Indian Takeaway (18 page)

‘Do you like cakes, man? Cakes?’

‘Yeah,’ I reply. I don’t have the sweetest of tooths, but I have a real penchant for pastries and cakes.

‘I’m going to open some cake shops in Bangalore.’

‘Really?’ I can’t hide my surprise. India really is changing.

‘When did you think that one up?’ I ask.

‘Been planning it for years. Years, man. It’s coming together. Got the sites scouted. Now I need some staff. I might have to bring a chef in from Dubai.’ He pauses and seems to drift off in thought for a moment. ‘Man, they make great bloody cakes in Dubai. Great cakes.’

‘What will you be selling in these cake shops?’ No sooner have I asked this question than I realise how stupid it is.

‘Pastries, you buffoon. Cakes and pastries. Croissants, cakes and pastries.’

‘Of course. Sorry.’

‘But nice ones,’ he adds. ‘European ones, like you find in London.’

We drive past another statue of Queen Victoria, Empress of India. This must be the third or fourth monument to the lady I have seen today. I have to say, Victoria looks great, orb in hand, serene as ever. It’s no wonder they named the sponge after her.

‘You should open five shops and call the chain Victoria’s Punj,’ I say, ‘punj’ being the Punjabi word for five.

He looks blankly at me.

‘Victoria sponge. Victoria’s Punj?’

His blank look remains resolute. I don’t think he knows what a Victoria sponge is.

I love a Victoria sponge. The simplicity of the light sponge, the sweet sharpness of the raspberry jam (it
has
to be raspberry) and the lusciously rich double cream all combining in the mouth to form the loveliest of cake-based experiences. And it was exactly this sensory experience that led to possibly the darkest and most troublesome food experience of my childhood; an experience I will never forget, nor ever will be allowed to.

It was the summer of 1980; June. The sun was high in the sky, the holidays extending in front of us like vistas of hope, the untouchable horizon being August and the inevitable return to school. For Hardeep the eleven year old even tomorrow seemed deep in the future. There were bikes to ride, hills to climb, buildings to jump off, dogs to annoy, football to play and
adventures to be had. And that would all happen well before tomorrow ever arrived. There was nowhere better to grow up than Bishopbriggs. Chief amongst the reasons for the idyllic and halcyon nature of my childhood was the presence of my cousins, Sandy and Sanjay, in the same north Glasgow suburb. I have a little contextualising to offer.

My dad was the eldest of nine children. Two died in their childhood, leaving seven in total. Chronologically it goes like this:

If Sandy was my true elder brother, then Sanjay and I indulged in our own sibling rivalry. We fought like cats and dogs. In fact cats and dogs would be asked to try and separate us when we were fighting, so vicious were we with each other. One Christmas we toppled headlong, fists flailing, legs locking, into the Christmas tree while an Elvis movie played on TV. When we were younger I used my extra height and weight to torture him; as his superior genetic imprint – and his many
sessions at the lesser known but violent martial art of Budokan – kicked in, his revenge was sweet.

In between this change of administration came the summer of 1980. Sanjay and I had achieved a physical parity; we downed weapons and agreed an unspoken truce. We pursued the third way for that summer and reaped the rewards of peace. We played together happily, we climbed trees together happily, we jumped off garages together happily, we swam together happily, we ran together happily, we explored together happily and we stole that Victoria sponge together happily. We stole a Victoria sponge. Together. Happily.

We made a pact, the sort of pact that ought to have been sworn in blood. I was soon to learn the error of my ways in not insisting that our thumbs be cut and our already genetically mingled blood be further mingled. If I had at least sought that level of legal leverage, then my future might have been safer.

The cake had been stolen from the cupboard in our kitchen. We had in our possession Mr Kipling’s exceedingly good cake. Obviously at the time we had no idea whatsoever of the profound colonial history of this cake, its echo of the sixty-four-year reign of the woman who had presided over a globe that was nearly a third pink. No. We just really liked the creamy, jammy filling sandwiched between the lightest and most delicious of sponges. We stole ourselves and our sponge to the eaves of the loft. Behind closed doors we devoured the cake, I perhaps having slightly more than half. When I say ‘devoured’ I am not using that word in some fancy rhetorical way; we actually devoured the cake, as if we had never before seen cake and this was our first meal in weeks. The cake was barely out of the wrapper before it was heading, through the gift of peristalsis, stomach-ward. In the afterglow of the cake rush we colluded never to speak of this to anyone. No one
would miss a Mr Kipling’s cake from the cupboard. After all, it was only a cake.

