Today I say goodbye

Today, I say goodbye to my maternal grandfather (my Nana), Vaghji Velji Gudka, who passed away aged 93 in Mombasa following a peaceful death.





The name Vaghji Velji Gudka resonated with several East African Oshwals. I recall my Mom saying to me that if ever I got lost at the Mahajanwadi (the Oshwal community centre in Mombasa) or anywhere else in Kenya for that matter, all I would need to say is that Vaghji Velji Gudka is my grandfather. That name in itself would instantly provide anyone with an indicator of the family I come from.

When I think of my Nana, I think of a pioneer for the East African Oshwal community, a man who lived through the British colonial Raj in India and East Africa, the second World War, Kenya's independence from the British and the attempted 1982 coup against the then Moi government in Kenya. All of these events brought gigantic personal socio-economic challenges for Nana. At a time when scores decided to migrate from Kenya, Nana remained steadfast and sought to make the best of any socio-economic skirmishes that so naturally emanated from such radical changes in the East African political landscape. Somewhere, he had a deep-seated conviction in his newly adopted homeland of Kenya. Or perhaps he was all too aware of the challenges that emerge with migration, himself an economic migrant from Gujarat (Navagam) in India during the time of the British Empire.

My enduring memory of my Nana is of 1997, when I was in secondary school at Oshwal Academy, Mombasa. The Oshwal community was celebrating 100 years of Oshwal settlement in Kenya and throughout the country families and social institutions grouped together to document their ancestors' heritage. I was one of a few students selected to interview Oshwal pioneers to develop a narrative for a special centenary publication that was to be released at the time. I remember interviewing my Nana in Gujarati, asking him to recount the challenges he faced when he first set foot ashore in Kenya. I remember him describing with much fervour the optimism with which he arrived at Mombasa with very little to count as wealth. He recounted several hardships that he and his wife, Late Jayaben, encountered in their pursuit to establish a new life in Mombasa and their resolve to put community service at the helm of their lives. He described ideals of nation-building, social service and "brathrubhaav" (brotherhood), all of which he had sought to imbibe in his new life in Kenya. I remember him breaking into tears when describing the loss of his wife, my Nani, and what that meant for him. What struck me at the time was how he was so proud of my Nani's achievements in women's welfare work and social service, all of which extended much beyond the kitchen, and how he had continued to encourage her to work towards the betterment of women's lives in the local community. This was the first time I saw my Nana cry. This was the first time I realised my Nana, in stark contrast to many of his peers, was for his time a rare feminist.

Today, I say goodbye to Vaghjibhai, simply for me an inspiration.

From an only child: cherish your siblings

I am an only child. I grew up in a relatively sheltered setting. As a child, I pretty much got what I wanted. My parents' love was concentrated, I got the best of an education that they could afford and I had my own room. Life was simple - all my toys were mine, all my clothes were mine and all the love and attention I wanted was mine.

That got suffocating in my teens, and by the time I hit 16, I was more than ready to head off to boarding school. It was an expensive school, one which at the time my parents would not have been able to afford for two or three children. But because I was just one, I received a privileged private school education in the Kent countryside, one which no doubt opened a multitude of doors for me.

As an only child, I never yearned for a sibling. Friends and cousins were in abundance, so there never really was a lack of playmates. As a teen, I relished the after-school solitude that many teens long for. My room was my unencumbered space, in which I could listen to my own kind of music and sleep in the way I wanted to sleep - all essentials for a happy teenage life.

Throughout university, I was too busy to think about being an only child. Those years were not family centric. They were about building myself, exploring new ideas and enjoying living an independent life in expensive central London. Again, at this juncture, it was clear that being an only child meant that I could live in London's expensive SW7 postcode and have the Bank of Mum and Dad fund my life there. After all, there wasn't anyone else to share in their finite resources.

Don't get me wrong. I worked hard in school, I worked hard at university. I made sure I got the right grades. I pursued (and sometimes created) opportunities for myself to forge a career path into the law. I knew that, at some stage, the taps would be turned off and my parents would expect me to stand on my own. But there never really was any financial hardship as a London student. Things were made easier for me. All really because I am an only child.

