Why it’s Cheeni Kum for Keith Vaz
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| SWEET AID: Bachchan receives a testing unit from Keith Vaz (centre) as the British deputy high commissioner looks on (second from right) |
It’s just as well I didn’t ask Keith Vaz for sugar with my tea — “only two spoons, please, I’m cutting down” — when I dropped in to interview the chairman of the powerful Commons select committee on home affairs last week at his office opposite the Palace of Westminster.
Keith, who is 55, has been campaigning for diabetes awareness, especially among Asians, since he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in July 2007.
“Well, you shouldn’t take sugar in your tea or coffee,” says Keith, who set up a charity, Silver Star, five years ago to take his cheeni kum message to the masses.
Earlier this month, he flew to Mumbai to hand over a mobile diabetes unit to Amitabh Bachchan and stayed on to attend the Cheeni Kum star’s 70th birthday.
When he steps down as chairman of his committee after the next general election, Keith confides he would like to devote even more time to “make our community and the wider community aware that they are going down healthwise unless they combat diabetes”.
He says: “I just want to go round the country telling people, ‘You’ve got to be tested for awareness, and if you’re not it’s going to be a big, big problem.’ I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. It’s primarily a South Asian illness because we are five times more susceptible.”
His solution?
“You should exercise, you should have more vegetables, you should not eat white rice — (though) Basmati is fine.”
Worryingly, he warns me off mangoes which he calls a “killer”.
“I love mangoes (but) mangoes are full of sugar,” he argues. “Stick to apples, bananas, apples in particular, (and) pomegranates.”
For years, Keith has been organising a Diwali party where senior politicians drop in.
“Diwali will be coming up, we’ll be stuffing our faces with mithai,” he comments wearily.
India calling
A three-part BBC television series, Welcome to India, does not quite glorify poverty but it does show that even in the midst of unbelievable filth, Indians can be much happier than people in the West.
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| Bengal palate: Fish merchant Swapan |
Nowhere are the slums more disagreeable than in Calcutta and yet their residents are willing to put up with the most unhygienic of conditions.
Commenting on the three documentaries, The Daily Telegraph reviewer revealed his reaction: “Shameful for those of us who have returned from the historic cities of Rajasthan, gushing about the richness of Indian culture, this was the reality — a modern-day Dickensian insight, immediate and disturbing.”
Of one of the characters, Kaale, the BBC says: “Kaale has come to Calcutta in search of gold — incredibly, he earns a living by sweeping the streets of the jewellery district for stray gold dust… His plan pushes even his resourcefulness to the limit: dredging for gold in Calcutta’s drains.”
It says of another character in Calcutta: “(Mohammed) Ashique buys up beef fat from the abattoir and proudly renders it down to make tallow. It looks disgusting, even before he is plagued by a maggot infestation. But this thrifty use of waste may well be destined for your soap or cosmetics.”
In the UK, generous welfare benefits have produced a society where many would rather not work. In the slums of Calcutta, people are desperate for any work.
The cheery manner of the voiceover by British Indian actor Sacha Dhawan has driven the reviewer in The Independent to distraction: “You’d surely have to want it very badly indeed to work in Mohammed’s off-grid rendering plant, boiling down beef suet into tallow for the cosmetics industry and fighting to keep the maggots out of the finished product.”
And yet, there is optimism in plenty.
Swapan, the fish merchant, declares that “a meal without fish is no meal at all for Bengalis”. During Puja he is involved in erecting an elaborate pandal above a little artificial pond into which he puts live fish.
On Puja night we see Swapan and his wife, dressed for the occasion, happily pandal-hopping and buying ice cream for their daughter.
Women drivers
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| Plastic woman: Johora |
The Independent was taken with Johora, as indeed was I in Welcome to India. She is the driving force in the family business in Calcutta selling recycled plastic bottles. When her indolent son-in-law fails to arrive punctually with his delivery van, she eventually decides enough is enough — and buys her own vehicle.
Although she has put his nose out of joint, Johora isn’t happy until he arrives late for a family dinner with his pregnant wife. Again and again we see people will put up with anything so long as family life is secure — something often missing in the more affluent West.
“True, Johora, a woman who earns a living recycling plastic bottles, seemed very upbeat about her plans to expand the business,” The Independent noted. “She also showed the camera her private toilet with evident pride and didn’t dwell on the fact that she’d had to pay off local gangsters to get it installed. But Johora was doing pretty well, relatively speaking.”
Had Johora been middle-class and educated, one had the feeling she would make a good job of running the West Bengal economy — better at any rate than any of the present lot.
The Independent is upset that Sacha Dhawan “employs a third-person plural voice that falsely enlists everyone in the same act of willed chirpiness. ‘Over one in six of the world live here,’ said the voiceover at the beginning, ‘and you know what? We are thriving on it.’ Define ‘we’ and define ‘thriving’, I thought sardonically,” the reviewer said.
Admittedly, there was just a hint of poverty purifying the Indian soul.
Virgin lands
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| Flying back: A Virgin Atlantic ad on the resumption of flights to Mumbai |
Vijay Mallya, the troubled “Richard Branson of India”, should take a few tips from the British entrepreneur who is in India this weekend to inaugurate Virgin Atlantic’s resumed flights to Mumbai.
Branson also organised a UK-Indian summit of young entrepreneurs.
“This trip enables young business people to glean local knowledge of the best way to operate in India from local like-minded business entrepreneurs,” he said. “There is nothing more inspirational than seeing how your business idea could evolve in a different culture or continent.”
Branson would do wonders for West Bengal if only he can be persuaded to start direct London-Calcutta flights.
Bonding quiz
Here’s a trick question? Which of Ian Fleming’s novels is the new Bond movie, Skyfall, based on?
That’s rather like asking which novel did Tagore write in 2011?
Skyfall is the 23rd Bond movie, which is odd considering Fleming wrote only 12 novels and two short stories featuring the most famous British agent in fiction.
The early films, such as Dr No and From Russia With Love, were the real Bond movies. Everything else is made up to keep alive the most lucrative franchise in cinema history.
That said, we are all rushing to book our tickets for Skyfall.
Tittle tattle
Two booklets of recipes by Madhur Jaffrey, The Perfect Curry, have been included as free giveaways with The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph on consecutive days to encourage people to buy a paper.
But the most popular drink recommended by Madhur is best not served when Keith Vaz is around — it’s mango lassi.