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I’ve forgiven big sis for her terrible fashion advice, which is just as well as she’s coming to London. Her whole family is in tow, which means she won’t stay over with me and instead will spend time with her husband’s clan in East London. However, she is trying to harangue me to go saree shopping with her tomorrow and tonight both she and my big brother-in-law have invited us for dinner at a restaurant in Tower Hamlets.
Now, I love all of London. I’ve always been a city girl desperate to come out of my suburb in Manchester. I love the theatre (we’ve enjoyed a couple of west end shows), I love the Southbank, I love the many meals out we’ve enjoyed, I love the late night cinema screenings. Heck, I even love breathing in the fumes of Oxford Street.
However, while I love the rich tapestry the capital offers, my heart lies in Bangla town, East London. Growing up, I’d visit Tower Hamlets every summer to see mum’s only cousin in the UK, uncle Tariq. It was the only place I’d heard people loudly speak Bengali, besides in Bangladesh itself. There even seems to be a different atmosphere in East London. Down south is generally warmer than up north, plus the London sky is slightly more smoggy, however, it felt like more than that. It felt like the murky, humid climes I’ve experienced on my few visits to the motherland. It was probably in my head, but for a girl that had always been the odd one out, going into East London felt like I’d come home.
So to say I’m excited to meet big sis and her family there would be an understatement.
As we drive from our temporary home in Liverpool Street to Whitechapel, the heart of Tower Hamlets, I notice just how close the two places are. Generally, we find ourselves travelling by tube in London, so it’s quite an eye opener to see the close proximity of these two very different worlds. Both east and west seem to merge and intermingle at a very distinct juncture, namely where Fenchurch Street encroaches Aldgate High Street.
“Parking is always a ball ache around here,” says M, as we drive around the same block several times in the hope that some car, any car, will pull out and free up some space.
“This isn’t how I remember it,” I say, as I’ve got other things on my mind than parking.
“Remember what?” M asks.
“I think I’ve been here once before, to this street, where all the markets are. It looks familiar but I don’t remember it being like this. There used to be loads of Bengalis here.”
As M breaks a sweat sandwiching his pristine Audi TT between a battered old Ford Focus and a Vauxhall Nova that hasn’t been in production for about 30 years, I take in my surroundings. There’s an old English pub which my ignorant self would have assumed to be full of racists. However, judging by the clientele standing outside in the winter cold, one hand clutching their beer bottles, the other stuffed underneath their opposite armpit for warmth, there are more hipsters with full beards rather than shaved heads.
Just a couple of metres away, within shouting distance, a Bengali man bellows in a rap-style: “Maas, maas, fash ta ekh fon,” before translating in English: “Fish, fish, five for £1! Come get it, nearly closing down.”
I haven’t heard Bengali mother tongue, such a familiar sound, shouted so loudly in my life. My family and I would resort to a whisper when speaking Bangla outdoors, like we were preserving some secret.
The stall owners last call is working as a girl with flame-red long hair walks over from the pub, cigarette in hand, to examine his wares with her friend, who’s sporting culturally appropriated braids. He continues his chant, attracting the odd commuter who drifts away from the sea of workers exiting Whitechapel tube station to entertain the idea of a fish supper.
All the other stalls, featuring foreign fruit and vegetables like bitter melon and lychees, are packing away their boxes for the night. We’d have to drive fifteen minutes to Longsight or Rusholme to get such delicacies when I lived at mum’s. Yet here they are, readily available for everyone and anyone in this melting pot metropolis.
Then I hear a call. One of the biggest mosques I have ever seen sits opposite this old pub. The call to prayer echoes through the dark star-less sky, reverberating towards us as we are parked outside the pub. I used to be so conscious of any hints of my ethnicity being visible to others. I would die of embarrassment if one of my school friends spotted me in a salwar kameez. I would cringe at the smell of curry that seeped into everything - my school bag, my gym kit, my uniform, even my damn pencil case (curse those trendy cloth cases that absorbed every odour). Being the only Bengali in our area, I was brought up, whether unintentionally or not, with the notion that it’s best to blend in and be anonymous.
Yet here I stand, the loud call to prayer that I’d only ever heard in Bangladesh in one ear, and the banter of the pub patrons in the other. You hear of ghettos in the media, of no-go areas for white people. However, it seems that these two worlds, which couldn’t be more different, are co-existing. One side getting on with the business of prayer, the other getting on with the business of drinking. Neither bothering one another. Each to their own. Apart yet together. Respectful of their respective places in the world. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“Sorry, I was just trying to get into that space. I wasn’t ignoring you,” says M, long after I’d forgotten what I’d originally asked. “Anyway, these places used to be a bit more Bengali, but now London is so ridiculously expensive that people who lived in West London are moving further south and those central are moving east, as that’s all they can afford.”
“That must be a come down. You definitely couldn’t be racist here,” is all I can think to add.