Now in my thirties, life's focus is beginning to change. Relationships are becoming the focus of life. And what I really miss at this stage is a sibling - someone of my blood whom I probably would have, as a child, considered an inevitable hindrance. But as my parents' mortality becomes real, the existential thought of there being no one in their absence to share memories of my childhood with is chilling.

There is something understood in a sibling relationship that is quite unique to it. Siblings might be separated by thousands of miles, but there is an unspoken rule that they stand by each other in times of need, they share family responsibilities when life demands, and they offer unsolicited counsel to each another. Blood is, after all, thicker than water. Siblings might have been known to bicker for years, but there is that unifying something upon the death of a parent that triggers adherence to this unspoken rule.

An old acquaintance, now in Canada, recently wrote to me with her Diwali greetings. For years she's had an up-and-down relationship with her brother in Kenya. Safe to say that their characters are poles apart. They lost their parents to illness a few years' ago. Her brother recently got married in Kenya. In her email to me, she attached some photos of the wedding. What struck me was the fact that notwithstanding her ups and downs with her brother, she made sure she was at that wedding. No doubt, her parents' absence meant that her presence at the wedding was now increasingly important. Her photos with her brother on what was clearly a long overdue happy day for her (especially after the tumultuous years she'd had with her parents' deteriorating health and the harsh realities of life that follow the demise of loved ones) demonstrated a fundamental principle that underscores so many sibling relationships - come what may, I will be there. There is something fulfilling about that - something that perhaps replenishes the void created by the solitude of being an only "adult" child. Solitude that no lover, friend or cousin can ever fully eliminate.

Nirbhaya: Let's teach our sons not to cross their own Lakshman Rekhas

Much has been written and said about Leslee Udwin's documentary, aptly titled "India's Daughter". I applaud the BBC for broadcasting it notwithstanding the Indian government's farcical and frankly embarrassing attempts to thwart its dissemination. 

In my opinion, India is now a classic example of the proverbial ostrich burying its head in the sand. When a foreigner decided to hold up a mirror to Indian society to re-examine itself, India simply spat in her face, spewing out derisory arguments of undue foreign intervention and Bharat Mahaan's defamation.  Mr Rajnath Singh, it really is very simple - the film is not an embarrassment  to your country, your country's male mentality is. Please also fire your sarkaari lawyers. Since when has an Indian court order been binding on Britain's BBC - or have you mistaken the BBC for Doordarshan?

I watched the documentary and it is harrowing. One of the defence lawyers, ML Sharma, states:

"Indian culture is the best culture . In our culture there is no place for a woman." 

 He blames Nirbhaya's parents squarely when he says:

"Why did they send her with anyone that late at night? He wasn't her boyfriend. Is it not parents' responsibility to keep an eye on where she goes and with whom?" 

There are countless judges, politicians and public figures in India who have made ludicrous statements such as:

"Rapes happen. Boys will be boys" - Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lok Sabha member and chairman of the Samajwadi Party 

 "Girls must not cross the Lakshman Rekha" - Kailash Vijaywargiya,
Madhya Pradesh minister 

"Girls should wear decent clothes to avoid rape" - Dinesh Reddy, Director General of Andhra Pradesh police

Shocking, disturbing and disgusting.

The point is this. This malaise is not contained within the geographical borders of India, it is a cultural pandemic. If you are an East African Asian male, then you'd be mistaken to think that this is nothing to do with you just because you don't live in India. It is. Wake up and smell the coffee. The deep seated issue is our lack of respect for our women. In one way or the other we think they are our subordinates. We think we control them - often in this day and age, through emotional passive aggression.

The diaspora is littered with men whose thoughts are in some way aligned with those quoted above. I personally know an alarmingly large number of men who honestly believe that the woman's place is exclusively in the kitchen. I have heard arguments such as "I want my sister to pursue a career which will not demand too much of her time and that will help her manage her husband and children." Have you heard this one? - "She had a great career before marriage. Now she doesn't need it. I've asked her to stay at home and manage the kids. She can do some small business from home for time pass, but there's no reason for her to do a 9-5 job outside. I earn enough." I once knew someone living in London, originally from Nairobi. He accused me of being too "soft" with my wife because I hadn't insisted she adopt my surname after marriage. I no longer know him.

Remember the chauvinistic guy who plays Sridevi's husband in English Vinglish and says: "My wife was only born to make ladoos". Ask yourself whether that's the kind of husband you want to be.

