From Tanzania to Twickenham

(by Rakhee Verma)

Author's reading

The London borough of Twickenham is known for a film studio, a rugby stadium, and the homes of A-listers like Mick Jagger. The neighborhood has always been white and affluent. So, when my Indian family moved there in 1979, nobody looked like us.

Working several jobs at once between them, my parents had scrimped and saved up enough to buy a small shop that sold newspapers and magazines, but everyone called it the “sweet shop” for the rows and rows of jars filled with what would now be considered “retro” British confectionary—rhubarb and custard, aniseed twists, and cola cubes. It was open seven days a week. My parents never went on holiday.

Buying a shop represented freedom—taking control of their future in a country that treated them as outsiders, even if they came from a country within the ironically named British “commonwealth.” We lived above the shop—my two sisters and me in one bedroom, accessed through my parents’ bedroom. (My two brothers arrived later.)

Our kitchen was behind the shop, separated by a narrow hallway and two doors. And everything that happened there had to remain a secret from the outside world. If we let the door open for more than a couple of seconds, my mother would panic: “Quick, quick, the smells will go into the shop!” Now, curry is the national dish of Great Britain, but back then customers openly complained that our cooking smelled “disgusting” or “stinky.” Using spices made us savages.

My mum, Nirmala Kumari Datta (Nimmi for short), was born in Maharashtra, India, in 1951. She was a Brahmin, the priestly caste, historically right at the top of the Hindu hierarchy, although that did not always mean wealthy.

Her father was in the British colonial army, and so was her grandfather, who was stationed in Tanzania (Tanganyika, before independence) by and for the Raj. When my mum was just one year old, her parents packed up and joined him. It was a journey Indians had been making for centuries. Trade between India and East Africa had existed for millennia, long before the Europeans showed up, but under the British Empire, those old connections became formal pathways for labor, service, and settlement.

After independence, Tanganyika, now Tanzania, started changing. Street names were swapped, colonial markers disappeared, and the mood shifted. For South Asian families, there was a growing unease; they were often seen as economically dominant and, fairly or unfairly, linked to colonial power. Coupled with memories of the violence that followed the British leaving India, my mum’s family decided it was time to go. In 1961 they boarded a Kuwait Airways flight to England. They were part of a growing Indian diaspora moving to the area for work. Factories offered stability, a wage, and a foothold in post-war Britain.

My dad’s older siblings had also moved from India to England as economic immigrants, and he joined them as a teenager. In 1973, he walked to the post box on the corner of his street and watched my mum walk past. He was the handsome bachelor that local mothers were hoping might marry their daughters, and my mother was a beauty with a difficult story. More on that later.

They were married within a few months of that meeting. This story was kept from us as children since marriages of choice (“love marriages,” as they are known in Indian culture) were frowned upon in those days. I discovered their meeting story as a teenager, when a woman said to my father at a party, “Ah, you’re the one who went to post a letter and fell in love!”

Although my mother had lived in Britain since early childhood, she and my dad were both proud Indians, and they worked hard to make sure we identified with our cultural heritage. It was sometimes confusing or disconcerting to me—I was British, right? And my parents tolerated no deviation from their ideas of how children should behave. I was told what to do, think, and speak. My parents’ biggest hope? That I’d find a suitable boy. Indians have a reputation for being pushy about education, but mine weren’t. Girls who were too educated were hard to marry. What I did learn from my mum was how to cook, clean, and be helpful. If you invite Asian women to your house for a meal, we can’t stop ourselves from clearing the table or washing dishes so you don’t have to.

My dad jokes that when they married, my mum wasn’t much of a cook. My grandmother had fled a miserable marriage that ended in divorce, for which both she and my mother were ostracized from the Indian community for a long time. Survival had mattered more than passing down recipes, and so they put their attention to earning money from factory work—work that continued after my parents’ marriage and until my mother became pregnant with me.

My mum was 15 at the time of her parents’ divorce, an event that would overshadow her life for many years to come, including crucially when my father stated his intention to marry her to his parents. Word had spread to my grandparents in India that their son’s future mother-in-law was a divorcee, causing a major backlash against my mother that continued until my paternal grandmother’s death, who was the last of my grandparents to die. 

Ironically, the daughter-in-law who had been so maligned was the only family member who visited my grandmother daily at a care home when she was in advanced stages of Alzheimer's. None of my father’s three siblings took any responsibility for her care.

My dad, unusually for a man of his generation, had learned to cook from a kind landlady who prepared his meals, and whose student he became. When my parents were first married, my father taught my mum the basics: vegetarian curries, chapattis—meals made and eaten by generations of Indians to this day.

What my mum lacked in the kitchen as a young bride, she made up for tenfold once she became a mother. Indian food is tricky to get right—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I used to watch her like she was a magician with a bag of tricks—in her case, a round, stainless steel spice tin, in which were a dozen small containers with salt, black pepper, homemade garam masala, ground cumin, and more. She’d throw them into pots of bubbling onions, tomatoes, ginger, and garlic without measuring, seemingly guided by some silent ancestral wisdom.

