Even as a lefty British (Scottish) Indian, I felt a swell of pride looking at the photos of Rishi Sunak making history with King Charles. Sunak was not there as the people-pleasing, meek subordinate. He was no Dr Aziz in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. Sunak was there as the most powerful politician in the land, the Prime Minister. And he’s so minted anyway that he could have lent the King a bob or two.
My Indian parents were over the moon. I could tell there was great excitement because they worked out how to put me on speakerphone. “Wonderful!” exclaimed my father, who came here in the late Sixties. “I would love to meet his mother…” sighed my mum with a mixture of admiration and defeat. Every child of Indian parents is feeling the weight of acute disappointment. “I cannot believe he’s ONLY 42 … and SO trim! I mean, if HE can manage getting on that spinning bike thingy everyday…” Man, it’s brutal.
