ACCLAIMED actress Delnaaz Irani has shown off her versatility with a remarkable range of performances in film and television during a distinguished career. She is currently playing a key role in Star Plus drama serial Kabhi Kabhie Ittefaq Sey and took time out from a busy shooting schedule to select 10 films she loves.
Karz (1980): The performances of Rishi Kapoor, Raj Kiran, Simi Garewal and Tina Munim were amazing in this all-time classic. The music was fabulous, and the song Kitne Baras Ki is a particular favourite. The reincarnation drama was very good and is one that can be seen again and again. It is one of the best works of director Subhash Ghai.
Satte Pe Satta (1982): The story of seven brothers was one of a kind in Hindi cinema. Led by the amazing acting of Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini, the performances were superb right across the board. The comic timing among actors was particularly very good. The catchy music included the unforgettable song Pyar Hame Kis Mod Pe Le Aaya.
Amar Akbar Anthony (1977): The story of three brothers who are separated in childhood and raised in different faiths was a unique concept. This movie gave us a great message of secular India, which is one that we need now more than ever. Amitabh Bachchan gave a terrific performance and led a galaxy of stars, including incredible icons Rishi Kapoor and Vinod Khanna.
Flashdance (1983): The American film was a great mix of romance, drama, heartfelt emotion, and dance. It inspires us to take our passion, make it happen and dance right through our lives. The soundtrack is toe-tappingly infectious and is infused with a lot of energy. And it is directed so very well.
The Pursuit of Happyness (2006): This inspiring film is based on a real-life story. The movie has some very important life lessons that are essential for everyone. It has given me the strength to stand up to life and yell, “bring it on” so many times. It has a list of lessons that I believe everyone should know, and which may help you on your quest for ‘happiness’. It’s excruciatingly unpleasant to watch at times, but Will Smith’s performance is superb.
The Devil Wears Prada (2006): You can’t deny the fact that this film is near-perfect. There are plenty of life-changing moments one experiences while watching the film, both as an actor and an individual. It’s beautifully written, very well acted and features some iconic clothes. The film also succeeds in putting job challenges
into perspective.
The Sound of Music (1965): This all-time classic Hollywood film is full of so many good messages, as well as being rich in character, music, and drama. It also teaches valuable life skills to every child, parent, married couples, and family. One thing I loved the most was the stunning visuals and numerous memorable songs. It became an enduring classic, thanks to the title song.
Meri Jung (1985): The powerful film has the song Zindagi Har Kadam Ek Nayi Jung Hai. It contains the inspiring lyrics Jeet Jayenge Hum, Tu Agar Sang Hain. Anil Kapoor and Meenakshi Seshadri deliver fantastic performances. Jaaved Jaaferi has memorable moments in the film, including the song Bol Baby Bol. Nutan’s performance also made a huge difference to the story.
Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003): The film was loved then, and it is loved now. It was a big turning point for me. Everyone needs that one big push in their career and I guess this was the one for me. I couldn’t have asked for a bigger introductory break in films. Working with Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta in the same movie was a great experience. I had fun shooting for this absolutely wonderful movie, which has it all – comedy, romance, and deep emotions. Whether it is Naina, Aman or Rohit, all three of them experience feelings on a level that makes them always want to be with the one they truly love.
Jab We Met (2007): This film gifted us one of the most iconic characters of all times, Geet. It also gave us great dialogues, which we fondly borrow every now and then. And of course, Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor delivered such a cute romance. Both the actors channeled all they had within to create two real, vulnerable, and relatable characters. Sometimes taking the wrong train can make you land at the right place.
Woodcut prints that explore the fragile threshold between body, time, and transcendence
Inspired by Baul mystics like Lalon Shai and Shah Abdul Karim, as well as sculptural forms from Michelangelo to Rodin
Figures emerge from black holes and womb-like voids — trapped in time yet reaching for freedom
A visual dialogue between flesh and spirit, rootedness and flight
A bold continuation of South Asian metaphysical traditions in contemporary form
Paradox becomes the path: muscular bodies dream of escape through light, memory, and love
Expressionist in tone, haunting in imagery — a theatre of becoming
I imagine Tarek Amin (Ruhul Amin Tarek) has a singular vision as his hands work on his craft, his measuring eyes, the membranes of his fingers. They are mostly woodcut prints on the threshold of becoming, from darkened holes. A human figure dangling in space, yet not without gravitational pull, the backwards tilt of the head is like a modern-day high jumper in the fall position, the muscles and ribcage straining to keep the body's mass afloat. A clock is ticking away in the background of a darkened rectangle. Is it the black hole, the womb, or the nothingness from which the first murmurings of being, its tentative emergence into light, can be heard?
