<i>Korma</i> Karma

PERHAPS the reason I am flown all the way to London is to bridge the sense of humour gap between the East and the West. For I am assigned to host the red carpet interviews at the ninth British Curry Awards, to make it all giggles and laughs as the celebrities and dignitaries walk in to join the glitz and the glamour. But I salivate like Ivan Pavlov's dog as the aroma of all the Eastern delights being prepared in the kitchen for the several thousand guests enters my nostrils, enough to throw me into a long, gastronomical korma, er, coma.

And then, something is abuzz. It's the security detail of some VVIP, surprisingly disrupting no normalcy, let alone any rude shoving. The power of curry has the most powerful in Britain, the Prime Minister, gate crash the Oscars of the British curry industry. Not only that, David Cameron makes a beeline for the kitchen. Enam Ali, MBE, the founder of the awards that have become the industry standard, beams, “You are the first SERVING prime minister to attend the awards.” The PM quips, alluding to his tour of the kitchen, “I thought I was going to be the first British Premier SERVING [dinner] at the British Curry Awards.”

With 12,000 restaurants, an annual turnover of US$ 7 billion and 100,000 (mostly) voting employees serving millions of (again voting) people in Britain, the PM would be a fool to miss this extravaganza of a talk of the town. Besides, the Chicken Tikka Masala, stemmed from the Brits' love affair with spicy dishes, has already stripped the Fish and Chips as the national dish of Britain. Ok, it is still short of being called the national food of Britain, until the mem shahibs start preparing it at home every night for dinner, er, supper…

The curry in Britain has come a long way since the Hindustani Coffee House in Central London, reputed to be Britain's first curry house started by Sake Dean Mahomed, opened its doors in 1809. And it is not just curry, but what is British curry, cleverly evolving to suit its new home, that has made its way back East, enabling ice to be sold to Eskimos.

The curry has brought the British food to its renaissance from being the butt of jokes. The alluding is no longer to the smell of curry, but rather, the Chanel of curry. Britain may have at one point conquered the world with gunpowder, but the Sub-Continent has conquered Britain with the curry powder.

The curry is there because the British Raj was here. It may be the Korma Karma, but a welcoming one, that is now the very fabric of Great Britain. After all, being British now is all about driving a German car (filled with Saudi gasoline) to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then going home, sitting on a Swedish couch, watching an American show on a Japanese TV while making a call on a Korean cell phone for a home delivery of a hot, mouth watering Bangladeshi curry, straight from the kitchen of Hurry Curry on High Street.  

So, vote seekers, keep the curry and naan on. And let the chefs from Sylhet in.

The writer is an engineer & CEO turned comedian (by choice), the host of NTV's The Naveed Mahbub Show and the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club.
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