The Right Sort of Girl

by Anita Rani

  ‘Aah, we are in luck, here they come, the lesser-spotted Asian Family, rarely sighted in these rural northern idylls, but when they are, they are often in wondrous large groups. To watch so many of them appear from one family saloon is like a magic trick. They just keep coming and the last to emerge are their young from the boot of the car – oh yes, you can see them gasping for air, no doubt someone will have let off a final flatulent flourish just before their exit, you can tell by the speed in which they are trying to clamber out.

  ‘They speak to one another in a very loud combination of English and Punjabi. They talk to their young with angry shouts to stay in one place, the young responding with a combination of obedience and face pulling at each other.

  ‘They are parked up on the seafront, with a clear view of what they, like many other humans, have come to enjoy, the ocean. If we are lucky, we will be able to observe their unique feeding ritual. Let us watch for a while. Yes, the basket is being placed on the bonnet of the car and the females in the group are preparing what we hoped we might catch a glimpse of: the display of the wondrous Punjabi picnic.’

  For little me, these picnics were a social disaster. A public humiliation of the highest order. We were always going to stick out wherever we went, what with us being 75 Asians crammed into one car in the British countryside. All the Punjabi picnic did was shine a spotlight on us even more. Hello, Britain, here we are with our colour and our food. I hate to say it, but I was ashamed. I didn’t want to stick out, I wanted to be seen like everyone else, I wanted to blend in. I liked who I was, I just didn’t always want the added extra Indian layer. Nothing would stop us from having a good time, but you’d always notice people staring at you, maybe even pointing, probably discussing our presence.

  * * *

  Now, things are very different for me. I’ve grown up. Not only am I proud of my difference, I celebrate it. I wear it as my superpower. I have an innate understanding of two worlds, two cultures, histories, heritage. I can move seamlessly from one to the other, feeling as though I belong to both and neither, and can feel powerful in my own skin. I’ve never felt more powerful. I want to do everything to help change the landscape, so the next generation don’t feel as though they are the outsiders. And things have changed: samosas have become the perfect accompaniment to any picnic, Punjabi or not.

  A funny thing happened with my experience of the childhood family picnic, though. As soon as I’d take the first mouthful of food, all those stomach-churning feelings of being self-conscious just faded away. Truth is, some people may have looked at us, some may even have said racist things to each other about us, or to us, but most people didn’t care. Some may even have been smiling at the sight of an Asian family out at the seaside. Everything disappeared with food. It’s got a magic power. My parents never once made us feel self-conscious. We were just like everyone else. Now, no food brings me more pleasure than the stuff I grew up eating. The Indian food lovingly prepared by my mother, that I now cook at home and shamelessly put into Tupperware and take into parks in London for a summer picnic with my friends. I’m now so obsessed with Indian pickle I make it myself. I have a cupboard full of them: ginger and turmeric, lemon, chilli, mango, carrot, even bitter gourd pickle. The more tangy and potent and ponky, the better. Now, nothing beats a Punjabi picnic in my beloved Yorkshire.

  6 This chapter comes with a health warning for Lancastrians: I’m about to bang on about Yorkshire for quite a bit.

  7 He was white! Look it up.

  Half-Arsing a Job is Not in Your DNA

  The weekend is when my parents’ energy kicked into warp speed.

  Saturday was market day, so still a work day. As well as the factory, my family have always done markets. Market trading was big business in the eighties, especially up north, before cheap high street shops and mega supermarkets turned up and consumed the lot. I loved helping out on the market. It was either that or stay at home and clean the entire house, which was our Saturday morning duty. Hoover top to bottom, dust, polish, clean door handles. Yup, I’ll take standing around in the cold all day long over cleaning the house. Although cleaning wasn’t the worst bit, it was having the cleaning inspected by Dad that was terrifying. If it wasn’t done properly, we’d have to do it all again. Dad is a perfectionist. He is like my best mate now but when we were kids, he had a proper temper on him and it felt like any one of us could spark it at any given moment.