I do the same now. Friends ask me for recipes, and it’s almost impossible to write down exact measurements and expect the same result.

As a kid and teenager, to me my mum was a tough, hardworking baby machine. Growing up in a strict household like ours wasn’t exactly conducive to warm family chats. It’s taken time, patience, and biting my tongue to get to the place I’m at now—in my 50s—seeing her for the woman she was then, and the woman she is now. Back then, she was a very young mum carrying family trauma from growing up with a violent alcoholic father, and doing her best to prevent it from spilling over into her parenting; she didn’t always succeed.

Now in her 70s, she is still considered a beauty, and we are close. She’s incredibly funny, both intentionally and unintentionally. She has her own versions of English idioms: Instead of “take the rough with the smooth,” she will say, “Rakhee, you have to take the salt with the sugar.” Rather than saying a spicy dish has “a kick to it,” she’ll say, “It will kick you in the mouth.” She’s hopeless with non-Indian names. She doesn’t like films by “Quarantino,” but she’ll happily watch tennis matches with “Federrera.”

These days, the smells of her cooking fill her state-of-the-art kitchen, which opens onto a beautifully manicured and curated garden. Her neighbors—still mostly white and affluent —often compliment her. They love it when she hosts community meetings because she will make a stack of pakoras and other savory cooked snacks (all deep fried, of course).

No Indian woman has ever knowingly prepared too small an amount of food. If you leave our houses without clutching your stomach in pain, we consider it a failure.

My mum cooks every day, as soon as she gets up: chutneys, daals (lentil dishes), sabjis (vegetable dishes), pakoras, samosas. She can make dozens of perfectly round chapattis at lightning speed and cook basmati rice so that each grain is separate and perfect. I managed that recently for the first time at the age of 51.

When I go home to visit now, she will make parathas (filled chapattis) for breakfast. Fillings include spiced potato, grated cauliflower, mooli (radish), or just fenugreek leaves, served with a huge dollop of butter and yogurt. When we were kids, we would sometimes top them with a fried egg—perfect for dipping into the yolk.

My favorite? The ones filled with russet potatoes. (“New potatoes aren’t starchy enough,” says Mum.)

Now that I’m vegan, I can appreciate a slightly healthier version with olive oil instead of butter or ghee. My mum was skeptical of my veganism at first, but as more of my siblings have become vegans, she goes out of her way to make new dishes and cakes for us. Most Indian dishes are accidentally vegan anyway, as heart disease concerns have led families to swap ghee for rapeseed (canola) oil.

The older I get, the keener I am to learn from my mum. Recipes she has dictated to me over the phone are pinned to a noticeboard in my kitchen. But her instruction goes beyond the food itself. Since certain dishes are eaten on religious holidays and at cultural festivals, when she passes on her wisdom, she’s sharing heritage, ancestry, and history—both good and bad.

And sometimes, when I’m making pakoras or stirring a pot of curry, I know that sending her a photo or telling her what I’ve cooked will make her smile—and she’ll always have a bit of praise (and a healthy dose of feedback!) for me.

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Rakhee Verma is a freelance communication and growth strategist, and a mediator who lives in the Cotswolds, England. She can be found at www.tigrisconsultingandmediation.com.

Aloo Paratha

Potato filling:

2 large russet potatoes

1 medium white onion, finely chopped

1 t. cumin seeds

1 t. ajwan seeds

1/4 t. turmeric

1/2 t. garam masala

small handful of finely chopped coriander

1 in. cubed ginger, grated

1 t. salt

2 green chilies or 1/2 t. red chili powder

Boil potatoes until fork-tender.

Let cool, then mash with remaining ingredients, except the salt (salt goes in just before cooking or the mixture becomes watery).

Cover and refrigerate.

Dough:

2 c. flour

2 T. olive oil, plus more for cooking

For serving:

mango pickle

yogurt

butter

Knead flour and oil together, adding small amounts of water until it is a pliable consistency.

Set aside for 1 hour.

Make small balls of dough, about the size of a golf ball.

Flatten with your hand and roll out to 4 in. diameter

Make balls of the potato mixture, slightly larger than golf ball size.

Place one potato ball in the middle of the dough and wrap dough around it, by lifting the edges so they meet at the top.

Flatten gently with your hands, then roll out into a circle about 1/4 in. thick.

Put on a hot flat pan such as a tawa over medium heat.

Cook until one side has browned, then turn.

Brush a little olive oil on the browned side.

Flip over again and brush a little oil on that side.

Should be golden brown on both sides; check for raw bits around the edges.

Serves 2.

Best served with a dollop each of mango pickle, yogurt, and butter.

Don’t forget a nice, steaming cup of sweet masala chai!