Like other sketches on the British comedy show, “Goodness Gracious Me,” the Mr. Everything Comes From India routine has a double edge, paring neatly through British and South Asian stereotypes. Nothing’s sacred on the program: four British-Asian comedians poke equal-opportunity fun at suffocating Brahmin matriarchs, bogus Hindu gurus exploiting gullible Westerners, dull BBC travel documentaries and Muslims who mysteriously find themselves with Woody Allen for a son. Britons love the irreverence: after two years on the air, “Goodness Gracious Me” has become a mainstream hit. “Kiss my chaddis,” the catch insult of two Asian homeboys on the show, is schoolyard slang.
There’s no surer sign that you’ve arrived than being able to laugh–and be laughed at–with impunity. Asians began settling in Britain in large numbers three decades ago. They worked in factories and corner stores, weathering racist slurs and long hours, and many did well. Now their children and grandchildren aren’t just making good as doctors and accountants: they’re making art, too–infusing the British cultural scene with new comedy, music and drama. Links to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh still hold, of course. British-born Asians can be fiercely loyal to their parents’ homelands. But the new British-Asian art scene transcends politics. Punjabi Sikhs from the west London suburb of Southall might debate the South Asian nuclear race with Muslims from Bradford–while listening to Asian fusion at a London club.
Asian chic is nothing new: the Beatles went to India three decades before Madonna started wearing bindis and staining her hands with henna. But Britain’s Asian Renaissance has less to do with borrowing from a foreign culture than doing what comes naturally. The kids weaned on Hindi movie-music at home were also listening to the Smiths and watching Monty Python with their friends. Both cultures took–and today, Asian customs are slowly converging with mainstream British culture. Club nights like “stoned Asia” attract crossover crowds. On British stages in Birmingham and London, Asian actors strut in Punjabi, Hindi and English. “East Is East,” a farce about a British Muslim family, has been a major hit for months, and won Best Film at this year’s Evening Standard Film Awards. London has become a cultural hub for young South Asians worldwide.
At first it was music–a funked-up version of a Punjabi folk dance called bhangra –that gave British-Asians a voice. Like jazz for African-Americans, bhangra, often performed at weddings or in school halls, gave British-Asians “a sense of belonging,” says Avnar Litt, founder of Sunrise Radio, a London-based Asian station. Over the past decade, bhangra evolved into a rich and varied music scene. Any given weekend at London clubs, DJs sample Bollywood crooners and drum’n’bass music, mix tabla with hip-hop or weave sitar music into jazz. The Asian wave’s most famous musician is tabla-virtuouso Talvin Singh, who made headlines in Britain when his sumptuous CD, titled “O.K.,” beat out offerings from the Manic Street Preachers and Blur for the 1999 Mercury Prize.
In the ’80s, London-based writers Salman Rushdie and Hanif Kureishi wrote about Asian exclusion from British culture. The new generation is weaving the two worlds together. Gavin Fernandes, a 26-year-old fashion photographer, tries to explode the old curry-and-corner-shop stereotypes. His portfolio shows young Asian girls dressed as racist skinheads, or turbaned youths in hip-hop gear. Fernandes says that being able to move in mainstream Western society is crucial for his work.
Now that “global” is a buzzword, being multilingual and bicontinental is suddenly an advantage. “Young British-Asians have developed a superiority complex,” jokes Litt of Sunrise Radio. Litt’s station is located in Southall. With its saavy designers, fusion recording studios and olde English pubs with Hindi signs on them, Southall is considered a cosmopolitan Indian city by Punjabis worldwide–and one that is increasingly influential back in India. Chic Indian women buy delicate salwar kameezes from Southall designers. Bhangra used to be Punjabi: now, filtered through London-based studios, it’s become increasingly popular across India. What’s “Asian”? What’s “British”? They are becoming moot questions as the two cultures intertwine.