Guys, the key word here is choice. Let our women enjoy the freedom to choose what they want to do. They might well elect to stay at home with the kids. They might well want an easy career that allows for a domesticated lifestyle. They might well want to take on your name after marriage. Or they might not. Let them choose without any emotional or (even worse, physical) blackmail. Because in allowing them to choose, you show them respect. Be a real man and set an example for our sons so that they grow up with an innate respect for their mothers, sisters and partners. Let's teach our sons that women are not there simply to be objectified, that they mean more than just a "score" and that they are just as human as we are. Real manhood does not necessitate misogyny. Let's teach our sons not to cross their own Lakshman Rekhas.

My "Bangla"-fication

Several of my family members were surprised when they heard me conversing in Bangla with my in-laws in Chittagong. I got asked: "How did you learn how to speak it?" "When did you learn?" "Did Mehwaesh teach you?" Some thought I had been "bangla-fied" by my wife.

 

Nothing could be further from the truth. What many fail to understand is that I never consciously learnt how to speak the language, nor have I attended any formal language course. Mehwaesh has not embarked on a conscious drive to "bangla-fy" me. Yes, I picked up the language from listening to her Bangla conversations (mostly with her family in Bangladesh and her Bangla friends in London). What struck me about the language, was how much of the language I was able to pick up and understand, with no prior exposure to it.

 

Bangla like Gujarati is a Sanskrit-based language. That means that a lot of words in the Bangla lexicon sound almost similar to the Gujarati equivalent. Take for example, shomachar ("news") in Bangla which is our samachar. Or take "Shubho Jonmodin" ("Happy birthday") in Bangla which in shuddh (literary) Gujarati would be "Shubh Janmadin".  Where there are parallels, there are differences, too. Grammatically, the two languages differ greatly. While we attribute gender to words in Gujarati, in Bangla that concept is non-existent.

 

I must admit that my Bangla is by all standards broken. I cannot read or write the language. I can construct basic oral sentences (albeit bereft of proper grammar) and probably survive using my conversational and unperfected Bangla skills if I was left stranded in Bangladesh. I get my tenses muddled up at times. But - and crucially for me - I can get the message across.

 

My Bangla speaking skills came to me almost by a process of osmosis. There never was any conscious decision made to learn it. I didn't really need to. Like her, Mehwaesh's parents and her immediate family are fluent in English. But there is a certain sweetness in the Bangla language, much like Gujarati, that draws me to it. The Sanskrit-based words make it easy for me to pick up words and assimilate them into conversation. 

 

What many fail to realise is that it is my fluency in Gujarati that has helped me learn, understand and appreciate the richness of the Bangla language. In turn, the ability to converse in Bangla has benefitted me greatly. For starters, it has helped me build bridges with my in-laws and their family.  Notwithstanding that I could have gotten away with conversing in English with them, there is, I feel, a certain degree of endearment when I speak with them in Bangla.  In fact, with Maa (my mother-in-law) our phone conversations are mostly in Bangla, with us resorting to English only when it's something so important that cannot get lost in translation. Yes, there are the few occasions when I have to ask Mehwaesh to translate some phrases, but most of the time, I get it. Beyond forging new ties with my wife's family, the language has helped me better understand my wife's cultural heritage. I now enjoy listening to musical renditions of Tagore poetry. Admittedly, I don't fully understand what is being said in some of the poetry. But, it is like a jigsaw puzzle - I can put together words to capture the flavour of Tagore's works. It's important for me to be able to do that. 

 

I wouldn't have had access to the Bangla language without Mehwaesh - that, I admit. But, there is something within me that helped me assimilate the language with ease. I now know that "x" factor was my fluency in Gujarati. Without Gujarati I would not have had the guts to work out the meanings of words in Bangla. I would have had no link to a Sanskrit-based language, and so there would have been nothing to rely on when attempting to develop my Bangla vocabulary. Crucially, I think I would not have been able to build the bridges that I am building with my in-laws had I not understood Gujarati. Most important of all, I would not have had the courage to embark on a lifelong journey with someone from a different cultural background without my Gujarati. After all, how can you begin to understand someone else's heritage, when you don't have a full grasp of your own? Heritage is inseparable from your mother tongue.

