Love and Betrayal in 21^st Century London

Love amongst the British and the Indians started centuries ago. Way before the Raj and all those embarrassing British Residents who took “native wives” and dressed in billowing kurta pyjamas. When Pondicherry was a trading port, in the third century, European women were imported and kept as concubines by the ruling classes and merchants. And vice versa, white men have often fancied a bit of brown flesh: ripe, smooth, soft. Tanned skin, soaked in sun shine and basking in the sultry heat of an Indian summer, full lips, white teeth, flashes of flesh peeking through a transparent choli or a taut midriff winking over a low slung gagra. Small wonder the British lost the Empire, all those female weapons of male distraction. But they didn’t lose their taste for Indian women.

It’s been happening everywhere. Princess Diana arbiter and icon of British taste showed healthy inclinations towards darker skinned men. The Queen of Hearts found love at the end of her life with either an Indian Harley Street Cardiologist or an Egyptian billionaire playboy, scion of the Al Fayed empire. And La Hurley has found it in the dubious half embrace of half Indian Arun Nair. With Versace doing the sari, let’s hope Donatella’s prayed to the goddess of small pins. Shakira Caine married the last great bastion of the British Cinema, Michael Caine and swans gracefully on his arm, diamonds dripping at the best society parties in Chelsea. While he ages and grows more negligible, week by week, in terms of column inches, Shakira’s star shines on in the slinky swanky way Indian women have, as they mature. A smudge of kohl and a toss of the perfect coal black mane and posh brown totty reigns the day.

William Dalrymple dissects the passion and intrigue of the Mughal court when the resident (British representative) was lead into the lithe and youthful arms of Khair-un-Nissa, direct descendant of the Prophet, by her ambitious mother. She sold secrets to the British and thus began one of the most beautiful and tragic love stories of the time. So what is it that makes this Indobrit attraction cross culture and continents? What fans the fires in the burning loins of otherwise sensible men who come from nice homes in the damp home counties? The OE’s (Old Etonians) who go tropo, and become the toast of the town and the secret passion of the best boudoirs in British India. Even now, in 21^st Century Britain, in one hundred Kensington bedrooms, when Delhi decamps to West London for the Summer: where boy meets brown girl is the love story du jour. Cinematically, Jeremy Wooding’s film, Bollywood Queen and another film in the making Bollywood Dreams, both about love amongst Asians and the white British are set to spin to the dizzy heights of box office success.

I ask my white British male friends what the appeal is. Why is brown the new navy blue in relationship matters? Surprisingly, the answer lies beyond the limited expectations of exotic fantasies, goaded by publications like Asian Babe in the UK, a top shelf magazine which features soft porn pictures of, well yes, Asian babes.

There’s the misguided fantasy that Indian or Asian women are docile, subservient and will massage their lovers’ feet and wilting egos in almond oil and compliments. Not quite true. South Asian women usually seek love outside their own kith and kin in order to express themselves more fully and flaunt their independence. Many Indian men born in Britain don’t approve of the teetering towering, mini skirted Asian women in Britain. They haven’t yet caught onto the idea of Jimmy Choos under £3000 lenghas from Khoobsurat in Green Street. But what of these non-Alpha Asian males? Are they are secretly seeking out their mothers in their romantic liaisons? Should they head back to the mofusiltown of their ancestors and seek out a nice unspoilt village girl. In the UK today Desi Girl power rules.

Asian speed dating is huge in this country but the same parochial attitudes prevail even in this chain store supermarket version of fast love: a friend, Arifa Akbar a highly respected journalist on the news desk of the Independent went to a Muslim speed dating event. Purely research of course. So, all these toned and trim city bankers, lawyers and accountants (old habits die hard) persisted in overwhelming her for their prescribed three minutes extolling on the virtues of Muslim women in the 21^st Century who wear hijab. Who walk steps behind their male better halves. Who eat in different rooms, preferably after the males of the household are finished eating. (Perhaps their cold leftovers?)

As the editor of the British Asian lifestyle magazine, Indobrit, I have come across some amazing Indobrit women who are readers and contributors to the magazine. The Indobrit women I know are part of a liberating revolution. We don’t have the same choices to make about career versus family or children versus inner life which tormented our mothers. We can be strong, powerful and subscribe to the belief that we can and should have it all. Look at people like Navdip Dhariwal, the feisty, beautiful BBC News reporter, the first British Asian posting for the BBC, who has made her passage to India for four months to report on key and interesting stories. Take Shehnaz Sutterwallah who gave up her prestigious editor‘s job at the Economist.com to pursue her PHD in Suni and Shia politics. The youngest MD of UBS, the multinational investment bank is a 32 year old British Asian woman, Lucy Chakrabortty. The head of Mediacom in the UK is Farah Ramzan, a Shia Ismaili woman who manages to fit it all in seamlessly and effortlessly. Whatever the sector, be it business, commerce, fashion, media or entertainment and you’ll find a few key positions occupied by Indobrit women.

A lot of us are looking to India to lay something worthwhile and respectful at the feet of Ma Hind. A nod of recognisance for giving us the guts to take the glory. India had the first fermale Prime minister in Ma Gandhi. Note the fiery example of the warrior turned celebrity cult figure, Phoolan Devi. What’s different is that our small triumphs are not tinged with the nostalgia of our parents and grandparents. It’s not about going home because home is where we happen to be, here in the UK. The dialogue between India and Britain, between the sexes is an ongoing one.

Personally speaking, the attraction has always been one for opposites. I have a thing for Oxbridge accents and floppy hair, for extreme good manners and sonorous conversations. I have an atavistic need to be loved for who I am, not what I should represent and all the things I could / would / should have been. So, this love across colour bars, beyond and behind the obvious and trite explanations we impose on interracial coupling will continue forever. Long may we reign!