A clock is ticking away in the background of a darkened rectangleManzu Islam
This one is in the darkened inside of a clock, as if in the womb of time, but not quite trapped in the savage tick-tock of the metronome, for the body in its stylised repose is already stirring to take flight. Why else would the face turn away from the body in its sideways position and look beyond the dark hole, beyond the frame of time?
Even the figure deep in sleep in the primal bed of the darkened womb is not as lost to time as it first appears. The legs have already wriggled their way beyond the frame. Besides, the folds of the garment covering the lower body are billowing in the wind, as if responding to the summons of the beyond to take flight into the infinite. They are all over, these black holes that imprison even a tiny flicker of light. Staged almost as an expressionist theatre reminiscent of Ludwig Kirchner et al and the Bridge Group’s woodcut prints where dark areas, looming large, provide abodes for the likes of Nosferatu or the sinister zones of danger in a Hitchcock film, but always pointing to the lighted outside, the avenue of escape, even transcendence, as Tarek Amin tends to think.
Often bathed in metamorphic ochre and orange, these figures inspired by Bengal’s deep-rooted philosophers and mystical poets, such as Lalon Shai and Shah Abdul Karim, are swept along by their melodies of love and dread, which, despite being authorised in the name of an ineffable stranger, never fail to touch the very membrane of the soul. Perhaps that’s why Tarek Amin calls this series of artwork Echoes of Existence.
The body in its stylised repose is already stirring to take flightManzu Islam
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Narcissus, trapped in the mirroring surface of the water, stays deaf to Echo’s lovelorn calls. From Tarek Amin’s canvases, the echoes resolute not to take no for an answer insist on being heard, even though they speak in whispers.
What do these echoes speak of? Mostly of bodies, sinuous bodies toned and chiselled like Yukio Mishima’s, destined for a metaphysical journey. These journeys are fraught with dangers, as Mishima’s have been, imploding in a manic misadventure. Tarek Amin’s bodies, taken at once from the body-centred metaphysics of the Bauls (of which Lalon Shai and Shah Abdul Karim are preeminent figures), and from the long lines of sculptures from Michelangelo to Rodin and beyond.
Auguste Rodin looked at Michelangelo, who spurred him on his creative journey. But the Frenchman, being a workman and given to the sheer materiality of objects, the thingness of things which prompted Rilke to his poetic exploration of Dinggedicht (thing-poem), gave his figures ample volume, substance, and the rough edges of their emergence. Rodin’s bodies, weighed down by their dense matter, are rooted in places. They are too heavy to take flight. Analogous to Rodin, although working in a different medium, is the work of Bangladeshi painter SM Sultan. His embodied figures, mainly peasants bulging with muscle, know only work. Labouring in the fields, their muscles protruding all over their anatomy, creating fleshy mountains and slopes that even the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t dream of in their wildest imagination, is too heavy. They seem more likely to sink under their own weight than take flight. If there is an escape route for them, it is by digging deep, like Kafka’s moles.
Sure, bodies are houses of being, but some bodies are bent on dragging their being elsewhere. This, I sense, is the case in Tarek Amin’s work. Muscular bodies, bound by the sheer force of their materiality, and yet they want to fly elsewhere, it doesn’t matter how one names it: beloved, divine, or even God (Lalon imagines him as a strange neighbour in a hall of mirrors so close and yet aeons away). It seems we’ve ended up with a paradox. Rooted in bodies and yet looking for lines of flight. Imprisoned by the clock and yet wishing to melt it away as Salvador Dalí so theatrically wanted, or as Henri Bergson so patiently waited to experience his durée, as the cubes of sugar dissolved in water, which sent young Marcel Proust wild with excitement, thinking he had found the key to retrieving lost time.
Yet paradox is not a negative force. In carnival, particularly in the Caribbean one sees some figures in their limbo dancing, lowering themselves to almost ground level to pass the bar, while others elongate themselves on stilts to touch the sky. The high and the low, all at the same time, is the force that disrupts the habitual orders of things. It unleashes the forces of creation.
Tarek Amin’s bodies, then rooted in their flesh and chiselled muscles, and in dreams of escape with the melodies of Lalon Shai and Shah Abdul Karim are the figures of freedom. It will be a bumpy ride, but I wish them well.
