When my father had come to Britain in the sixties he had come as a Pakistani and he had died as a Pakistani; he never wanted to be British. I had grown up in this country wanting to be British but I had never really felt as if I truly belonged here. But this next generation, the teenagers and twentysomethings who had been brought up to take for granted everything that we had to fight for, they were telling us they did not want to be part of this thing called Britain. And not only did they not want to be part of it, they actively wanted to bring it down. (p 265)

[T]hose of us who grew up in the eighties were still struggling to be accepted as British — we didn’t have the luxury of being able to reject the term. When Navela started high school she had to fight to have the right to wear trousers, today Muslim students have the legal right to wear the hijab. (p 267)

Just thought I’d share.

Please don’t feed the PG troll. She’s been banned and will probably be desperate enough to come back because she can’t stay away, so don’t encourage her by responding to her. Removal of troll droppings will occur regularly, fret not.

There was a time when you’d change your handle, concealing your identity. but you kept getting spotted. Rahul in particular was really good at it. On the other hand, the good toupees are the ones you can’t spot, so if you did indeed go undetected we’d never know it.

Fake? Politically incorrect, maybe. But fake? How so?

My only fault is “keepin’ it TOO real”.

Here; http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/006246.html#comment275662

You say, “To me, my grandmothers were my first feminist icons, though it may seem strange given that they got married at 15, had 10+ children, and never left the kitchen or home life. One of my grandmothers even refused to learn how to read or write (lessons offered by her father in law) because she felt that her place was with her family and her duty was to provide security and shelter. Reading and writing would have taken away from these divine pursuits.

But was a strong, capable, driven, and utterly selfless woman. She would work from dawn till night, only pausing to say prayers, never to complain.

Of course, there were many things about her that I didn’t understand– her conservative views of women and sexuality, her coddling of my uncles while her daughters got somewhat neglected.”

………….

What exactly did you find “feminist” about your grandmother?

ANNA/Vijay, lovely post. It’s nice to know “my people” are out there

I hate to break it to you, I was born in Europe, I live in the US and I have my relatives in India, when I travel to them I don’t take the boat. It’s time consuming and not very practical. So yes I’ve been to plenty of airports. I’ve been the single brown kid in a sea of white scandinavians, so you really don’t have to teach my what it means to be a minority.