Every morning, I wake up, make myself a cup of hot water with lemon juice and settle back in bed sipping it slowly as I read the news. The first thing I saw today was a horrific video of a woman protestor being abused and beaten at a Reform UK rally. Nigel Farage watched from the stage, smirking and blaming the victim for the violence inflicted on her by his supporters.
Then I read about masked men invading the Port of Dover to intimidate people who did not support their far-right policies.
Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, appeared in a TikTok video apparently proud of her success in limiting the number of poor migrants arriving in small boats to Britain in the hope of finding a better life.
And Ben Ryan, an investigative journalist and social media influencer, who, some argue, appears intent on extending a campaign targeting academics of colour even after the suicide of Professor Jason Arday following weeks of relentless harassment. He has questioned the doctoral degrees earned by Professor Arday’s black students.
What struck me most was not simply the ugliness of each individual story, but the common thread running through them: the steady normalisation of exclusion, intolerance and violence.
In many cases, these very same people condoning – if not inciting – a divisive attitude are those who claim to be defending family values. Yet, their vision of a family seems monolithic and anything but welcoming and inclusive.
Born in a family of migrants, I have been a nomad all my life. Perhaps that is why I define family differently, neither defined by visual sameness nor by identical, cloned ideas. Instead, those who come to my table bring with them both a diversity of experiences and a range of opinions. The one commonality is the openness to discuss and respectfully accept differences.
Monoculture, be it in humans or agriculture, creates the risk of depletion, exploitation and dependency.
The people at my table
At my table are people who want to be there. They can be friends, old and new, family with whom I share blood or just acquaintances, ships passing by.
They are people who you might not find extraordinary at first glance. But they all have stories to tell, their own narrative embroidered with multicoloured threads, sometimes overlapping with the tales of the person sitting next to them, but just as often not. Some are loud, some listen, some come for the company and some just to enjoy the food. Some because they have nowhere else to go.
And that is all fine. There is no entrance exam anyone has to pass.
The food at my table
The food is as diverse as myself. Chaat with tangy tamarind sauce from Bori Bazar – a street food that my mother knows I love – and spicy nihari made by my sister-in-law. There’s my friend Shahina’s mint chutney and my cousin Seemi’s dahi barey, a yoghurt-based Indian speciality. At least, these are the dishes that I fill my plate with as I wait for everyone to finish with the meal so we can bring out my favourite dessert: the rusmalai sprinkled with pistachio nuts.
I can see some people at the far end of my table helping themselves to duck roast dripping with a rich fig sauce, some are seduced by the fragrance of white truffles which rises from a bowl of pasta and for those who prefer the basics, there are simple poached eggs with salad and macaroni cheese. Val is stationed at the grill and Raphael and Jess are seated in a corner, rolling dumplings to be steamed.
Dani from Brazil walks in with red beans, rice, farofa and picanha steaks, arguing about the quality of meat with Eduardo, from Argentina, who swears by the asado de tira and empanadas from Buenos Aires.
Rahul, from India, watches the gentle bickering and indulges in the daal chawal (lentils and rice) made by Amina’s loving hands. It doesn’t matter that she is from Pakistan and that our countries have been at war since their creation – in matters of food, there is no need for a passport and flavours transcend borders, making them as irrelevant as they should be.
The children insist on hamburgers and fries, of course, and ice cream. One day maybe they will appreciate the finer things in life, everyone says, as we all reach out to grab handfuls of the hot, salt-sprinkled fries dipping them in ketchup or mayonnaise or both.
And what is fine, if not ice cream, alone or à la mode, with apple pie or chocolate cake?
The conversation at my table
The conversation is around food, of course, at least at the beginning. But when someone says, “no talking about politics, football, cricket or religion”, the talk turns immediately to all those forbidden topics. Tempers heat up and voices rise, intermingling with laughter at my mother who gently grumbles.
But it is alright.
Because humour remains. So do affection and respect. Disagreement does not mean exclusion.
We are family
This is what I call family: neither identical copies nor bound by blood. Each rough edge shaped by friction, each wave of a different experience and opinion helping us grow into shiny, smooth pebbles – of varying shapes, colours and sizes – all content to coexist on the same beach, all part of its beauty.
Squabbling, comforting, arguing, listening, talking, hearing, loving, hating, gossiping, protecting, judging, accepting and caring.
Selfish and generous. Arrogant and humble. Cheerful and sad. Enthusiastic and boring. Supportive and unsupportive. Loud and silent. Trustworthy and irresponsible.
A patchwork of everything bound together in an incongruous coat, badly mismatched and sometimes a bit tight under the sleeves yet large enough to bury oneself inside and feel a comforting warmth.
Not perfect, not carbon copies, not one colour or one faith.
I think of this morning’s news and all those who want to erase the diversity of colours in favour of a monochromatic beige.
Who will sit at their table? What dishes will be served? Who will they talk to and what about?
Perhaps, it will be a quieter table? There will be no discussion if everyone agrees. It will be a smaller one than mine, certainly. No one will question another’s tastes because there will be nothing different to taste. Will it be safer? Or just sterile? It seems rather a bleak vision to me.
“The world was born yearning to be a home for everyone”, wrote Eduardo Galeano. I agree. My father used to say, “if you close your fist, no one will be able to remove anything from it. But neither will anyone be able to put anything in”. There is room at the table for everyone but it requires undoing the structures of difference and compartmentalisation, releasing ourselves from the prison of accumulation and fear of scarcity, and extending a chair to all the rich diversity of life.
