The 47th Harry Brittain Fellowship
6 June to 14 July
Of saris, sneakers and a kiss on the cheek
By Rachna Rawat (India)
If you ask me what the most diffficult part of this fellowship has been, I'd
say leaving my three-year-old baby to travel half way across the world. And
the most fascinating? Two hundred words fall painfully short. The cross
cultural experince, the smiling strangers I shake hands with on day one (and
am unwilling to let go off on day final), the soccer match I play for the
first time in my life on the last weekend here, the funny feeling that
London is home? Can't put my finger on one, though.
On the day of the
terrorist attack I remember an outraged phone call from Mapula, my
fellow-fellow from South Africa, who like me is on her first trip here. "Did
you hear?" she screeches in my ear, "they bombed our station". Kings Cross,
which we used for most commuting, has become 'our' station.
In the rain that falls softly on Belgrave Road in Leicester I am surprised
to see old British Indian ladies. In their colourful saris, tight buns and
red tikkas they look familiar as they shuffle down the road holding big
umbrellas. These frail women, who speak fluent Gujarati, came to Leicester
in the early sixties and seventies, I soon find out. Many are married to men
Idi Amin threw out of Uganda with just a suitcase and £50 in their pockets.
Rachna (left) with Farhat on Thames trip |
I meet Anusuya ben who landed at Heathrow when she was 18, way back in 1962.
In her new saree and chappals (slippers) she fell right into the knee-deep
snow, she tells me. And immediately wanted to go back to her village of
Navsari in Gujarat where the sun shone brighter and kids ran barefeet.
Forty-three years later, she is still here, with her sense of humour intact.
She chuckles when I lift her sari to check out her footwear - a behaviour
allowance made only between two Indian women. I find a snazzy pair of
sneakers. "Kya karen (what to do). The cold in this country forces shoes on
you," she laughs. The spoken Hindi draws us closer. But I'm not surprised
simply by the sneakers. I'm surprised they're the only apparel change she
has made. Her nose pin sparkles bright, a Sai Baba pendant nestles between
the gold chains around her neck and a 'bindi' intercepts her wrinkled
forehead. She looks more Indian than women of her generation back home.
"This is our culture. If we don't preserve it, who will. I haven't let this
country change me," she says, smiling at my incredulity.
To me, British Asians like Anusuya ben are amazing because they have managed
to keep their cultural identity so well preserved despite being so far
removed in time as well as space from the India they still think of as home.
As I hug her on my way out, Anusuya ben surprises me yet again by reaching
out to kiss my cheek. A completely western gesture. I don't tell her that
she has picked up more than she thinks. Maybe, so have I. But that, slowly
time will tell.