 

As life unfolds, it is becoming increasingly clear to me how Gujarati has in many ways, direct and indirect, helped me move forward into uncharted territory with confidence and competence. It has helped me forge new relations, retain a robust link with older generations and develop a solid foundation for my marriage with Mehwaesh. For this and much more, I have my Mom to thank. Without her drive to get me fluent in Gujarati, there would not have been much of what I am today. I also have the late Jyotiben Master to thank. More than a mere Gujarati teacher, she was a life teacher. In addition to teaching me the intricacies of the Gujarati language and it's Sanskrit origins, she taught me how to use the language to understand my heritage, and in doing so, gave me the courage to traverse the boundaries of my comfort zone and indulge in someone else's heritage.

 

 

 

 

Just married

Just married and I'm back in London with some very fond memories of our Bangladesh wedding. I had not been to Bangladesh before. So, naturally, I had some reservations before I landed at Chittagong airport. But, the unparalleled hospitality and overwhelming love demonstrated by my wife's family there quickly broke down all apprehensions, and within a matter of hours, it was as though we had all known each other for years. Thinking back, I look back upon our short stay in Bangladesh with fond memories, and look forward to visiting again soon.

 

You see, there is a difference between the words "wedding" and "marriage". The former is a star-studded event that lasts for a couple of days, the latter is a long lifelong journey that comes with the sweet pain of true love.

Back in London, friends and family keep asking "How is married life treating you?". It's a question I struggle to answer. What is one expected to say to such a question? It's not like your life becomes star-studded over night. It's not like your life becomes radically different to what it was before. Yes, my wife and I now live together, and that is a big change, but a welcome one. Yet, I wouldn't say it's radically different. It would have been had our marriage been an arranged one. The simple fact is that I am thrilled to have my wife living with me and just generally sharing life together. But that doesn't quite answer the question, does it?

 

And then I read an article this morning by Seth Adam Smith entitled "True love should be painful" (http://sethadamsmith.com/2014/01/20/true-love-is-painful/). I would recommend it to anyone newly married and you should read this post in the context of that article. It's a perfect tutorial for anyone setting out in life with someone on the path of marriage. What this article reminds us of is the reality of married life, far from the star-studded wedding festivities, far from the romanticised ideology of a magical wedding that we all too often confuse to be a characteristic of marriage. You see, there is a difference between the words "wedding" and "marriage". The former lasts for a couple of days, the latter is lifelong.

 

Seth's article reminds us that "if you’re doing it right, love, marriage, and family will be the most painful things you’ll ever experience. Not because they’re bad things, but because to love at all means to open yourselves up to vulnerability and pain. And to love someone completely—as you do in marriage—is to put your whole heart on the line."

 

My parents recently celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary. On the whole, they've had a solid and strong marriage. But like any relationship, it's not perfect. They have had their ups and downs and I cannot imagine that their journey together has not been painful. Seth says "Love will always be quite painful. Instead, worry about how you will react to the pain."  I think that's what my parents have done. What inspires me is the way in which they have dealt with their troubles together. That is the standard I aspire to achieve.

 

I know that Mehwaesh and I value our relationship tremendously. Being an inter-cultural relationship, it has not been without its idiosyncractic pains. But, we fought hard to get to where we are today. And we're proud of what we have achieved so far. We realise that marriage is not a walk in the park, not rosy and is certainly not the star-studded experience that was our wedding. Accepting and acknowledging that, is, I think, the first step to realising that "love will always be quite painful." The key is understanding that, as Seth says in his article, "instead of a pain that breaks us down, it can be a pain that builds us up."

I love my wife. I love being married to her and I am tremendously grateful for her presence in my life. She enriches everything I do and is my most honest critic. I love that she loves my parents as much as I love her's. We have a lot to go through in the future, some joyful, some painful. I welcome that pain in my life, because "true love should be painful". Thank you, Seth Adam Smith, for teaching me that.

