Indian Takeaway

by Hardeep Singh Kohli

  Wherever home might be.

  What You Need To Know About My Dad:

  I knew that my father would want me to make the journey. He had always been obsessed with travel, his feet never stopped itching. This desire to travel was perhaps foreshadowed in his first job. When he was twenty-four he left Ferozepure, the town of his birth in Punjab, to become a customs officer in Delhi. It was 1959, ten years before I was born. He had trained for a short while in Amritsar, the spiritual capital of the Sikh religion. For a young, single man the bright lights of the big city couldn’t have been more different from the almost medieval squalor of Ferozepure. In Delhi he spent five years living the quintessential bachelor life with his best friend, a man we have come to know as Kapoor Uncle. But Delhi was not the real destination; it was but a stop on the way. America beckoned my father. Her silky whispers travelled halfway across the world to entice him. His plan was to come to London, make some money, research opportunities in America and then take himself over there, to a brave new world.

  One absolutely charming thing about my father is that if you ask him where he intended to settle in the States, he has absolutely no idea. His thesis was simple: he was going there to make money; it was thought at that time (and borne out) that there was more money to be made in America than anywhere else, that dreams came true, and my father had dreams. He was so brave to travel halfway across the world not knowing where he’d end up and with no one there to help him.

  My father met my mother shortly before they got married. When I say ‘shortly’ I mean about twenty minutes or so before the ceremony itself. That was the beauty of the arranged marriage. My mother was part of the East African diaspora. My grandfather had worked on the railways in India and had been taken over to Nairobi by the British to build more railways. That’s what the British gave their colonies: railways and paperwork. My mum, her two sisters and her brother were brought up as Kenyan Indians. My maternal grandmother died when she was very young; my mother was raised by her elder sister, Malkit, my Massi.

  My father is six foot two, my mother is five foot two: that is the least of their differences. They are testament to the success of the arranged marriage system. On paper they have very little in common, no shared interests – she was working-class immigrant Indian, my father was lower middle class from the heart of the Punjab – yet somehow, forty or so years later, they are still very much together. My dad never laughs as much as when my mum is telling a story. His eyes fill with tears and he coughs and splutters with joy.

  Soon after their marriage, midway through the swinging sixties, my parents made their way to London, where my mum had family. We lived with my Malkit Massi. I say we, although neither my elder brother Raj, myself nor Sanjeev were around. My mother fell pregnant with Raj in 1965, which is what stopped my father’s plans for his stateside domination. Raj was born shortly after England lifted the World Cup and I followed three years later. The following year Sanjeev popped out and my mother found herself in a house full of men.

  This is where the story becomes interesting. I believe that if we had stayed in London and become another of those Hounslow Indian families, we would have all led fairly unremarkable lives. But my father had discovered Scotland after a stint training to be a teacher in Dundee, which gave him a plan B for when he’d had enough of my mum’s family, which he most certainly had by 1972. We piled into our spearmint green Vauxhall Viva and drove the eight hours to Glasgow. I remember with vivid clarity driving down the Great Western Road for the very first time. It was predictably wet but the night was twinkling.

  That was my father’s story. So it was no surprise that he liked the idea of his son travelling around India. I wanted to travel the country on my own and discover it for myself, starting at the southernmost tip and travelling north via some prominent and pertinent places. I would cook in each city, town or village and discover a little of India and hopefully a lot of myself. I would complete my journey in Ferozepure at my grandfather’s house, the place of my father’s birth.

  My father seemed equally excited about my journey. Having travelled extensively round India, he spoke unpunctuated about all the possible places I could go, all the sights I might see, all the people I might meet. He regaled me with stories of Ladakh, villages on the Pakistan border he once visited as a child, a house he had seen in a magazine once, set on a clifftop near Bombay.

  ‘Dad, calm down,’ I said. ‘It’s still very much in the early stages.’

  ‘You have to go to Kashmir. You have to.’ He was insistent. ‘I have a friend in Simla, he will be more than happy to look after you. And Manore Uncle will sort your flights and trains.’ He was planning my entire trip in his head.

  ‘You seem happy that I’m going,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  He was happy.

  Very happy. As if he was going himself.

  And maybe he was.

  What You Need To Know About My Mum:

  My mother is an amazing cook. I have rarely tasted Punjabi food better than that lovingly prepared by my mum. So good is my mother’s food that I have stopped cooking Indian food myself, knowing that I will never come close to her standard. My lamb curry will never have that melt-in-the-mouth consistency, the sauce will never be as well spiced and rich, my potatoes never as floury and soft. My daal will be bereft of that buttery richness, that earthy appeal that warms you from inside. My parathas will never be as flaky and delicious and comforting.

  Not only did she cook, clean and prepare four men (my father and her three sons) for the world, she also worked. And how she worked. Our wee newspaper shop on Sinclair Drive in the Southside of Glasgow was like a jail for my mother. While she counted down the days of her sentence, my brothers and I learnt Latin and literature, maths and music, all paid for by the money she garnered from her seven-day-a-week, twelve-hour-a-day existence. Luckily her resolve was harder than the concrete floor she had to stand on. Later in life she had both her knees replaced, no doubt a consequence of that concrete floor and the unforgiving workload. And while she worked, uncomplaining year after year, giving us everything an education can provide for the children of immigrants, she was systematically taking years off her life. Ironically we, her progeny, the very objects of her sacrifice, became strangers to her, educated away from the loving mother that gave life to us.