“To be honest with ya, London isn’t really like that. Most people are used to the Muslim culture, especially those who live here. They’re usually young professionals that don’t bat an eyelid at the huge mosque over the road. Plus everyone’s got a beard now, so we’re all the same, one way or another!” M strokes his bristly stubble.
“We’re really not that different,” I say.
***
My big brother-in-law is holding court like never before. He’s chatting animatedly in Bengali to the waiting staff, recommending dishes to us from the authentic menu which doesn’t feature a single vindaloo, chicken tikka or other anglicised dish. Being a fish lover, he recommends the tenga, a tangy, tomato-based curry which has more bones than I’d care to negotiate. He also gets the house special, chaat, which isn’t the Pakistani-style yoghurt-laden chickpea dish I’m used to. This is a much more concentrated, intense, blow your socks off fresh green chilli-loaded firecracker, sprinkled with crispy fried dough and decorated with coriander.
M manages to eat the chaat without breaking into a sweat. I, however, am sporting a runny nose and my mouth is on fire but I can’t stop eating. It’s delicious, moreish and is clearing out my sinuses and getting rid of the last dregs of my winter cold.
“You enjoying London life?” Big bro-in-law asks.
“It’s great.” I’m not sure if the question was aimed at me but I answered for us both whilst dabbing my nose.
“If it be too hot, we can order something different? They have chips,” he says.
It feels blasphemous to order such a thing in this establishment. I didn’t even see it on the menu.
“No, it’s fine. This is good.” I sniff once more.
“Oh dear, lady, we best get something else. Maybe some daal?” Big sis looks at her hubby as he’s picking up the tab by default, being the oldest at the table.
“No, no. I’ll get chips for her. Something she like. Eh, Mashooq! Fry some seef!” Fearing his uncouth shouting may go unnoticed, my brother-in-law gets up and heads to the kitchen, patting the back of the manager on the way.
“He’s terribly familiar here,” I say to big sis.
“He’s like this when we come to London. We can’t even walk down the street without him bumping into someone he knows. All his family are here and his friends that came from Bangladesh. I always say, if it wasn’t for the restaurant in Bristol, I’d love to live in London and he definitely would love to move here.”
It’s funny, despite my brother-in-law being in our lives for what feels like forever, I don’t really know much about him. There’s this invisible veil of respect and formality. When he visits we share niceties. He used to ask me about my studies, as he’s got a degree and masters of his own. He’d enquire into the progress of my driving lessons, my job opportunities, that sort of stuff. It didn’t go much deeper. I also fully admit, I had a bunch of loaded misconceptions about him. I’ve always known him as the dependent in their relationship. As he came from Bangladesh with a limited command of English and no real motivation to improve this, big sis is the one doing the life admin. She fills out the school forms, applied for the mortgage, takes care of the grown up matters.
Seeing him tonight is like seeing a different man. This is his world. He’s at ease with the waiting staff, he’s the one that knows everyone, he is leading the conversation, and he is picking up the bill. It’s brilliant. I’ve only ever seen him follow the lead, rather than take it. I never asked him how he felt, coming to the UK as a man who can’t speak English, to live initially with his in-laws. I always wondered whether being unable to fully engage in the community around him, meant he felt like he was watching his life unfold on TV, rather than being an active part of it.
I’d always hear about life after marriage for the girl. What it’s like for the girl to go to someone else’s house. What it’s like for the girl to live with in-laws and endure all the politics and domestic time bombs that go with it. We never talk about the guys, especially the one’s that come from back home and live the life that girls traditionally would.
Seeing him today, I realise that my big sis and brother-in-law have their own system. She takes the lead when she needs to, he takes the lead when he needs to. It works for them like a charm.
I’ve also noticed that my nephews and niece don’t have the down-low disrespect that I’d often show my parents. The disrespect because they couldn’t speak English. The disrespect because we were briefly on benefits for a time we’d rather forget. The disrespect because they couldn’t provide for me in the way my friends’ parents’ could – giving the best trainers, the branded jacket, the school jumper that wasn’t two sizes too big or a hand-me-down. My nephews and niece know to tow the line with their dad. It doesn’t matter that he can’t speak English, or that he will regress and be the child when big sis has to step up.
I’ve always looked at their marriage as rather old-fashioned. She is a housewife. She loves sarees. She loves a big fat Bengali wedding. He’s the one who works in a restaurant, like many first generation immigrants before him. Looking at them now, however, it feels like the partnership is arguably very modern. Because it’s exactly that - a partnership, not just man and wife.
***
As we practically run to the car (well, I’m the one running as the extremely chilli chaat is threatening to cause a scene before we get home), I have a question for M: “Since we need to find somewhere to live, what do you think of this place?”
“Nah, doesn’t appeal, to be honest with ya. It’s a bit scuzzy and there are too many Bengalis.”
“They’re not all Bengalis. There’s loads of white people. By the looks of things, all the sky rise apartments are probably full of young professionals. Just like us.”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
I guess M is like my cousin Naila. Having been brought up in a town full of Bengalis, he’s developed an aversion.
I, however, feel like I’ve found a missing glove.
I’ll work on him.