by MITA MISTRY
Former scientist Jeevani Charika writes women’s fiction, which often features Sri Lankan characters and also writes romantic comedy under the pen name Rhoda Baxter.
Qualified pharmacist AA Dhand is a crime writer who has been inspired by the history, diversity and darkness of his home city of Bradford to write his Harry Virdee novels.
Mum of two Serena Patel is a children’s author who is releasing the first book in her Anisha Mistry series for ages 7+, being published by Usborne, in September.
Liz Mistry is the author of the Bradford-based, gritty, northern noir, Gus McGuire series and as well as writing crime fiction, she is doing a PhD in creative writing at Leeds Trinity University. Dr Rajeev Balasubramanyam is an award-winning novelist, whose latest book Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss is out now.
Eastern Eye got the talented authors to reveal novels that influenced them most.
Jeevani Charika: There are so many books to choose from. With my current novel, I think I can safely say the book that influenced me most was The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. It’s about an Indian family living in America. I’m a Sri Lankan-Brit living in Britain, but I recognised the people in the book (particularly the second generation) as people like me, who were steeped in one culture, but carrying with us hints of another. They were middle class, educated and I’d met many people like them in real life. After reading The Namesake, I knew that I wanted to read (and write) more stories about people like that.
AA Dhand: Silence Of The Lambs by Thomas Harris. The balance of power between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling is unsurpassed in crime-fiction. I think it is the greatest thriller ever written. The character dynamics, vulnerability and setting of Baltimore. As a 12-year-old, I sneakily rented the movie, but was too afraid to finish it. I borrowed the book from the library a week later and did finish that. I could not believe that a book could be more powerful than a movie – that it could keep me turning the page in-spite of myself. I knew then and there that I wanted to be a writer.
Serena Patel: When I was a child we went to library a lot, but didn’t own many of our own books. My mum bought me a complete illustrated works of Lewis Carroll and I read it over and over. The fact that poetry could be nonsensical was weird and wonderful to me and inspired me to write my own poems. I also really loved the story of Alice and the fantastical world she escaped into; it was totally bonkers and one of my favourites things to do was to curl up with this huge book, and let it take me on many brilliantly bizarre adventures.
Liz Mistry: To choose just one novel that inspired me is a tall order, but in the end, I opted for Along Came A Spider by James Patterson, which is notable for many reasons. First, the tight plotting of such a complex storyline is second to none – every thread is woven into a compelling tapestry that really packs a punch. The psychology of the killer is fascinatingly portrayed and the hero, Alex Cross is influential for its time. Here we have a detective of colour from the projects with a wholesome family morality and the physical and mental capacity to outdo an ingenious adversary. Alex has definitely influenced the way I create my own characters and remains high on my list of top 10 protagonists.
Rajeev Balasubramanyam: The Buddha of Suburbia was the first book I ever related to, aged 18. It still breaks my heart to realise I’d never even expected to meet myself in fiction. Hanif Kureishi changed this for me. I loved the humour, the tumbling and multi-fronted irreverence of it, like a man wandering through a house of mirrors and giving the finger to each and every face he sees. Yet, somewhere, in the middle of it, we find the narrator’s essence, vulnerability, need for love and crucially his magnificence, sexiness and intelligence. He didn’t know much, but he trusted himself, which helped me remember that I could too.
The actor’s evolving style from youth to maturity getty images
Aamir Khan embracing vintage looks with classic charmgetty images
Bold and dramatic changes defining Aamir Khan’s careergetty images
From rugged to refined Aamir Khan’s versatile appearancesgetty images
Memorable film moments showcasing Aamir Khan’s unique stylegetty images
Aamir Khan’s blend of classic and contemporary fashiongetty images
Aamir Khan’s dedication to authentic character portrayals getty images
Cinematic milestones reflected in Aamir Khan’s on-screen imagegetty images
A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5