Breaking barriers through food and passion
[Music]
[Applause]
my story is a bit unusual
i studied law i did a phd in law
and in 2012 finally i submitted my phd
and i was invited to do my phd
fiverr which is the oral exam and
i knew one thing for sure this was like
for me
the moment of great change and the story
of
my academic legal life was going to end
only i knew it i hadn’t told anybody as
yet
and what i really wanted to do and i
knew this from the very beginning when i
started my law degree
i wanted to cook but i actually wanted
to feed people
this gave me the greatest pleasure i
felt my most powerful
when i was able to serve someone
something i had cooked
in some ways it was my way of showing
affection and love and
being able to give them something that
took them home
for me food was always about giving
people
that emotional moment when they ate the
food
and i knew that you know i’m not going
to become
a lawyer i’m going to cook i want to do
something
but at that time you know in england in
fact
anywhere in the west everywhere you
looked it was male chefs that you saw on
television
uh and you know on in the media it was
always about men who were cooking in
kitchens
the greatest irony of it all is that you
know in every south asian
home you go to you will invariably find
a woman
but in every south asian restaurant you
go to not just in india pakistan
bangladesh sri lanka
but almost everywhere in the world you
would usually find
a man cooking in the kitchen and it was
you know a desire for me that i wanted
to cook
but there was no road or route in front
of me
i happened to then have this
conversation with my neighbor who told
me
you know there’s this thing called
secret supper clubs that you can do
which is
to host a dinner in your own house as if
it’s a restaurant
and that’s when i knew i had found a way
forward i’d found a way
to serve food of my home of my heritage
without you know having to go through
the stress of you know where would i go
you know how could i do this business
because there were no
examples nobody around who was doing
anything at that time
and then when i started investigating
supper clubs i got an even bigger shock
because i realized that it supper clubs
are being done by a lot of people of
east asian origin
you know singaporeans and you know
cantonese food from hong kong
you didn’t have any indians doing supper
club now this really worried me because
i was concerned that you know
people think they know indian food in
this country
there’s been a long history you know
indian restaurants have always been
you know around forever and ever it
seems and people have an
idea of what is indian food which is not
necessarily what is indian food now i
was worried that you know
if i served my narcissi kofta my chicken
chop
my luchi aloo dum nira mish you know
and it didn’t resemble the kind of korma
and sweet sweet kind of you know
things that people were passing off as
kurma a lot of make
make made up dishes like balti you know
which is a bucket
and also chicken tikka masala
everything was full of ghee and cream uh
in this country
even with all these setbacks that you
know nobody you know knew what indian
food was really
i was concerned you know i’m talking
about 2012 so
you know many years uh from now it was
before
uh people things have changed you know
and there’s a lot of regional food now
but at that time there wasn’t
and you know i just decided that you
know i was going to risk it and i was
going to do a supper club
but i was i lacked confidence and i
lacked money
both the money was just you know thank
god i just needed to buy
one big pot to make biryani i had got 50
pounds from an aunt for eid
which was quite a big thing because you
know once you reach a certain age no one
gives you any money for eat
and i bought myself a pot and that’s how
i started but i
remembered my own heritage and i knew
that you don’t start
anything new without an
auspicious way to start that you do
something good for others
so the first few supper clubs i did in
my house was all for hunger charities
these were organizations that were
british that were feeding people in war
zones
in famines in where there were floods
and
you know i was contributing the entire
money
from the supper club towards these
projects because i felt
that this way i was feeding the hungry
first
so in those war zones in those feeding
camps
where there was famine and they were
fighting to save the lives of children
through my suburb club i was donating
the entire money
and i felt this is like the right thing
to do this is just the way that you
should start
and of course this makes me sound a bit
um you know
conventional traditional you know but
then i was also not
conventional and traditional and
something else which i liked to my
husband
because i knew he would hate this you
know
american academic he likes students but
doesn’t like people
so i thought if he doesn’t know there’s
no harm done
so i waited till he went away he was to
do a lot of kind of research trips he’s
an academic so
i knew exactly when he was traveling and
while he was away i did supper clubs and
it was very very exciting because
i had all these people around in my
house and
in the beginning i was of course doing
all of this for charity and raising
funds and talking about you know
