Growing up in no man’s land

People who say, ‘Why don’t Asians try to integrate?’ ought to have known Yasmin Hai’s father. A Marxist Anglophile from Pakistan, Mr Hai imposed ‘true Englishness’ on his bewildered English-born children. He forbade them to speak Urdu. Western clothes were favoured instead of the traditional salwar kameezes and his girls’ beautiful ebony locks were cropped into English bobs. The Muslim religion was only practised when it was Eid, Mr Hai’s reasoning being that ‘Eid could be enjoyed like Christians enjoyed Christmas.’

Attempting to become British must have been an increasingly painful project during the1970s. Practically every time a member of the Hai family switched on the telly they would have been faced with a browned-up man in a turban (usually Peter Sellers) waggling his head and chanting, ‘us bloody British’ to the accompaniment of raucous laughter. A British Asian? How achingly funny.