  Come wind, rain, sun or snow, we were market trading at weekends. Not fair-weather, posh, fancy London markets, proper ‘this is our livelihood, we turn up even if we sell nothing’ markets. We prepared for the bitter cold in the winter by wearing the right gear. Basically, skiing clothes. Salopettes and Moon Boots, with handwarmers shoved into every pocket.

  The first job was always to set up the stall. Most market stalls now are already built but, back then, you’d have to bring your own, slotting cold metal rods together on a freezing day, bbbrrrr! A sheet of tarpaulin over the top, industrial crocodile clips to hold it all down, rails erected, coats hung, prices on and we were good to go. ‘Come and get your winter body warmers, cheap at twice the price,’ I’d shout. Not that the clothes traders ever shouted. I was just imitating the fruit and veg boys and Gordon the egg man, who had the loudest voice in Shipley: ‘COME AND GET YER EGGS AS BIG AS YER HEAD. TWELVE DOZEN EGGS AS BIG AS YER EDD.’

  Market traders are some of the most quick-witted people I have known, so it’s a great training ground for charm and sales, which came in very handy for one of my first ever presenting gigs, chatting to randoms in Covent Garden. To get a sale, you’ve got to be ready to chat and negotiate. As long as a profit is still being made, there’s no harm in the customer believing they’ve got a great deal. If it works well, everyone is happy. But some customers can test your patience. There was a woman one weekend who was insistent my dad was too expensive, and she could get a jacket cheaper in Kirkgate market.

  ‘£22.99! I can get it for a tenner in Bratford!’

  Dad had had enough. ‘How much is the bus fare to Bratford?’

  ‘20p.’

  ‘Well, here’s 20p, go and buy it from there!’ he said with a smile.

  She bought the coat.

  This is where my mum got her Yorkshire education, having to try and get her Indian head around the Yorkshire sense of humour. A massive culture shock for her.

  ‘Ey, Lucky, when ya ganna leave Bill? You r’ too gud fer im. I’m ready when you are.’

  ‘All these pretty Indian girls with ugly Indian men, when ya ganna give him the elbow?’

  It was the eighties! Mum took it literally and Dad had to explain it was a joke. ‘What kind of joke is this? If someone said this in India, there would be a big punch-up.’

  The food at Shipley Market was a treat to look forward to. The reward for freezing my ass off all day as a child. A currant toasted teacake, saturated in butter, with a cup of hot instant coffee for breakfast. Lunch would either be a massive baked potato with cheese and beans, or pie and peas from the caff, a traditional West Yorkshire delight of a hot pork pie, with mushy peas and mint sauce. My favourite stall was always the sweet stall. It looked like the most fun to work on, weighing out quarter pounds of the sugary delights. Strawberry Bon Bons, Black Jacks, Fruit Salads, Flying Saucers. My teeth ache just thinking about it.

  I always loved helping out on the market. Talking to people, helping to sell, taking the money, wandering around looking at all the other stuff people were selling. All the market traders knew each other. Traders did the rounds of various markets in the area, so you’d see the same faces again and again. I helped for years and my reward for working at the stall was not financial. There are no financial transactions between Asian parents and their children. We never got pocket money, never got paid. This was my duty. Part of being Indian. When I’d casually mention that Sarah or Anne got paid a pound to clean their dad’s car, Dad would just laugh, hand me the bucket of soapy water and the sponge and add, ‘There better be no s
treaks!’