the work that the charities were doing
but then you know
i then got the confidence that yes you
know maybe i can
you know do it like a not like a
business but like a profession i can
start cooking
and i wasn’t alone in this entire
journey i had already made friends with
some amazing women
who i had met who were from south asia
who were nannies and cleaners
you know around my area and these were
part of this journey they were with me
throughout
but then as you know all stories like
this have to come to an end it wasn’t
that i was caught
my children complained a lot and i
thought you know enough is enough you
know i cannot do this to my entire
family
to cause so much disruption so then i
took up an offer at that time you know
it was too exciting and we were loving
cooking
and this time it wasn’t just me we had i
had other women who were involved in
this
and i could see the transformation in
their lives it was giving them a lot of
self-respect and honor and
they were feeling less isolated you know
as immigrants in this country
and i took up an offer to do a pop-up
you know which is like you know you pay
a very small rent and you go into a
kitchen
in a very very very trendy pub in soho
which is you know
very much part of london lifestyle you
know where people go out
the evenings you know people go out
drinking it’s very trendy
and i failed completely because you know
no one wanted to eat indian food it was
very unusual to have you know people
don’t want to eat indian food they think
this is something heavy and greasy and
you know you don’t you don’t have this
when you have you know
a pint of beer with your friends it
wasn’t seen as cool enough
wasn’t trendy enough everybody over
there looked like you know aging rock
stars
you know there was like you know they
were like bikers outside you know
heavily tattooed men
lots of kind of piercing they were not
interested in my food
i was not willing to lose i did try
and one of the things that i’ll always
remember is that i tried to you know to
get people to eat
you know i thought let’s give the best
thing that we have which is deep fried
samosa
you know these guys will eat it because
they will love this whole idea of
something that is who doesn’t like
samosa
i tried to give them samosas and i
remember one guy don’t write it on me
i don’t want your curry love that day we
sold nothing
i remember crying when i went up
i tried the whole day to sell just one
dish
and i had failed and i knew that i’ll
come back
tomorrow even though i was totally
crushed
but then my christmas was going to
change dramatically
i had in this country the most well
respected
70 year old food critic of the evening
standard which is like the free
newspaper you get in the tube stations
you know huge london following you know
very iconic critic you know
with a lot of kind of gravitas that
people took her very seriously
she turned up for her 70th birthday i
didn’t recognize her because i don’t
know
what she looks like i don’t know how any
food critics look like at that time
and then she wrote this absolutely
amazing review
which came out on a thursday and the
queue was outside
the feeling of having
achieved this spectacular
you know dream b was suddenly
someone big there were queues of people
and the no curry love he stood for three
hours to get a table
to eat i never gave him a bill i told
him
this that you sat on my table and ate is
enough
he told me please forgive me i sell my
half but i will not take your money
i couldn’t i couldn’t get myself to take
his money
but you know it’s just a lesson
i could have left that night i could
have walked away
and my dreams would have been finished
but i picked myself
up to fight another day and i’m so glad
i did
i’m so glad i did and it was really
you know then very successful and we
were like buzzing and packed and
everything
and then of course as all things happen
something that’s happened in my life and
had to stop
but this happened with my son i
discovered you know i’m typical indian
mother
i checked my son’s notes and thought
he’s got no notes
and i told him do you take notes in
class and i realize he doesn’t
he has gcses and he’s going to fail so i
thought fine you know i’m going to do
the very ami thing and i’m going to
close my business go home
and sit and write his geography and
history notes otherwise this boy is
going to fail
and i said you know with very short
notice i was saying goodbye to everybody
saying you know i’m so sorry i have to
leave i’m so sorry
and then i told this gentleman who was
eating regularly in our in our
in the pop-up at the in the pub that i’m
so sorry
sir i have to leave and i hope you enjoy
it he said what are you doing where are
you going i said i’m going home because
my son is going to fail his exams if i
don’t go and make his notes
you told me your story cannot end like
this and i said yes it does
when you are from you know my culture in
my background
your children’s exams are very important
this is how your story ends
he told me no tonight i’m going to talk
to someone tomorrow i’m going to go and
have a look at this
space i have i’m a landlord and i
thought
sweet man he’s being so nice to me just
to make him happy i’ll go
so i went you know it was just behind
the pub
but when i walked in something hit me in
there
i saw this as another moment
