Chapter 19
“You can say you want to turn around and leave at any point, and we shall go. You do not have to prove anything to anyone,” Leo whispers in my ear.
“No. Everyone’s just curious. Because we’re being weird.
So be less weird.” I turn to the crowded room.
I remind myself that I regularly lecture in classrooms and at conferences, but the overly critical part of my brain points out that they want to hear me, or have to for college credits they need to graduate.
No one here needs to give me their time.
And all my insecurities about making a scene and standing out well up.
Where are all my helpful notes? Unfortunately, not that helpful right now.
The truth is probably a good place to start.
Well, some of the truth. The whole truth would be decidedly unhelpful.
“I’m doing some research and I would appreciate if anyone not from England would speak to me about their experiences here.
In return, we’ll buy everyone drinks for as long as we’re here talking to someone.
Or for however long I have money; whichever happens first. We’ll be over there.
” I point to an empty booth near the back windows, overlooking the Thames.
“If you want to chat with us.” I repeat the offer in Hindi, then Urdu, then Punjabi for good measure. “Anne, can you please pay the barman?”
I smile to the narrow but crowded room and make my way to a booth with faded red upholstery, heart racing at the thought that no one will speak to me. I open my notebook to a fresh page and get my pen out and ready.
I use the time to recover from my bout of assertiveness. Since it doesn’t come naturally to me, it’s a tiring experience. But looking at the empty book, ready to be filled with knowledge, helps ground me again.
We sit there for a few minutes in silence when I start taking notes on the room around me.
The dark wood paneling of the walls, bar and furniture all give the pub more atmosphere than a BBC special on Jack the Ripper.
The light isn’t electric, so dim kerosene lamps illuminate the space while they blacken the walls around them with soot.
Slowly, the din of the bar starts to grow again, people deciding I’m not as interesting as they first thought I was going to be.
“They will not talk to you,” Leo says when it appears that no one will.
“Everyone wants to be heard. They just don’t trust us, and they have no reason to. Let’s give it fifteen more minutes.”
Time limit imposed, I write even faster.
I get not wanting me here. I represent, to them, the part of society made of rich assholes who make their lives harder by needing their labor but cutting pay while passing laws to make it seem like they’re the problem so they’re unpopular with the public.
Whose pay and jobs are also being cut. A tactic that will far outlive Victoria’s reign, unfortunately.
Finally, just before my time limit is up and just as Leo is standing to put his coat back on, I get up again.
“Good afternoon, again. Listen, I know you’ve seen a lot of people like…
well, us come by and make promises and not deliver, or condescend to you under the guise of charity, and I just want you to know I’m not promising anything.
I can’t. We can’t. We don’t have the power or influence.
But I think you are all important, and I think your stories are important.
You don’t know how much I do. So the one thing that I can promise, is that I’ll listen.
Because everyone here has a life, has dreams, has likes and dislikes.
And I want to hear them, because once upon a time my family were here, doing this work, in this town, and I never got to talk to them about what that was like.
I want to listen to your story, I want to learn about my story, and I want to tell our story.
And maybe I’ll tell someone who can help. That’s it. That’s all I can promise.”
Another silence, and I’m about to give in and collect my notebook when a man approaches me tentatively.
He’s older, his hair a wiry gray, and the wrinkles on his face showing his years.
His clothes are middle-class, but worn, as if he hasn’t bought new ones in a while.
I sit back down with a relieved smile and Leo sits down on a sigh.
“Hello. Is it all right if I ask you some questions?” I indicate the chair across from me tentatively.
“Fine,” he says in Urdu.
“Great. Thank you.” I switch to the language as well. I open to a fresh page in the book and put on my historian hat.
“What’s your name?”
“Rajab Ali.”
“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Meera Chopra. Can you tell me how you came to be in London?”
“When the British first came to India with the East India Company, they encouraged intermarrying among the company employees and local women. My family was one of these families. However, they later decided they did not trust the loyalty of these Anglo-Indian children, and so the practice was discouraged and there was discrimination against us. However, my family always passed down both of their identities, and I could read and write both English and Urdu. There weren’t many opportunities for me in India because of my heritage, so I lied, said I was fully Indian, and got on a lascar group coming to London. ”
“How were the conditions on the ship?”
“Awful. It was so crowded. The European sailors had an amount of space they had to be allotted, by law, but we were given less. Diseases spread instantaneously in those ships, and we never got as good treatment, either. We weren’t given fruit, like the European sailors were, and had different stores entirely; not as good ones.
We weren’t paid as much either. But it was worth it to get to London. ”
“What happened when you got to London?”
“I was able to find work teaching Urdu at a school to middle-class boys hoping to join the civil service in India. I was one of the few people who could read and write both languages, and I enjoyed the work. Although I think I would have enjoyed anything after being on a ship.”
“What happened then?”
He sighs. “I was happy for years, had an established life here and earned good money, but then it ended. They decided to hire one of my former students to replace me. He never really understood the language like I did, but they wanted him and not me regardless. So I went back to India. As a passenger this time.” He sits up straighter at that.
I smile. “That must have been better.”
“Much.” He smiles back at me. But then it fades. “But home didn’t feel like home. I was away in England too long, and everything seemed off. I had missed my family, but home felt like a memory, and not somewhere I was meant to be.”
“What did you do next?”
“I convinced my parents to come with me, and I moved back to London. I worked in a shop in the Limehouse area since I could speak to the sailors and the owners and saved enough money to open a restaurant here. Mostly Indian food.”
“Congratulations! I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but I hope to eat there before I leave.”
“I hope so too.”
“Did you think you made the right decision, moving?”
“I think so. There weren’t many opportunities for me where I was.
There weren’t a lot here, either, but my skills and experience were more useful here.
I’ll never know for sure, but I think I had a better life here.
I still miss friends that I haven’t seen in decades, but overall I’m happy with my life here.
My family is here, and my children don’t know any other home.
But sometimes, I mention a place I loved in India, and they look at me in confusion.
It’s strange to think they know nothing of the place I grew up aside from what I tell them.
I just hope I made the right choice, and they will have a more comfortable life than I had. ”
“You made sure they will.” Just like my parents did. By way of plane and not ship, but they came as teachers, just like Rajab. He nods in acknowledgment and returns to the bar to take us up on the free drinks.
After him, more feel comfortable talking with us, and drinking with us.
They don’t tell me too much that I don’t already know big picture-wise, but they add human faces and human details that are often left out of history books, since most books on the subject rely on English sources talking about them instead of their own voices.
Some came over as lascars, who were dumped in London when the ships were done with them, at times had no way to get home, and faced increasing hostility from English people.
But they still took happiness where they could find it, because it is a very human urge to strive for happiness in the worst of conditions.
The people here have lives, people they love, jobs they enjoy.
Babu met and fell in love with an English woman who he’s currently married to.
Hassan originally came to work at a country house estate up near York before they fired him.
He got some partners and raised enough money to start a boarding house for Indians in Limehouse.
We speak to a royal who couldn’t prove his title and who had to basically couch surf until people in the West End got tired of him, when he moved to Limehouse to live in Hassan’s boarding house and is looking for work.
Then there’s the medical student who’s studying in London and came to Limehouse to get Indian food that reminded him of home.
Some want to go back home but can’t find a way back, while others like the opportunities they found here. But none had the same experience. Their treatment was decided by factors like their class, job, wealth, and who they were interacting with.