It was only a cake. It was only a cake. What a fool I was to think it was only a cake. It was the
only
cake. The only cake in the cupboard. The only cake in the house. Its disappearance would never go unnoticed. The cake had been purchased to be eaten by the entire family after dinner that evening. A nice chicken curry followed by a bit of cake. Suburban Glasgow/ Indian bliss if ever there was. But, Mrs Hubbard-like, the cupboard was bare. You have to remember that when I was growing up our house was run on a tight budget. There was never any slack. We didn’t have cupboards overfl owing with eight different kinds of balsamic vinegar or a range of different olives. We had what we had and we ate what we had. There was never any waste. Never. So when a cake went missing, it became an international incident. Hands were wrung, rooms were searched and questions asked.

I was interrogated by my parents. Remembering my verbal pact with Sanjay – which foolishly hadn’t been confirmed by blood – I refused to buckle under the pressure. They asked me about the cake and all I would give them was my name, my rank and declare that under the Geneva Convention of Human Rights, I was a prisoner of war. They weren’t having it. They knew, somehow, that I had snaffled the Victoria sponge, and they were going to break me. But I held fast; there was something greater than truth at stake here: honour. The honour of cousins, the sort of honour that binds and ties and fetters two souls together in brotherly love for a lifetime.

Unfortunately what I didn’t know was that Sanjay had fessed up to the plot as soon as he was asked by his mum. She didn’t even interrogate him, question him or gently beat him.
She asked; he answered. Pavittar had the full story, and she had told my parents. They already knew what had happened, they just wanted me to admit it. But out of my misplaced sense of allegiance to my yellow-bellied turncoat cousin who had folded like a cheap folding thing, I would not sell him down the river.

In hindsight I knew I had done wrong and should have confessed. What still narks me, if I am honest after all these years, is the fact that I never got any respect for my albeit misplaced sense of honour. Sanjay and I never spoke of the incident again but I know from that day on our invisible links of brotherliness were cut for ever. Things between us would never be the same again. Ever.

Sanjay and Victoria sponge feel very distant right now. I have to face up to the challenge of Bangalore. I had a very clear and canny plan in London. I decided that I should cook at a call centre in the call centre capital of the world. The reasons seemed to be overwhelming. Where better to try and explore the coming together of Britain and India than in the very place where India speaks to Britain, in impeccable English, while helping broadband customers reroute their router; or aiding customers to cancel their direct debit to their local gym; or do anything that needs a well-trained and able voice on the other end of the phone, on the other side of the world? Lest we forget that Bangalore has had such a proud and pronounced colonial history within British India, a British India that’s been so very crucial to my family and my very existence. To add a further layer of interest, Bangalore has changed so much since
I was last here, and so rapidly that I am almost a complete stranger in a city I thought I knew. Welcome to the future of India, the future of the world.

My canny plan to cook in a call centre manages, however, to fall on deaf ears. The multinationals that have arrived in India are exactly that: multinationals. They are not actually very Indian. They are, however, very multinational. They have all the protocols and policies of any multinational. They just happen to be populated by Indians and run locally by Indians. Generally speaking in India, if you need to get something, anything done, you just need some influence, as it is euphemistically known. Some call it corruption. I prefer the word influence. Someone, somewhere knows someone else, somewhere else who can get things done. That is the grease that oils the cogs of India. Bharat is one of those ‘someones’. He knows everyone who needs to be known. At least he used to. Globalisation seems to have changed the rules; it’s not enough to know someone. There are marketing managers and public relations executives in offices in San Francisco and Geneva. Bharat doesn’t know them and they certainly have no idea what a man of influence he is. India, it would seem, is changing. Corruption has been corrupted.

What I am trying to say is that I am unable to convince any of the call centres to let me in to cook. They simply don’t get what I am trying to do. Frankly it would have been easier for me to go into a call centre in Hartlepool and rustle up a lamb curry. I therefore have to refocus my endeavours. Refocusing my endeavours is not an easy exercise. I had rather blithely reckoned on Bharat gaining me access to a call centre. I am at a loss to come up with a substitute scenario that has the collision of the east with the west combined with
telephony. I try to make contact with a couple of the firms of international management consultants that have recently relocated to Bangalore from Wisconsin. They suggest that I write to the Corporate Interface Services Team in Wisconsin to seek pre-clearance before the Indian Corporate Interface Services Team would consider my application. That seems like a long, drawn-out process requiring time that I do not have. Perhaps I have to embrace failure. But it seems so early in my journey to be considering placing my tail between my legs. There has to be an angle that I’m missing. And then it strikes me, with the excitement of that moment when a call centre has had your call on hold for thirty-seven minutes and you are finally connected to a human being. If I can’t explore modern global India, then perhaps I should explore ancient colonial India. Genius.