Dreaming in Gujarati

A few weeks ago I came across a poem by the Kenyan Gujarati poet, Shailja Patel, and it got me thinking about why we Gujaratis have a natural and unforgivable tendency to deviate from our mother language.  A product of the East African diaspora living in London, it is made abundantly clear to me at countless occasions that among my generation of young professional Gujaratis, speaking in the mother tongue is "not cool", simply too "desi" and dare I say it - akin to being "fresh off the boat".  Conversely, my love for Gujarati and the consequent arrogance that stems from that love has so far led me to think of myself being above those who think like that.  You see, I've always thought that, in fact, those of my generation who think that speaking in Gujarati is "not cool" are themselves "uncool", "wayward" and simply "not worth it".  But reading Shailja Patel's poem (credit goes to my better half, Mehwaesh, for introducing me to it!) made me review those thoughts and re-assess my position.  Was there an intrinsic reason why others shunned Gujarati? Were they trying to rebel against something from their childhood? Did others associate harsh domestic memories with Gujarati? Did the language invoke sentiments best left forgotten?

Shailja Patel's "Dreaming in Gujarati":

The children in my dreams
speak in Gujarati
turn their trusting faces to the sun
say to me
care for us nurture us
in my dreams I shudder and I run.

I am six
in a playground of white children
Darkie, sing us an Indian song!
Eight
in a roomful of elders
all mock my broken Gujarati
English girl!

Twelve, I tunnel into books
forge an armor of English words.
Eighteen, shaved head
combat boots -
shamed by masis
in white saris
neon judgments
singe my western head.
Mother tongue.
Matrubhasha
tongue of the mother
I murder in myself.

Through the years I watch Gujarati
swell the swaggering egos of men
mirror them over and over
at twice their natural size.
Through the years
I watch Gujarati dissolve
bones and teeth of women, break them
on anvils of duty and service, burn them
to skeletal ash.
Words that don't exist in Gujarati :
Self-expression.
Individual.
Lesbian.

English rises in my throat
rapier flashed at yuppie boys
who claim their people “civilized” mine.
Thunderbolt hurled
at cab drivers yelling
Dirty black bastard!
Force-field against teenage hoods
hissing
F****ing Paki bitch!
Their tongue - or mine?
Have I become the enemy?

Listen:
my father speaks Urdu
language of dancing peacocks
rosewater fountains
even its curses are beautiful.
He speaks Hindi
suave and melodic
earthy Punjabi
salty rich as saag paneer
coastal Kiswahili
laced with Arabic,
he speaks Gujarati
solid ancestral pride.
Five languages
five different worlds
yet English
shrinks
him
down
before white men
who think their flat cold spiky words
make the only reality.

Words that don't exist in English:
Najjar
Garba
Arati.

If we cannot name it
does it exist?
When we lose language
does culture die? What happens
to a tongue of milk-heavy
cows, earthen pots
jingling anklets, temple bells,
when its children
grow up in Silicon Valley
to become
programmers?

Then there's American:
Kin'uh get some service?
Dontcha have ice?
Not:
May I have please?
Ben, mane madhath karso?
Tafadhali nipe rafiki
Donnez-moi, s'il vous plait
Puedo tener…..
Hello, I said can I get some service?!
Like, where's the line for Ay-mericans
in this goddamn airport?
Words that atomized two hundred thousand Iraqis:
Didja see how we kicked some major ass in the Gulf?
Lit up Bagdad like the fourth a' July!
Whupped those sand-niggers into a parking lot!

The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati
bright as butter
succulent cherries
sounds I can paint on the air with my breath
dance through like a Sufi mystic
words I can weep and howl and devour
words I can kiss and taste and dream
this tongue
I take back.

The following analysis of the poem is taken from Dan Ojwang's book, "Reading Migration and Culture: The World of East African Indian Literature" (2012). In this piece, which forms part of Shailja's collection of performance poems, Migritude, she tells of her troubled relation with English and Gujarati, her "Mother Tongue". The incessant and turbulent tussle with the two languages coincides with her autobiographical quest for an alternative gender and sexual identity against the beliefs of her mother. While English represents the violence of the British Empire and post-Cold War American world order, it is simultaneously a means through which she has accessed "words that don't exist in Gujarati: self-expression/individual/lesbian".  Since Gujarati marks the primal scene of her childhood in Kenya, in which attempts have been made to discipline her into an ideal ethnic and gendered "chhokri", I thnk she associates the language with fictions of purity that lie at the heart of dominant nationalist and diasporic ideologies.  Her initial interpretation of the language as a bearer of the patriarchal, nationalist logic of reproduction is reflected in the Gujarati-speaking children who appear in her dreams, begging her to take on a mothering role, an image that echoes her own childhood dependence on Gujarati-speaking figures of domestic authority.