  There is a place in Southall, in the Sikh ghetto west of London, where the food, whilst not quite achieving the heady standards of my mum’s, comes pretty close. In fact it’s the only Indian restaurant I will ever take my parents to in Britain. The food is delicious and it’s like eating at home. Sagoo and Thakar, renamed now as the New Asian Tandoori Centre, is my home from home.

  I have often been known to pile my family into the car and drive forty-five minutes to devour their food. They seldom complained, knowing what was coming. (Whenever I go there I am reminded of my parents.) One such day when I was planning my trip to India I realised that so much of contemporary Britain is based around Indian food. There I was in Sagoo and Thakar, a place originally designed to feed immigrants from the Punjab who had come to drive the buses, sweep the streets and staff Heathrow airport, and the joint was full of every sort of person: black, white and everything in between joining the massed ranks of Indians. The common theme seemed to be that we were all British. Food unites. That much is clear. And as I sat there, a devoured plate of lamb curry in front of me and the remnants of a paratha, I started to think that maybe I should return to India what India has so successfully given Britain: food. If I was to find myself in India, I must take some of myself with me. And what better to take than my love of food and cooking? I resolved to take British food to India.

  I have always thought that my ability to cook allows me to share a little of my soul with my guests. My parents always instilled in me the generosity of entertaining. No one was ever turned away from our house unfed or unwatered. The breaking of bread breaks down barriers. Food soothes and assuages. Romance is continued over breakf
ast. Friendships are made over lunch, enmities resolved over dinner. That is the power of food.

  In my repertoire I have a number of powerful classic British dishes. This is food to fall in love over, food to fight over, food that I hope will make me friends across a subcontinent. My shepherd’s pie is well practised and relatively unique in that I use nuggets of lamb rather than mince. It’s an innovation I am quietly proud of. I have perfected the art of roasting lamb, beef, pork and chicken. Obviously, I will have to be canny about where I cook pork in India, and given the Hindu majority, I will rule out any beef-based dishes entirely. I have been known to work my culinary magic on fish and shellfish and I am no stranger to vegetable accompaniments, if a little bemused by fully vegetarian meals.

  Then I mentioned my idea to my dad… Now, my dad really likes my cooking. He calls me Masterchef and whenever I’m at home in Glasgow he turns up with some exotic shellfish or a special cut of meat or baby quail and expects me to do something amazing with it.

  ‘Look at this cheeky onion. Can you do anything with it?’ he asked once, brandishing a banana shallot in one hand. From the other hand he produced a clutch of razor clams. ‘And what about these buggers? They’re not very clever. You know what to do with them… And I need you to sign some documents.’

  I love his belief in me. However, he was less than impressed by my new plan.

  ‘So, Dad, I’m going to cook British food in India when I am travelling.’

  Silence on the Glasgow end of the phone.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said that when I am in India I am going to cook British food.’

  Pause. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just thought that it would be a good idea … you know … to take back to India what India has given Britain … ’

  He pauses. Again. ‘Son, if British food was all that good then there would be no Indian restaurants in Britain.’

  My father’s logic seemed watertight …

  ‘Would there?’ he persisted.

  ‘And did you sign those documents?’

  2

  SIKH AND YE SHALL FIND

  Decision made, and with my father’s help, I needed to sketch a rough journey around the vast subcontinent; between the big fella and me I was hopeful that somewhere I would find some answers. An old hippy in a cake shop off the Byres Road in Glasgow once told me that you needed seven lives of seven decades to truly experience the spiritualism and profundity of India. (He did say this while trying to haggle down the price of an almond croissant, however …) I didn’t have seven lives; I didn’t have seven decades; I didn’t even have seven months. But I would make a start …

  ‘Kovalam. Start in Kovalam. It is the most beautiful place on the planet, son. Paradise. True paradise … ’

  My dad would always talk about the beauty of southern India, a beauty I’m not sure he ever experienced firsthand while he lived in India despite his travels. He would explain the differences between us northern Indians and the southern Indians, the real Indians.

  ‘They are smaller, darker and more … well, more Indian looking. They are Dravidians. They are the true Indians.’

  This, to a slightly overweight Sikh boy growing up in Glasgow in the seventies was more than a little perplexing.

  ‘What are we then, Dad, if we’re not Indian?’ I was compelled to ask.

  He waited a moment, his face as stern and handsome as ever. ‘We, son, are the descendents of the Aryan people. Our ancestors trekked from Middle Europe across the Russian Steppes through Persia and ultimately into northern India.’

  This was amazing. We were white people. We weren’t really Indian after all. I couldn’t wait to get back to the playground and explain this; perhaps then they would stop calling me names.

  ‘Our ancestors ultimately settled in and around modern-day Punjab. And if you have ever been to the Punjab you would soon realise that it’s a great place to stop.’

  Dad had laughed that rarest of laughs. He clearly loved the Punjab.

