Across much of Britain's former Asian colonies, many are greeting the UK's impending departure from the European Union with a mixture of bafflement, apathy, amusement -- and a touch of schadenfreude.
Britain long justified imperial subjugation by arguing Rule Britannia brought order, stability and shared prosperity -- even after its retreat from colonialism birthed a host of troubled new nations still saddled with historical grievances and legacies to this day.
Now Brits face a chaos and internal division of their own making, alongside potential isolation and years of economic hardship -- particularly if the UK crashes out with no deal on April 12.
"I was born and brought up in this British colony called Hong Kong and used to think that the Brits were a very sensible people," remarked Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy lawmaker in the financial hub.
"I've been watching Brexit process as a former colonial person and it's almost like a farce, it's sadly funny, sadly amusing. I'm baffled as to why and how things got to where they are now. To outsiders it's almost unthinkable," she told AFP.
Mo, 62, came of age politically during a turbulent period for her birthplace sparked by Britain's colonial legacy -- the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China.
Unlike Brexit, Hong Kongers had no say in their future and many were desperate to obtain British passports in case the handover unleashed chaos.
Many youngsters, Mo said, are still looking for opportunities overseas given Beijing's increasingly authoritarian grip, but they may be less inclined to opt for Britain.
"I think their first choices here are more likely Australia and Canada," she remarked.
In India, Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs, said many regard Brexit as the latest chapter in what has been a "sharp decline in the place Britain commands as a great power".
"They are not a gold standard to look up to," he said.
"We get a feeling of a sinking ship and everybody wants to leave a sinking ship."
India's economy is set to overtake the UK's later this year.
"The UK will then become a middle power. It is like a reversal of scale," he noted.
Students at Bangladesh's Dhaka University offered mixed views on what Brexit might mean.
Syed Tahsin said he hoped the relationship between the two countries might be "more positive than ever before" given Britain has vowed to strengthen bridges with Commonwealth countries.
But others fretted that the anti-immigrant sentiment which fuelled the leave vote would make Britain less welcoming to overseas visitors and the Bangladeshi community already there.
"Brexit itself is a policy of white supremacists," lamented student Aishwarya Proma, adding she feared it will "just push more... immigrants (to) go back to their countries."
While Brits and Europeans may have been engrossed by the unceasing weekly drama of Brexit, many further afield admitted that they were more preoccupied by local issues.
"The Brexit issue and the wider conversations about democracy seem far removed from daily life in Sri Lanka, where we are all consumed with our own dysfunctional politics," Dharisha Bastians, chief editor of the Sunday Observer newspaper, told AFP.
Nationalist Sri Lankan legislator Udaya Gammanpila regarded that disinterest as a good sign.
"We are no longer preoccupied with British politics. We are slowly getting over our colonial mentality," he said.
Given its cultural and linguistic links, Australians have followed the Brexit drama perhaps more closely than any other former colony.
Nick Miller, Europe correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, noted there was "immediate interest" from readers.
"The sight of a country deliberately throwing away a close, mutually beneficial partnership, wilfully damaging its economy and influence on a point of cultural principle, was a surprise," he wrote.
Though he noted Britain hardly had a monopoly on political dysfunction.
"We've changed prime ministers six times in the past 11 years, only twice as the result of an election," he wrote.
Others have opted for humour.
A "Brexit Yoga" video by Australian comic Sammy J -- featuring postures such as "Rising Nationalism", "Instant Regret" and "Downward Facing Economy" -- went viral last month on Facebook racking up some 5.4 million views.
Singaporean economics student Linus Yeo said he was keen to look for silver linings.
"Feels like the perfect time to take a holiday in the UK," he told AFP.
"The pound is probably going into freefall."
Meanwhile Tanmay, a freelance cameraman in New Delhi, joked Brexiters could learn some patience from India.
"I am not surprised Brexit is taking a long time," he said.
"The British took ages to leave here too.
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
Despite his growing profile, he has not previously worked on video game voice acting projectsYouTube/ IO Interactive
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