Exhibition Title:Echoes of Existence
Artist: Tarek Amin Date: 20–27 June 2025 Venue: Spitalfields Studios, London E1
Manzu Islam is a British-Bangladeshi writer and academic, author of The Mapmakers of Spitalfields, Burrow, and Godzilla and the Song Bird. His fiction explores migration, racism, and cultural identity through vivid storytelling rooted in postcolonial experiences.
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WHAT is it like for an Asian actor to be cast in the litmus test role of the great wartime leader and India hater, Sir Winston Churchill?
“I always start with the script,” Tony Jayawardena told Eastern Eye, just before going on stage to play Churchill in an evening performance of Nye at the National Theatre.
The play, with a brilliant script by Tim Price, tells of Aneurin “Nye” Bevan’s battle to establish the National Health Service “on 5 July 1948” after Clement Attlee had defeated Churchill in the general election of 1945.
Jayawardena’s role is crucial because in parliament the opposition to Nye’s plans for an NHS was led by Churchill.
Jayawardena, who was born in the UK in 1978 of Roman Catholic parents who arrived from Sri Lanka, said he glanced through a couple of books on Churchill – “one was given to me by my girlfriend’s mother” – but he emphasised: “You’ve got to start with the script no matter what the character is because we’re not doing a biography, we’re not doing a documentary, we’re doing a piece of theatre, a piece of drama. Then you do research if you need to. There’s not a huge amount of research, to be honest, that needs to be done. My previous understanding of Churchill was pretty good in terms of history and what is relevant.”
For those Britons with knowledge of the dark days of the Second World War, Churchill is still “the greatest Englishman who ever lived”. But the new generation recognises he was a more complex character. His statue in Parliament Square had to be sealed after being daubed, “Racist”, during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020.
It is a matter of record that he opposed Indian independence: “I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”
He was thinking of Hindus when he raged: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
He reserved special hatred for Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (whose statue in Parliament Square is, ironically, not far from his own): “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, an Inner Temple lawyer, now become a seditious fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organising and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.”
And there are many historians, not all Indian, who allege that as British prime minister, he did little or nothing to tackle the effects of the Bengal Famine of 1943 in which 2-3 million starved to death. His only concern was: “Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?”
“There is nothing like this in this (play),” explained Jayawardena, “mainly because this is a dream sequence.”
As Nye (played by Michael Sheen) is dying at the Royal Free Hospital in north London in 1960, the doctors, nurses and patients in his ward morph into characters from his past.
“It is Aneurin Bevan living out his life under the fog of a morphine induced coma,” said Jayawardena, who doubles up as a doctor given the responsibility of looking after the founder of the NHS.
“So, my Dr Dain becomes Churchill. His (black) Nurse Ellie becomes his sister (Arianwen), the Matron becomes Clement Attlee, Mr Orchard (his schoolteacher who beat him as a punishment for his stammer) is a patient in there with a leg problem and the same actor plays Herbert Morrison (a cabinet minister hostile to Nye’s NHS proposals).”
Tony Jayawardena
The main reason that Dr Dain becomes Churchill was because the writer and the director, Rufus Norris, wanted to represent a multicultural NHS. “The idea was to have figures from different countries because immigrants have been part of the NHS since it began.”
“When I got the offer to play Churchill, which I was very grateful for, the idea of a south Asian man playing Churchill brought a lot of smiles to people’s faces.”
Anthony Surath Jayawardena, who grew up in Cockfosters in north London, did several plays as a pupil at the City of London School and sang for the Chapel Royal Choir at St James’s Palace. After abandoning a degree course in chemistry at University College London, he “loved” being at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 2000 to 2003. His theatre credits include Abdul Karim in Tanika Gupta’s The Empress; George Khan in East is East; and Mr Bhamra in Bend ItLike Beckham the Musical.
Churchill, he said, “had some pretty choice words to say about people in the south Asian continent. He has said some horrendous thing about people of colour, and about Aboriginal people as well in Australia. It is quite funny to think, ‘Well, Winston, old chum, one of those possible barbarians is now playing you at the National Theatre.’”
To the best of his knowledge, no Asian actor has played previously Churchill, so his casting does represent a landmark in the history of British Asian theatre. Fellow Asian actors have been “wonderfully complimentary” to Jayawardena but there has been nothing hostile on social media.
The script depicts Churchill, who represented the typical patrician values of his class, as being hostile to the NHS. But his patriotic qualities are highlighted too.
As Churchill, Jayewardena, who dons a fat suit to enhance the effect, is given some stirring lines: “You ask, what is our policy? I can say: it is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory, there is no survival.”
Not even the most ardent Churchill devotee could quibble with that. One of the best scenes in the play takes place in the House of Commons tearoom where Churchill convinces his nemesis, Nye, that this was not the time to vote against the prime minister in a no confidence motion because a united Britain was better placed to persuade America to enter the war.
“You seek power, but you’re afraid of it,” Churchill admonishes Nye, offering him a biscuit fetched from his waistcoat pocket. “You demand to govern, yet insist on being ungovernable. You demand solidarity, but don’t vote with your own whips. You are a born contrarian. The educated miner, the stuttering orator. The bed-hopping husband. What you need to learn about power, Aneurin, is this: compromise everything to get it. Because once you have it, you no longer have to compromise. That is the privilege of power. Compromise. Vote for me. Leave the activist behind. Become the politician.”
Nye was first staged at the National last year. It also went to Wales where Jayewardena found the reaction to the character of Churchill was very different.
“This is a Welsh play,” Jayawardena pointed out. “And when you do a Welsh play in Wales, it’s spectacular. You’ve even got a scene where Nye’s father speaks to him in a mine. But when you do it in Wales, in Cardiff, every single audience member knows someone who was in a mine, related to somebody who was in a mine or was in a mine themselves. It takes on a whole new meaning. The other thing in playing Churchill is that I think he (as home secretary in 1910) sent the army into the mines when they were trying to strike. He is a figure of huge hatred in Wales.” Jayawardena plays Churchill to perfection.
Nye is at the National Theatre until August 16, 2025.
First edition of The Hobbit sold for £43,000 by Auctioneum in Bristol.
Only 1,500 copies were printed in 1937; few hundred believed to survive.
Book was found during a routine house clearance without a dust jacket.
Bound in light green cloth, it features original black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien.
Copy once belonged to the family library of Oxford botanist Hubert Priestley.
A rare first edition of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit has sold for £43,000 at auction after being discovered during a house clearance in Bristol. The copy, uncovered by Auctioneum, was part of the original 1937 print run of 1,500 copies and is considered “unimaginably rare”, with only a few hundred believed to still exist.
The book was bought by a private collector based in the UK. Auctioneum, which handled the sale, noted that bidding came from across the globe, pushing the final sale price to more than four times the original estimate.
Discovered on an ordinary bookcase
The copy was found without a dust jacket on what was described as a “run-of-the-mill bookcase”. Caitlin Riley, Auctioneum’s rare books specialist, recognised the value immediately upon examining the book.
“It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition,” Riley said. “It’s a wonderful result for a very special book.”
Bound in light green cloth with black lettering, the edition features black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien himself, who was then a professor at the University of Oxford.
Historical connection to Oxford
This laid the foundation for his epic sequel, The Lord of the RingsAuctioneum
Auctioneum said the book was part of the family library of Hubert Priestley, a botanist linked to Oxford and the brother of Sir Raymond Edward Priestley, an Antarctic explorer and geologist. It is believed that the Priestley family had personal or academic ties with Tolkien, and possibly CS Lewis, who was also part of Oxford’s literary circle.
High-value collector’s item
Tolkien’s The Hobbit has sold over 100 million copies worldwide and laid the foundation for his epic sequel, The Lord of the Rings. First editions of The Hobbit are in high demand; in 2015, a copy featuring a handwritten note by Tolkien in Elvish fetched £137,000 at Sotheby’s.
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Tone, clarity, and intention matter more than following trends
Gen Z views several common emojis as outdated, overused, or passive-aggressive
Emojis like 👍, ❤️, and 😂 are still widely used, but may carry unintended tones
Cultural and generational context matters, especially in British Asian households
Alternatives like 💀, 🙌 and 🥲 are gaining popularity among younger users
Tone, clarity, and intention matter more than following trends
Emojis have long been a quick way to express tone, mood, and personality. But with each generation, interpretations change. Gen Z—roughly defined as those born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s—are now driving new emoji norms, and some symbols once considered friendly or expressive are now seen as outdated or awkward.
For British Asians and Indians navigating multi-generational WhatsApp groups, family chats, or workplace conversations, knowing how emojis are perceived can help avoid crossed wires. Here are 10 emojis that Gen Z reportedly considers out of fashion—and why they matter.