  ‘That’s how the Aryan race ended up in the Punjab.’

  And I distinctly remember telling kids in the playground that I was part of the Aryan race. It was the late seventies and the National Front was on the march. Little did I realise that a brown-skinned fat kid from Glasgow telling everyone that he was somehow linked to the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany had consequences. That is where my confusion over my identity must have begun…

  ‘Kovalam, son,’ repeated my dad, fast-forwarding me thirty years back into the present. ‘Start in Kovalam. They weren’t stupid those Portuguese.’

  I had never suggested that they were … The Portuguese had colonised tracts of southern India, taking chillies and vinegar to the Indians.

  ‘… and sign those documents. But start in Kovalam … ’

  Kovalam is about as far away from my ‘home’ in India as I can possibly get. The Punjab is the most northerly point in India and if Kovalam were any further south it would be in the sea. Apart from the fact that the weather is discernibly warmer and consequently the scenery is different, I wasn’t altogether sure what to expect, but it seemed logical to start in a place unlike the India I knew and recognised. (When I was a very young kid I thought India was full of Punjabis.)

  ‘You really ought to go to Pondicherry, son. The French influence on India is crucially important to the geo-politics of the age.’ I had never heard my dad use the word ‘geo-politics’.

  ‘It’s too close to Trivandrum, not different enough,’ I argued.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Madras,’ I suggested. Chennai as it is now called. The big fella needed convincing.

  Madras is India’s fourth largest city and is the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu, a state rich with ancient history and culture. This seems to jar more than a little with the connotations of the word ‘Madras’ in Britain. As far as most of our population is concerned, Madras is a curry that is hotter than a creamy Korma, but less virulent than a Vindaloo. It’s quite amazing how millennia of history can be summed up on a spiceometer. For me, Madras would be the sole representative for the east coast of India.

  ‘After Madras?’ He was keen for me to venture further north up that coast. He and I had always planned a trip to Assam and Darjeeling. He loves his tea, and I could think of few things more rewarding than having a cup or two with him in the heart of tea-growing India. But I wasn’t going to Assam or Darjeeling on this trip; nor was I going with him.

  ‘Too far north-east, Dad’, I explained. ‘I need to come inland’.

  ‘Bangalore?’ he asked.

  ‘Eventually,’ I replied.

  From Madras and its mild curries I would venture west to Mysore. My father-in-law went to medical college in Mysore, and it is famed for its Sandalwood soap, a fragrance that instantly transports me to India. A few months before I’d met an American Filipino hippy type who had started a yoga school in Mysore. We had exchanged email addresses and it seemed daft not to explore the place whilst combining it with a gentle stretch.

  ‘Then Bangalore?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. Dad was happy; he liked Bangalore.

  Bangalore is the epitome of everything modern India wishes to be, a microcosm of the unfolding second millennium. Bangalore is famous for many things: it is the centre of India’s technology revolution and it is also Geoffrey Boycott’s favourite Indian city. For me it will always be the city of my wife’s family, a place of great parties, weddings and much fun. A city run by urban sophisticates.

  ‘You have to go to Goa, son.’

  At this point I was beginning to wonder who was making this journey. But I did have to go to Goa.

  ‘For many Westerners it was their primary source of knowledge of the Indian subcontinent.’ My dad was on fire with insight.

  Goa. It would be churlish not to go and find myself in the same place so many others attempted self-discovery. And it would be nice to spend a little time on a beach in India; although the idea
of brown-skinned people on a beach still strikes me as wholly incongruous.

  ‘And after Goa?’

  ‘Bombay, Dad.’ Dad liked Bombay, too, and I think it is my favourite city in the world.

  Is there a more vibrant and exciting place on the planet? I doubt it. As well as being home to the world’s largest film industry, Bombay is the most cosmopolitan of all Indian cities, drawing every sort of Indian into its ample and warm bosom. I love Bombay.

  ‘You have to spend some time with Manore Uncle in Delhi. Rovi will look after you. Send him an email. Wait, I’ll call him now on the other line … ’

  My dad was bad enough with one phone; the free market and subsequent deregulation of the telecommunications business meant that he now had a mobile and two landlines in the house; he was able to sort my entire itinerary out singlehandedly. Manore Uncle is my dad’s best friend and they are like family to us. In many ways they are closer than family. Rovi is Manore Uncle’s second son and an all-round angel. They make Delhi feel like home to us. We would always fly into Delhi, staying for a day or two before going to the Punjab. I have strong childhood memories of the city and it has become a de facto annexe of the Punjab, so full is it of my north Indian brethren.

  ‘There’s a place called McLeod Gunj where they have some Scottish missionaries… ’

  The big fella is off on one. He spent some time in Leh on a walking pilgrimage. He loves walking. Walking and tea; he’s some man. The pilgrimage involved a high-altitude walk across a tiny path in the foothills of the Himalayas. He was keen for me to visit there. I, too, was keen to be in Kashmir but I explained to him that I couldn’t risk travelling to remote places and getting stranded. We are talking about the Himalayas here. Snowfall, mudslides and general meteorological mayhem. It was simply too risky. Instead I would head for Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley.