Fifty percent of your population lives below the poverty line. Nine million people are at risk of starvation. Millions of children are malnourished.

Continue reading “Face it” →

There was an expression which followed me around in adolescence: “That boy just won’t get on.” Sometimes those sentiments came with the preamble: “I don’t know what’s wrong with that boy.” Mostly that was just inferred.

Continue reading “Getting on” →

I suppose I should not be surprised by negative reactions to what people think I have become. They have been fed a constant diet for a quarter of a century painting this path as something strange, alien, other.

Continue reading “Mutual incomprehension” →

I would hate to be misunderstood. I don’t wish my life had gone in a different direction completely. I’m not blaming anyone for pushing me in one direction rather than another. I just recognise that some events had a profound impact on me. And while I hated those events at the time, there was good in them. So, no, it is all good. What I have now, I would not change. I am content with my Lord’s decree. And that is the truth.

Couldn’t persuade the kids to come with me. No bad thing.

Continue reading “After work, the walk” →

I am always disappointed to encounter young people rejecting the best parts of Bengali or Punjabi culture in favour of the worst parts of English culture. I understand and accept that there are aspects of all cultures that are stifling, best set aside. But why throw away the whole for the sake of just a part?

Continue reading “We are enriched” →

What happened twenty or thirty years ago, none of us can change. What we can do is resolve to help our own children make better decisions.

Continue reading “Next gen” →

Twenty years ago, in our forested Karadeniz valley, I could easily say, “Baklavayı severim” (I love Baklava). Or, as I accidentally said to my sister-in-law, “Baklava. Seni seviyorum” (Baklava? I love you!).

Continue reading “Too much baklava” →

Success or failure is relative. It all depends on your vantage point, and what your measure of success is. For most of my childhood, I lived in a large five-bedroom house in one of the most affluent suburbs of our city. Our house had two large living rooms, a kitchen large enough to comfortably seat all six of us for dinner, a conservatory and gardens front, side and rear.

Continue reading “Success vs failure” →

Ooh, racism for breakfast. Thanks talk radio. That will give the nation something to chew over for a week or two. Priorities, priorities.

It would be true to say that for most of my life I have been paralysed by low self-esteem. In particular periods, that may even have manifested as acute self-loathing. I hope those dark days are behind me. But a lack of confidence in myself: no, this remains all too prevalent.

Continue reading “To break free” →

Put away your youthful zealotries. By the time you have reached your forties, you will have abandoned everything you once thought to be true. That won’t help those whose lives you ruined or disrupted though.

Continue reading “Youthful zealotry” →

We break our fast this evening with friends we first met twenty-one years ago in West Ealing. Now I feel very old, for the toddler we encountered back then is now a confident twenty-three year-old medical student, her brother following suit. Their youngest is a day older than ours, turning teenager this summer.

Continue reading “Breaking bread” →

My paternal grandfather kept on his dining room windowsill a bronze cast. If my memory serves, it depicted Shiva as the Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. It always fascinated me, for it was the first thing a visitor would see when visiting their home, passing it to reach their front door.

Continue reading “Global families” →

I will take my transnational community over narrow nationalism any time. I will take this brotherhood of man over petty hatreds based on the quantity of melanin in a person’s epidermis. I choose to break bread with the humble of all the world.

The pandemic and lockdown measures have messed with our mental health. This is the next societal crisis, compounded by the squeeze on family finances.

Continue reading “Messed up” →

It’s very easy to say to yourself, “Don’t grieve over the past.” Much harder to do. Daily, I am plagued by whispers petitioning me to look back to those moments when I should have been setting foundations for the present.

Continue reading “Foundations” →

I keep seeing articles about the supposed superpowers of introverts in the workplace. One such power: they’re resilient because they’re used to being ignored.

Continue reading “Introvert at work” →

Trust nobody who tells you it is necessary to send your children to private school, in order that they be successful in life. Such schools may be good for some people, but they are not a panacea. Indeed, for some people, they may do more damage than good.

Continue reading “The best education” →

I admit it: I’m an anti-social git, personality type, ASG.

Continue reading “Anti-social git” →

Where could ambition have carried me? What could I have achieved, had I had vision, or encouragement, or guidance? I have recently encountered quite a few people I once knew in the distant past with humble beginnings who have achieved so much in their lives. In all honesty, I’m in awe of each of them.

Why do we have to accept daft platitudes like, You’re the least white white man I know? It’s fine to be whatever you are, as long as you’re not a prick.

Continue reading “Patronising guff” →

In my youth, I was embarrassed by my family’s wealth and social status. I told nobody where I lived, not even close friends. When driven to school, I would ask to be dropped off out of sight. I later took to walking long distances home.

Continue reading “The cost of living” →

I have always resisted the notion that there is such a thing as British culture. I have always argued that nations, communities, families subsume multiple cultures.

Continue reading “Culture club” →

Whatever happened to socially conscious hip-hop? The lyrics blasting from the TV on our barber’s wall are so off.

Continue reading “Barber shop hip-hop” →

Wealth can’t buy you happiness. I see more contentment amongst those raised in deprived circumstances, who built lifelong relationships that have stood the test of time, than I ever saw in myself, with all our privilege and opportunities.

Continue reading “Wealth and status” →

I see a lot of organisations congratulating themselves these days for dropping the use of the term BAME or Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic. However, I feel this is just a sideshow.

Continue reading “BAME” →

Years ago, we were launched out into the world, each on a different trajectory. Encountering you again all these years later, I could never have imagined what would become of you. And you encountering me: I suppose you’re a bit perplexed too. It’s almost as if we have swapped places. I was flung out in one direction, and you in another completely. Your lifestyle now looks like my upbringing; mine, I suppose, looks a bit like yours. How could this have happened? What strange decisions we must each have made, way back through the decades. Yes, it is truly perplexing.

Looking back on past assumptions, I truly cringe. The racism of low expectations, or the low expectations of racism. How pervasive the narrative about the worth of our migrant neighbours, that even one raised in a supposedly enlightened milieu had a low opinion of those he once encountered.

Continue reading “Ingrained” →

The children of friends we saw growing up are securing their first professional jobs post-graduation. Proper jobs. Real jobs. Jobs, if the Most Merciful wills, at the start of illustrious careers. I’m happy for them. I’m happy too that they get in touch to share their wonderful news.

Continue reading “Sustenance” →

Alas, difficult times lie ahead. Rising energy prices. Rising food prices. Rising taxes. Stagnated wages. Insecure housing. For the poor, the years to come will be catastrophic.

Continue reading “Tough times” →