Kajal Pia “What is a Good Life?”
Kajal Pia
“What is a Good Life?”
An interview by Selena Pia
I met Kajal at birth. As in, she gave birth to me. Kajal is my mother, if I’m not being clear enough. So, safe to say, I’ve known her my whole life. I’m taking this interview in the house I’ve grown up in, in Croydon.
‘I moved here a year after you were born,’ she tells me. ‘I got pregnant unexpectedly, and went back to live with my parents. And it turns out moving back in with them wasn’t the best idea.’
To unravel this thread, we need to go back much further in time. To long before I was even born.
Kajal Pia was the only daughter of Des and Naveena Pia, who had immigrated to London in the eighties. Born and bred in East London, Kajal was a creative and precocious child.
As her daughter, I can say she’s a creative and precocious adult too.
Once neither of us had any idea what to make for my science project, and she managed to convince my science teacher that our illustration of astrological signs somehow counted as an entry.
It didn’t, but she made a compelling argument, plus helped me create the poster.
‘I was always getting into trouble, much to my parents’ annoyance,’ she says, not quite meeting my eye. ‘But I was very good at school, even though I was a troublemaker.’
Des and Naveena had ambitions that Kajal was going to live out their immigrant parents’ dreams, become super successful as either a doctor or an engineer. They had sacrificed so much for her, the least she could do for them was to get a good job, find a good husband and live a ‘good’ life.
‘But what is a good life?’ says Kajal, a mischievous flicker in her eye. ‘I think we had very different views on that.’
Kajal told her parents she didn’t want to go to university straight away. She was going to take a gap year. It was 2001, and gap years were the new norm. Kids were flying all over the world, lured by cheaper flights and promises of personal growth. Naturally, Des and Naveena were not keen on this.
‘But it didn’t matter to me,’ says Kajal.
‘I deferred my entry to study Law, packed a bag and went to Greece. It was the cheapest flight out of London I could get. In hindsight, was it crazy for a young, solo female traveller to pack up and leave? Yes. Now I have a daughter, do I realise why they flipped out so much when I called them from Athens? Yes. Would I do it again? Also yes.’ There’s that flicker of mischief again.
In Athens, Kajal got a job working in a museum cafe. ‘A lot of tourists spoke English, so it was useful to have someone who could speak it fluently. In a sign of my naivety when I left home, I hadn’t even considered the language barrier!’
Between making coffees and waiting tables, Kajal developed a strong interest in the ancient world.
‘To me, it was so much more interesting than science and maths. It was the stories of humanity. How we got here.’ She was taken under the wing of a leading female curator and was soon offered a job as her assistant.
Kajal was meant to be there for a year before continuing her studies, but she never turned back.
‘I was learning more there than I ever would at university. Something which my parents couldn’t wrap their heads around.’
She travelled the world, becoming a professional curator, working in China, Vietnam, before arriving in the place of her ethnic origin, India.
‘I hadn’t expected to fall in love with India the way I did,’ she muses.
I’m always reminded it’s not only where she came from, but also where I’m from too.
‘It was this faraway place when I was growing up, and my parents taught me some of the language, culture and traditions, but I never could really imagine what it was like until I went. And it was beautiful.’
Kajal started working in a museum there, where she fell in love with a fellow curator. ‘It felt like pure magic at the time. In this beautiful country, with this beautiful man who promised me the world,’ she says wryly. ‘But I was still so young.’
Kajal fell pregnant. My origin story was always shrouded in mystery, much like a poorly written superhero. And now I can’t believe I’m about to find out the details.
‘The man’s family didn’t take to it too well,’ she says.
At this point she pats my knee. ‘Which is why I never told you this. I didn’t want you to think it was your fault, because it’s entirely theirs.
His family threatened to disown him for having a child out of wedlock.
So he gave me a plane ticket and some cash, to go back to London.
And because I had nothing else, I did. I never spoke to him again. ’
Now, this is the first time we’ve really spoken about my aforementioned father. I’ve spent years wondering who he was. A pilot? A movie star? A spy?
But he was a man. A man who for some time my mum loved. A man who made me. Their story didn’t last, but it shaped both of our lives.
I’m okay with that.
Kajal moved back in with her parents in East London.
‘It was fine, but they were clearly disappointed in how my life had turned out,’ she says, looking out of the window. ‘But for me, my life had been brilliant. And the most brilliant moment of it all was when I had you.’
But Des and Naveen didn’t want Kajal to return to museum life.
‘They wanted me to stay local, get a small job somewhere, dream smaller now I was a mother. But I thought: why can’t I have you and the life I want for us? Well, one argument led to another, and because I’m so stupidly independent, I left for a second time.’
She moved to the cheapest place she could afford to buy a house, Croydon, commuting in long hours to work at city museums, sometimes with a baby in tow.
‘I had two good pieces of luck,’ she tells me.
‘One was that I made friends with my next-door neighbour, Meredith, who had a son a similar age and could watch you while I was at work if you couldn’t go to nursery for some reason.
The other was my friend Gina, who I met a work and who kept me together. ’
Kajal climbed the museum ladder, becoming a member of boards and a well-respected voice in her field. She travelled a lot less, but displayed her treasures in her home. She lived her full life without regrets.
And she is an amazing mum. She’s been there my whole life, for every essay I struggled to write, to twisting my ankle from cross-country. Every scrape, both physically and emotionally, my mum has been there for me.
Which is why when she got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis a few years ago, I promised I would be there for her. Despite the arthritis taking over her joints, it didn’t stop her from pushing forwards with her life.
Kajal is now the Programme Director at the Croydon Museum, putting on local events for kids and adults. Her favourite events are the ones about the ancient world.
‘There’s nothing I would change and nothing I am disappointed by,’ she says. ‘Even now my knees have gone, I am still happy to have the life I lead. I’m proud to make a difference to my community. And I’m so proud of the daughter I’ve raised.’
So what is a good life? After talking to Kajal, I’ve realised it’s a life we live in the way we want to live it. It’s what good looks like to us. It’s having a mother that loves you and stands by you. It’s not being afraid of what other people think, and reaching for your best.
It’s something I hope I can honour her with throughout my life.