1. 👍 Thumbs-Up
Although intended to signal approval, Gen Z often sees this emoji as blunt or dismissive in casual chats. In workplace settings, it may come across as cold or overly formal—especially if sent alone.
2. ❤️ Red Heart
Once a universal symbol of love or support, the red heart can feel generic or overused to younger users. Alternatives like 💖 (sparkling heart) or 🥲 (bittersweet smile) are considered more expressive.
3. 😂 Face with Tears of Joy
This emoji was Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year in 2015, but many Gen Z users now associate it with millennial humour. It’s often replaced with 💀 (skull emoji), used to express “dead from laughter”.
4. 😭 Loudly Crying Face
While still widely used, this emoji has lost its emotional weight for many younger users. It’s often employed ironically or exaggeratedly, which may confuse recipients expecting sincerity.
5. 😊 Smiling Face with Smiling Eyes
Though meant to be friendly, Gen Z sometimes reads this emoji as passive-aggressive—particularly if it’s used in awkward or emotionally charged conversations.
6. 👌 OK Hand
Previously a sign of agreement or reassurance, this emoji has become less popular due to its dated tone. It’s now less common in everyday digital conversations.
7. 🙈 Monkey Covering Eyes
Once used to express embarrassment or playfulness, this emoji can come across as childish. Gen Z tends to prefer more direct or sincere expressions.
8. 👏 Clapping Hands
Often used for emphasis or celebration, it may now feel performative—especially when used between words for dramatic effect .
9. 😬 Grimacing Face
This emoji is sometimes misunderstood, with younger users finding it inauthentic or awkward. It’s fallen out of favour in favour of emojis that express clearer emotions.
10. ✔️ Check Mark
This emoji is still common in formal or list-based messages, but in casual texts it can appear impersonal. Gen Z often opts for typed responses like “noted” or “done” instead.
Cultural context matters
In British Asian households, emojis are often used across generations—from grandparents to teens. The thumbs-up or red heart, for instance, may still be seen as polite or affectionate by older relatives. Similarly, symbols like 🙏 or 🧡 are frequently used to convey blessings, gratitude, or family warmth.
There’s no need to stop using these emojis entirely—but awareness of how different age groups interpret them can help avoid miscommunication, particularly in professional or cross-generational chats.
For British Asians and Indians navigating multiple social circles—family, professional, or peer-based—it’s helpful to consider how emojis might be received. Gen Z isn’t cancelling emojis entirely, but rather reinterpreting their meaning.
The key is simple: choose emojis that match the tone of the message, the relationship you have with the person, and the context of the conversation. After all, communication—emoji or otherwise—should feel genuine.
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Reeta Chakrabarti with her ACTA trophy for Best Presenter
REETA CHAKRABARTI is wonderfully eloquent when talking to Eastern Eye about her debut novel, Finding Belle, which she says has been “inspired” by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre “rather than a retelling of the classic published in 1847”.
To most people in Britain – and indeed across the world – Reeta is the calm, authoritative, reassuring presence on the BBC, which she joined in 1994. Indeed, in March this year she was named “Best Presenter” in Eastern Eye’s Arts, Culture & Theatre Awards (ACTA). After speaking to Eastern Eye last Tuesday (15), she headed back to Broadcasting House to front the BBC’s flagship News at Ten as chief presenter.
A different picture of Reeta emerges as she talks about Finding Belle, which is quite a dark novel that tells of the effect of schizophrenia on Belle, an Indian woman who has met and married a handsome Englishman, Fairfax, in Mombasa, before uprooting to suburban England. The tale is told by their daughter Mivvi, who witnesses the collapse of her parents’ marriage and her mother’s descent into almost a kind of madness. Belle also miscarries. What makes everything worse is Fairfax’s infidelity and cruel refusal to give his wife medical treatment.
Chakrabarti as a seven-year-old in Kolkata
At school, Mivvi is humiliated by a couple of blonde twins, who chant, “Mivvi! Superstar! How many boys have you kissed so far? 24? Maybe more? Ten on the bed and the rest on the floor!”, adding, “Paki! Paki! Blackie, Mivvi, Paki!”
She was “determined to be Daddy’s daughter, not Mama’s,” but, alas, all the soap in the world cannot make her complexion fair and lovely.
Reeta said she has always been a bookworm and read Jane Eyre at the age of eight. Five novels she would take to a desert island would include Jane Eyre, along with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus; Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro; Tender Is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald; and George Eliot’s Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life. She considered herself to be “an author in search of a novel”. During Covid, she realised it was “now and never”.