of change in my life and i said no
i’m gonna do it i had no money it was
very tough
i went through a lot of struggle to open
the restaurant
but we did it we opened an all-female
restaurant
run by housewives home cooks
the average age of a woman cooking was
we just opened and it was you know we
had a lot
of loyal people who had come to supper
clubs in my house
but then you know just like the fame
ashley game changer
i got an email from out of the blue from
the executive producer uh brian mcginn
of chef stable
and he said i know your story and i
think you’re fascinating and we would
like to
you to be the first british chef on
chef’s table
initially i thought this is a hoax i
thought this can’t be real
how does he even know who i am but you
know they had these stories coming out
in the media you know people had been
fascinated by the story that i was this
housewife you know but
just all women keep cooking in the
kitchen and we had opened a restaurant
you know very very
unusual for that time and
eventually i spoke to him and to
my great delight he was very open-minded
very open-hearted like you know what do
you want to do
i said first thing i want to do is i
want to tell the stories of my women too
this cannot just be the story of myself
and he told me we’ve never had
any other chef asking us to show their
team
but i know i stand on the shoulders of
giants
these women who have come from deprived
backgrounds
lack of education abusive relationships
they had now become so powerful they
were lifting me up
so but they were great and you know for
those who have seen the episode you will
see
not only were they featured in it they
have their names on the wall next to
their faces
this was very important because in our
culture nam
is name but nam is also fame and i was
someone who didn’t have
you know a godfather or someone you know
there was no nepotism no connection i
didn’t have a mentor
this was my strength came from this team
of women so i really
you know we really all just cooked the
way that we knew how to cook
we cooked with patience we cooked with
love and this term
ibadat we serve with ibadat which is an
urdu term
but it is the way and the grace with
which we serve people
it is meditation it is prayer and that’s
what was part of you know
our tradition in this restaurant and
yes a lot of people would ask me you
know wow you have
you know a team of unprofessionals and i
would tell them
they have life experience in their 60s
they have lost and won and lost and won
from teenage times they have served food
to people
they have the kind of experience i want
i want people who know how to cook with
patients
with suburb who step back and cook
because
they their only experience was not to
impress
but they cook for people they loved this
is the experience i wanted so for me
this was the professionalism that you
know i really needed
and you know in my kitchen there was no
hierarchy
we were all equal this is very different
from this kind of you know
regimented kitchens that you have in the
west where people are paid different
wages
and in most cases women of color women
are paid less
there’s so much hierarchy you won’t find
women being able to cut through
that middle section they stay in that
place because it’s the men who dominate
the top
and i always you know i can make this
description uh which you know you will
all recognize
this for us is our second innings
none of us are going to get a chance to
come out and bat again
this is our final time and for us
we hit every ball out of the park so
that kind of drive and ambition and
desire to succeed that comes from my
team of women in their 60s
is unbeatable we cannot lose
because their attitude is every day
we will win every day is our victory
the desire to succeed and perfect comes
from them from where within
and i just you know
always think of a poem you know of
rabindranath or you know i’m half
bengali
this thing of akla cholore that
you light the path not for yourself but
for others who come behind you
and for all of us you know the whole
team
we know the world is watching us we need
to succeed
so that the legacy we leave is that
you can be powerful and you can be good
you do not need to hurt you do not need
to crush other people
to become successful and this is the
greatest legacy
of deuteronomy express our journey is so
unconventional
we’ve had no one supporting us you know
from the industry i have no network
but we were so good the world couldn’t
ignore us
and our passion and desire people saw
and they felt it and they tasted it in
the food
and i just think that you know never
ever give up
when you hit the hurdle and you fall
stand up because this is your test as we
say this is your imtihan
you need to rise above every hurdle and
in removing the hurdle
you remove the hurdle for the person
coming behind you and this is what i
want to do
i want to in my lifetime see women
surpass me
i want to see women great with great
glory in the kitchen
i want to see on our back for south
asian women
who cook in their houses who have never
been paid
who have never been given the glory they
deserve they have
nourished and nurtured generations our
time has come now
and this would be dodgy express’s
biggest legacy
if people will remember us as housewives
home cooks but at some point we ruled
london