THANK YOU ZADIE SMITH!
Readers of my personal story (link below) know that in 1969 I told a Daily Mail reporter that I did not marry an Indian, I married Atam. So how wonderful is it to hear Zadie Smith on Book of the Week say that her father married Yvonne and not an Afro Caribbean. That is what I believe in. We should react to each other as individuals. I hope my second novel ‘Sculpting the Elephant will also breakdown stereotypes. As a journalist I’m more comfortable writing about other people but now is an appropriate time to write about my marriage. The Madras Courier published my story.
https://madrascourier.com/opinion/on-mixed-race-relationships/
In the feature I suggest that most people are unaware of just how ‘mixed’ most of us are. The TV series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ provides plenty of examples. The actress Olivia Colman claimed that her family tree was boring because all the Colman ancestors had lived in Norfolk. How wrong she was! Harriet – the matriarch of her family – was the daughter of an Indian woman. It is thought that at least one third of the men who worked for the East India Company lived and had children with local women. Harriet’s story is poignant and well worth listening to. If it was fiction would you find it credible? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bb2dd9
My second novel Sculpting the Elephant will be published by Claret Press early in 2019 and this is how I will dedicate it.
‘ To anyone anywhere in the world whose partner was born in a different country, a different culture, a different religion or whose skin tone is different to yours . Sculpting the Elephant was written in acknowledgment of all things which had to happen in both your lives in order for you to meet in a particular place at a particular time. Chance encounters change lives and can bring the people of the world closer together.’
Atam and I on our wedding day