each. We thought it good value in terms of the quality of the food, good service and the location. I would rate it 6-7 / 10, and would suggest it would be ideal for a quick lunch or dinner but perhaps not worth a special trip. However, the chain is exactly what the capital needs to rival Wagamama’s or Busaba Eathai for quality and consistent Eastern food.

Masala Zone, 48 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DA  Tel: 020 7379 0101

www.masalazone.com