  If I wanted cold hard cash, then I needed to get a job. Being skint was not an option, because I’d seen a pair of trainers I really wanted and Dad refused to buy them. I decided I needed my own money so I’d never have to ask anyone to buy anything for me or have to rely on anyone again. I certainly didn’t want to burden my parents with my demands. I needed financial independence. At 14, two opportunities to earn came my way. This was my first taste of: if you want something, go and get it. I got a Saturday job at my dad’s mates’ supermarket and I started working at my local Asian radio station. The major flaw in my plan of making money, however, was being employed by Asians! The supermarket paid me a pound an hour. A POUND AN HOUR. Even in 1992 this was criminal. The job didn’t last long. Apparently my black nail varnish was scaring the customers and I wasn’t getting paid enough to afford any nail varnish remover, so I quit. I definitely didn’t get paid for a long time at the radio station, either, but eventually I was given the grand sum of around £5 an hour for a couple of hours a week. As it transpired, the radio station gave me much more in the long run than any kind of retirement fund. It was the gateway to my career and the rest of my life, it gave me an extremely cool hobby at a very young age and I found something I really loved. Plus, working for nothing gave me good grounding for my first years of working in TV! Note to self: I needed to stop working for Asians. Although, as it would turn out, I’d be underpaid for many, many, many years to come, Asian boss or not.

  My parents had focus and energy and were doing everything right and, yes, we were comfortable. A nice house in an affluent, predominantly white area, a car, two kids in private education. And then in the early nineties, everything changed.

  ‘When will we be normal kids? When will the factory close so we can go home straight after school?’ I once asked my mum. A prophetic question. The end of the eighties and the huge recession under Margaret Thatcher was the beginning of the end. Within two years, by 1990, my parents lost it all. Expanding the business, a couple of orders being cancelled, the bank refusing to extend a loan and manufacturing moving to China and Taiwan with prices we couldn’t compete with meant that the business my parents had built from the ground up was now coming crumbling down.

  With the shop gone, the factory had a lock put on it. We lost the roof over our heads. Money was tight and we moved to a small suburban semi in a slightly less affluent area and now drove a beat-up old car. A car I would not allow in the school gates. I’d get my parents to drop me off down the road and walk the last stretch of the journey! I was ashamed. Now I wasn’t just the Asian kid in a very white school, I was going to be the poor Asian kid, too.

  My parents did their best to keep the stress of it all away from us. There were arguments, huge blazing rows, but this was normal, pre-factory and post-factory. If my parents didn’t have a row in a day, there was something very wrong. They loved nothing more than a blazing row. My dad was a balance of fun and furious. Consequently, Kul and me spent most of our childhood afraid. In fear of the rows, because Dad’s voice was big and booming. We were definitely not the quiet Asian family. I’d often wake up in the night to Mum and Dad arguing. I never knew what they were fighting about, I’m not sure they did either. I took to sleeping with my fingers crossed because, if you cross your fingers, squeeze your eyes shut tight and pray they won’t fight tonight, it might come true. They still fought and I’d wake up with crooked fingers.

  My mum was never a frivolous spender and delicious Indian food is very cheap to cook, especially when you shop at Asian grocery stores. My parents never spoke about money in front of us kids, so I don’t remember feeling as though we had less than before. But I was aware that things had changed. It had seeped into the atmosphere. I didn’t ask for birthday presents and Christmas presents – Christmas holidays off school were enough of a treat, we didn’t need presents on top of that. I’m not telling you this for you to feel sorry for me, we just didn’t do gifts and didn’t expect them or demand them.

  The only time it really affected one of my choices was when I’d been selected to go on a Yorkshire Schools expedition to China. I was 15, my first year of GCSEs, and when I heard about the selection weekend in the Dales, I instantly said hell yes. China to me was the most exotic place on earth. India was normal but China was the land of kung fu, Shaolin monks, chicken chow mein and . . . my doppelganger. When I was tiny, I didn’t believe that God could have come up with so many different and unique faces and fully believed that we all had a doppelganger somewhere on earth – mine lived in the land of myths and magic, China. This must have been due to the steady diet of kung fu and Bruce Lee movies and watching Monkey.