Ojwang's book explains that Shailja also believes that English allows her to claim an ambiguous gender identity, symbolised by the image of a shaved head and combat boots, as opposed to the Gujarati-speaking "grannies in their white saris".  However, if English provides a set of ready-made concepts that name same sex desire, her exclusive adoption of it as a tool for queer self-fashioning ultimately appears to her as an abdication of some sort. Her earlier deviation from Gujarati, she comes to realise, is partly the product of colonially induced language shame.

Is my generation the progeny of a generation that was subject to colonially induced language shame? Is that why we think speaking in Gujarati is "uncool"? Are there grannies in white saris we want to rebel against at various subconscious levels? Is there some kind of historic subtext to why young professional East African Asians want to stay clear of all ties with Gujarati? 

Although English may have provided us with a vocabulary for responding to racism in the UK and the US, have we, in our quests to "fit in", forgotten that Gujarati and other languages spoken in East Africa gesture at senses of community, alternative to those forged by international capitalism (whose most privileged language is English)? Have we forgotten how sweet our language sounded at Mombasa's light house and Bamburi's beaches?

It saddens me to see that Gujarati might be associated with an inflexible tradition and that returning to it may warrant a high price, which, frankly, many of my generation are just not prepared to pay.  The reality, however, is that a rich language with a Sanskrit-based heritage cannot be devalued by those who simply can't be bothered to explore it. Did you really think that a language hailing from such a diverse region of South Asia doesn't have words for "lesbian", "self-expression" and "individual"?  Gujarati literature is not so dry and bland, my friends! You just need to look hard enough. 

I often feel like a solitary soldier in the quest for trying to keep the Gujarati language alive among young East African professionals like myself. It's part of who I am, what I am and why I am the way I am. Gujarati is me - I think in it, I dream in it, I sing in it, I breathe in it.  And I am not ashamed of an inexplicably beautiful language that has opened so many doors for me in life. You see, I learnt very early in life that only if you fully understand your own language, will you develop an appreciation of your heritage culture. And only if you fully comprehend your heritage, will you move on to develop an attitude of multiplicity, and understand and embrace other cultures that you encounter in this cosmopolitan world of ours. In my case, Gujarati has proven to be invaluable. Its Sanskrit origins have helped me develop a growing and impressive vocabulary in Bengali, also of Sanskrit origins; and I dare say, that has helped me forge new links with my better half's family and friends.

My encounters with young Bengalis in London has confirmed one fact. They don't have complexities with speaking their language. They are proud to speak it, indulge in it, sing in it, laugh in it and cry in it. Their's is a culture where English is only spoken for the benefit of those who don't understand Bengali. They have abundant pride in speaking Bengali when they get together and spend evenings singing rich melodies of songs penned by the Bengali Nobel laureate and poet, Tagore. Robindro shongeet, the name given to the genre of music based on Tagore's writings, has so far shown me how comfortable young Bengalis are with their language. Sadly, I cannot imagine anything of the sort with young Gujaratis. 

Perhaps, it might be unfair to compare their passions for their language with Gujaratis.  After all, Bengalis had to fight for their language. In the 1950s, when the Government of the Dominion of Pakistan ordained Urdu as the sole national language in East Bengal (modern day Bangladesh), extensive protests raged among the Bengali-speaking majority of the region. Facing rising sectarian tensions and mass discontent with the new law, the government outlawed public meetings and rallies. The students of the University of Dhaka and other political activists defied the law and organised a protest on 21 February 1952. The movement reached its climax when police killed student demonstrators on that day. After years of conflict, the central government relented and granted official status to the Bengali language in 1956. In 1999, UNESCO declared 21 February as International Mother Language Day, in tribute to the Bengali Language Movement and the ethno-linguistic rights of people around the world. The Bengali Language Movement catalysed the assertion of Bengali national identity in East Bengal and later, Bangladesh.

Shaheed Minaar, (the Martry's Monument) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, commemorates those who lost their lives during the Bengali Language Movements protests on 21 February1952

Perhaps, young Gujaratis don't value their language enough because their predecessors never had to fight for it? It might have never been under any physical threat, but I am certain that it is under diasporic threat. And that remains a sad but nevertheless veritable fact of life.