She said Jane Eyre “is the book I have read most”. When she was growing up, she was “consumed by the romance between Jane and Rochester”.
“But then as I got older, I started to think Rochester is quite a bastard because he locks up his wife in a cellar. She’s ill, very ill, but instead of finding a treatment, he locks her up. Then he leads Jane a merry dance. The themes within Jane Eyre are of secrecy, a marriage where the wife becomes very mentally ill and is hidden away. She’s a shameful secret, and our attitudes to mental illness these days are entirely different. So that’s where my novel comes from. Schizophrenia is a particular form of psychosis whereby somebody, who may lead their lives fairly normally, can have delusions so they hear voices or imagine scenarios that are not real. This is the condition that I decided to give my fictional character, based on the classical reference to Bertha from Jane Eyre.”
Finding Belle “is not ultimately a bleak novel”, she said.
Mivvi, a bright girl at school, goes off to Bristol to study French (Reeta herself read English and French at Exeter College, Oxford) and finds friendship and marriage with an Indian boy, Ashish. After they have a baby, there is a brief sojourn through Kolkata, a city Reeta knows well.
Reeta’s father, Bidhan Kumar Chakrabarti, a junior doctor, and mother, Ruma, a civil servant, arrived in Britain in 1960. Now 90, her father worked for the NHS, ending up as a surgeon. Her mother passed away in 2016. Reeta’s younger sister, Lolita Chakrabarti, is the wellknown actress and writer (she adapted Life of Pi for the West End).
“My father particularly was very ambitious for me,” said Reeta. “He wanted me to be a doctor and continue the tradition because his father was a doctor and his father was a doctor and his father was a doctor. His older brother was a doctor. I was quite happy to continue the line. Then one day, he took me to theatre to see an operation. I was 13, and he was operating, and I remember being very overcome by the environment, and I fainted to his mortification.” However, he was “over the moon” when Reeta got into Oxford.
In Finding Belle, she initially set Mivvi’s childhood in the 1990s but pushed it back into the 1970s at her editor’s suggestion to reflect her own schooldays.
Although born in London, Reeta moved when she was five to Birmingham, where she attended various state schools before joining King Edward VI High School for Girls.
“1970s Britain was a harsher, cruder place when it came to race,” she said. “I was brought up in Birmingham and although I did not experience very harsh racism there was a lot of teasing at school. This was a few years after Enoch Powell’s (1968 ‘Rivers of blood’) speech, the National Front was quite strong there. Football hooliganism was quite tainted by racism. This is the atmosphere I was trying to recreate from my memory of being a child in the 1970s.”
Chakrabarti holding her book Finding Belle
Her parents did consider returning to Kolkata.
“We made two attempts to live there,” she remembered, “once just for a few months, then for 18 months. When I was 15, we went back to Kolkata. Until I was 16 and a half, I went to the international school there. I did my O levels there. So, I know Kolkata quite well. I still go back quite regularly now. My uncles, aunties, and cousins are all there. And the descriptions that I have of Kolkata towards the end of the novel are very much my accumulated feelings about the city.” In Kolkata she is happy not to be treated as the big BBC star from London but instead, “I am somebody’s niece, the eldest in our group of cousins. These are important relationships for me. My uncles range from their late seventies to mid-nineties. I feel close to them. I feel my Bengali identity increasingly strongly.”In the 1970s, she, like other Asians or Afro-Caribbeans, felt “a strong need to assimilate and be British. I see younger colleagues who don’t feel the need to assimilate in quite the same way. They can have mixed dual heritage much more openly. I can, too, now. Is that a function of changing society or is that because I am older and more confident? I am at the stage where my Indian heritage is very important to me, and so I go back frequently. My three children are British. I use the word British (rather than English) because my husband is Scottish. My children were born here. They are mixed race. They are part of the new Britain.
Chakrabarti at Exeter College, Oxford
“When I was a child, I used to be teased for having Chakrabarti as a surname. It’s now part of the national fabric. People know how to spell it as well.”
She would encourage young people, especially Asians, to go into journalism: “It’s a fantastic career. Some people say it’s an uncertain career, but I’m a great optimist. Each generation remakes an industry for themselves, don’t they? We’re some way from being as integrated and as equal as we should be, but we are so much better than we used to be. I’m, by and large, very proud of the way in which the country has developed.”
n Finding Belle is published by HarperCollins. £16.9