  The selection weekend was gruelling, including a 3am wake-up to climb Ingleborough, one of Yorkshire’s three peaks, plus group tasks, solo tasks, and on the last day we had to prepare a skit in our little groups to perform in front of everyone. Naturally, I directed ours and gave myself all the funny lines. I loved every single second of it. Being outdoors, being adventurous, being part of a team but also making my own choices, being away from home – this was heaven. There were a lot of kids but only a few places on the expedition. They asked us what groups we’d like to be part of, should we be chosen to go. I put down mountaineering, but what I actually wanted to put down was trekking, I just didn’t know the difference. All I knew was I wanted to be in the mountains, as far away from people as possible, totally immersed in nature. I got selected and was giddy with excitement. My first real, proper, faraway adventure. It dawned on me the first time I met the rest of the mountaineering group that I might have made a mistake. There were six massive 6th form boys and three girls, two of whom were solid hockey playing types, properly hench, and Vicky from school, known to me as Perfect Vicky. We did the introductions and went around the group to find out everyone’s climbing experience.

  ‘We go to the Alps every yaar.’

  ‘We holiday in Scotland and have climbed Ben Nevis.’

  ‘I’m planning base camp Everest.’

  When it got to me, I actually said, ‘I’ve climbed a ladder.’ At least they laughed. And yes, of course I was the only non-white face that weekend.

  We began the training sessions. Every weekend there was something different to climb. We did Scafell Pike in the Lakes and I was the slowest of the group and nearly flew off a summit in 85 mile-per-hour winds (they had to tie a rope around my waist and attach it to the group leader so I didn’t die). My gear was crap compared with everyone else’s, but it really didn’t matter, I was in my element. Turns out, mountaineering was precisely the group I wanted to be in. The sense of satisfaction of getting to the top of a mountain and seeing the view (if it wasn’t in a rain cloud) was magnificent. I felt like my mind was clear in the mountains. Nothing else mattered. It was just me, the peak, my legs, my mind, the peace of the great outdoors and my rucksack full of snacks: a marathon, some Kendal mint cake, cheese and cucumber sandwiches in a white bap (that’s a bread roll to anyone south of Sheffield). No parantha and pickle this time! I also had another powerful motivation in the form of a lovely, floppy-haired ginger lad who was super dreamy . . . But we’ll get to that. And to Perfect Vicky.

  There was just one small problem. If I was going to get to China for the larger expedition, I needed to raise money to fund the trip. The small amount of 3,000 big fat pounds! I knew the parents of the other kids would pay for them. I had my job at the radio station that paid me the grand sum of fuck all. So, this £3,000 I had to raise was really the biggest mountain of all. I knew it was causing my dad extra stress. My parents were super happy I’d been selected but I also knew there was no spare cash. Floppy-haired ginger lad was actually going out with Perfect Vicky, so I made what I thought was an adult decision and backed out of my trip of a lifetime. A simple truth about being poor: expensive trips to China are off the agenda.

  It’s strange how, as a kid, I was so able to let things wash over me. I didn’t want to make things about me. Not when Mum and Dad had so much on t
heir plates. I learned to fend for myself and to be hyper aware of causing the least amount of stress. I wondered how I could make everything better for my parents, and once I’d made my mind up, that was that. Power forward and don’t look back! I mean, I flatly refused to look at anyone’s photos when they got back from the trip – I’m not having it rubbed in my face, thank you. Thank God there was no Instagram back then. I had this amazing capacity to think forwards and put anything bad out of my mind, because if I did think about it, I’d be upset and I wasn’t sure how to deal with being upset. Being upset was another emotion I pushed into a dark corner somewhere in my mind.

  After a couple of failed attempts at reviving the business, my folks had to start again from the bottom. And they were not too proud to do whatever they could. At first, the only jobs available were in a nursing home for Mum and working in a nightclub for my dad. In a strange way, it was the best thing that happened for Mum, as it liberated her. She was educated in India and had done a secretarial course, so her typing skills were fast. She went on an employment training course and felt having an Indian accent would mean she’d find it very difficult to get work, but she met white British people who could speak well enough but had no basic reading and writing skills, failed by the British education system. This gave Mum the confidence she needed. She may speak with an accent, but she can read and write fluently in three different languages. She retrained and went to night classes at a local adult education centre, where someone lovely saw how smart, skilled and helpful she was and encouraged her to apply for jobs, helping her fill out her CV. Eventually, after a few years, she landed a job as a liaison officer, an interpreter, at the Bradford Royal Infirmary.