An adventure in Bengali gastronomy!

Last night, I ventured into, what was for me, uncharted territory, along with my Bengali fiancée, Mehwaesh.  We attended a lovely dinner party entitled "A Night On Chowringhee Lane", with the intention of enjoying a bit of Calcutta's cuisine in London.  Not having visited Calcutta before, Mehwaesh educated me with a bit of background, explaining that a diverse variety of street food can be savoured along the little lanes that go off Chowringhee in Calcutta, citing examples (which I only list here for the benefit of those with prior knowledge) such as "the chaat-wallah next to Lighthouse Cinema, kabab and paratha shops, phuchka wallah stands, authentic Mughlai food and biryani at Aminia and chilled dahi vadas on one of the side exits of New Market".  

This was no ordinary dinner party, though.  To start with, we didn't know the host, nor did we know who our fellow diners would be! What we attended last night can only best be described as a supper club - a growing London trend, neither restaurant nor dinner party, but both at once; ordinary people opening up their homes to paying strangers, and chefs who relish independence and informality of cooking for people at home.  Through a contact on Twitter, Mehwaesh found out about "A Night On Chowringhee Lane" online, and immediately fired me an email with details and excitement.   Hesitantly, I accepted and booked our places on the website, and then sat back, thinking to myself: "Never done this before - dinner party at a complete stranger's house! This could go one of two ways...."

All that trepidation, with which I walked up the steps to the Old Brompton Road building for our supper club, vanished instantly when we were greeted by our supper club host, Asma Khan's warm, smiling face as she welcomed us into her home.  The evening grew only better as we got to know this wonderfully talented, inspiring and immensely friendly lady. 

Asma Khan (in blue)

Asma runs a satisfyingly authentic Indian catering company, Darjeeling Express, building on her Nawabi/Mughal traditions to offer real meals with taste and history. But when I first saw her last night, her striking face suggested that there was more to her than just that.  As the evening progressed, I learnt that we we both have legal backgrounds too!  What I admired most about Asma last night was that she demonstrated with such pride some great Bengali food.  Asma grew up in India and worked for many years in her mother's catering business in Calcutta. Indeed, many of the dishes she cooks are family recipes. It was apparent that Calcutta, with its confluence of many cultures, has had an immense impact on Asma's cooking. You see, the food she cooked with such fervour last night reflected the flavours and tastes of not just the Bengal, but also embodied a heady mix of Mughlai and North Indian tones with Bihari, Rajasthani, Burmese, Chinese, Nepali and British influences. Her vibrant character is evidence of the fact that she loves new people tasting and enjoying her food, and it is very clear that that gives her immense satisfaction. 

Asma in action

With a dedicated vegetarian menu, I was spoilt for choice. After our Nimboo pani welcome drink, we were served with starters, which included Nepali vegetarian Momos (steamed vegetable dumplings that are, I am told, very popular in Calcutta), kala chanaa masala, parathas (flaky and flat bread).  Then came the phuchkas (Gujarati equivalent: pani puris) and that's when everyone got excited simple because Bengalis love their phuchkas, tiny hollow wafer cups filled with spiced potatoes, black chickpeas and a pungent tamarind sauce.  These were followed by baigani pakoras (aubergine pakoras) and samosas filled with mashed potatoes and peas.  After all of this, we struggled to do justice to the main course - a soft and creamy paneer korma, a saffron-infused vegetable pulao (rice dish), mirchi ka salaan (green chillies with onion, ground coconut and peanuts) and dahi vada (lentil fritters in spiced yoghurt).  By the time we hit desserts, we were stuffed; although the bhappa doi (steamed Bengali yoghurt) with fruit went down like a treat! To round it all off, Asma served us with cups of a light Darjeeling tea, which somehow did away with all fears of any impending morning after-effects! 

Last night, we dined with, among others, a couple of scientists, a BBC food magazine writer, an author of a popular Indian cooking book (who, herself, had a masala-filled persona), and a few Calcutta-ites.  Enthralling conversation in an intricately decorated South Kensington living room infused with memories of the Mughal Empire, all against an apt auditory background of mellow Bollywood tunes composed by some of the Bengal's best musicians.  It was surreal, different, novel, and yes, definitely fun! And best of all - I didn't feel patronised for being a vegetarian!