Beginning of life in the United Kingdom for one of the pioneers of Manipuri emigrants overseas
- Sixth part of the book: Dr Mohendra's Memoir to be published -

Dr Mohendra Irengbam *

At the bibulous felicitation party of Nigel Benn, the Light weight World Boxing Champion 2008

I am stumped. Like asking what is the difference between a poem and a song? It is a sticky wicket. Speaking with flagrant casualness, when the inevitable question comes of whether I miss my life in Manipur, I find that the answer comes out without me even having to think about it. I like it here. Because life is so peaceful.

However, as I am not an economic migrant, my life in Imphal could have been equally good. But, when one tries to be a master of one's destiny, there is always a sting in the tail. Some of you must have read a small book, The Alchemist of 160 pages, by the Brazilian Paulo Coelho, and which has been translated into 61 languages, and sold 30 million copies worldwide. The popularity of the book seems to be that it advocates one should follow one's own dreams by listening to one's heart.

In my lifetime, Imphal has changed a lot beyond recognition. Over the years, the stereotypes of Manipur are wearing thin. Manipuris now have an unshakable historical destiny with incredible cultural creativity. Most of life's amenities that are available in the United Kingdom are now available in Manipur.

Still, on the granular level, the sentences pose a challenge. As you can comfortably sense, it is rare that an Asian immigrant has gone back home. Nor have the East Europeans, mainly from Poland, Romania and Lithuania. There are 2 .2 million East European economic migrants in the UK since 1975.

There are 1.45 million Indians in the UK. It is because nobody starves or is homeless except a few down and out people. Everybody gets free medical treatment. Life's amenities, at least the basics, are at your fingertips as Britain is a welfare state. Back home, most people have to look for them and in the end you might not find them at all.

The pace of life is velvety and rarely bumpy. People are disciplined and as such policing is by consent and not by force. The British queue system is a phenomenal characteristic that make life's movement smooth and oiled. To quote a basic amenity: It will cost a person only a 5 minute telephone call, to avail of a doctor's service either at the surgery, or at home for those who can visit the surgery. All free, as well as free medicines except for prescription charges. Those who are unable to pay (on state benefit) and all children and students in full time education are exempted from these charges.

Education is free for everybody up to the age of 18. University students have to pay a minimum of £8000 per year for tuition fees, as well as for lodging and boarding. For students whose parents have below certain income, they get grants from the state. For those who have to pay there is "students' Loan" from the government which they have to pay back when they begin earning only when their income is above the repayment threshold.

The current UK threshold is £27,295 a year, £2,274 a month, or £524 a week. An average graduate salary in 2021 is about £24,000 per annum. That means he/she does not have to repay until the salary come up to £27,295 per year.

I have so far given glimpses of my life in the UK, partly told by the photos to affect readers' vivid understanding and to economise on the number of words. I have also given a short edition of insights into the British social landscape.

As I come to the end of my memoir, I would like to wrap up my story telling and tie up any loose ends with the British cuisine. British food habits have changed a lot over time since the importation of food and spices from abroad. Currently, Indian gastronomy is their second best alternative, preferring medium hot dishes like Madras curry.

Most people around the world seem to think a typical English breakfast consists of 2 fried or boiled eggs, two strips of fried bacon (During my time in India it was cold ham; no bacon was available) and 2 slices toast with or without marmalade and the like, served with one or two cups of tea.

You will be surprised to know it's nothing like that – a cooked breakfast every day for the hoi polloi. That was the prescribed breakfast for the British officers in the old days of their empire. I was fortunate enough to experience this sort of breakfast in the last setting days of the empire.

British officers in India or anywhere in the empire, had certain codes of conduct and dress habit. They had to have an ayah (nanny in England) and a gardener for instance. It was a struggle for young officers with their small pay. They had to dress up for dinner, even in the African Jungle as did Clark Gable with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly in the film Mocambo.

In England, a typical British breakfast for the average person is more likely to be a bowl of cereal like cornflakes or two slices of toast, a cup of coffee or half a glass of orange juice. Many people in winter, particularly Scottish people eat porridge. Only the British people ate cooked breakfast at home and in hotels during their Empire. And their legacy still lingers.

Most upmarket hotels now give cooked British breakfast and continental breakfast, as well as an array of cooked items. Most European Hotels do not serve cooked breakfast.

A typical cooked British breakfast with bacon, fried eggs, fried mushrooms, sausage and baked means

A British lunch is between 12:00 and 1.30 pm. This is called 'lunch break'. Most working people will usually eat a hot meal or sandwich in the staff canteen. Some people have their biggest meal in the middle of the day, while some have it in the evening. Afternoon tea is often drunk with a biscuit or piece of cake.

The evening dinner (sometimes called supper) is usually between 6.30 and 8:00 pm. A traditional British Dinner is "meat with two veg". They often go with gravy (liquid made from the juices of the roast meat). One of the vegetables is almost always potatoes, cooked in different ways. The other veg could be boiled peas, carrots, cabbage, broccoli and so on.

A typical English dinner with roast lamb with gravy, roast potatoes, boiled carrots and boiled peas.

The usual dinners are steak and kidney pie, Shepherd's pie, Bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes served with onion gravy. Fish and chips is common favourite meal. In the mid '60s, fish and chips were served in fish and chips shops, wrapped newspapers. They are everywhere like the pubs. They are really tasty. It used to be cheap, but not anymore. You can have a dish of mushy peas (mushy green peas that taste like Meitei utti) as an extra.

I often wondered what a sausage is. I know how it looks like. I know what it tastes like. I have only heard anecdotes. I went to find it on the net to help reader. I have never eaten sausage in India. A sausage is a cylindrical tubes filled with minced pork (usually). The sausage skin as it is called used to be intestines of animals, but for years it has been synthetic, usually made of collagen and cellulose. A pie is a baked dish of meat and vegetables covered with pastry flour. There are also fruit pies.

In 1950s and 1960s, before the arrival of Indian dishes in the Indian restaurants (All by Sylheti Bengalis) it was a nightmare for Indian doctors who did not eat beef. At the doctors' mess in Hospitals, those Indian doctors who wanted vegetarian food would be provided with boiled peas, potatoes and carrots, and a couple of slices of bread and butter. There was no Halal meat for Muslim doctors either. When the meat was ham or pork, Muslim doctors also would eat boiled vegetables. The cook and the staff in the kitchen did not know even how to cook rice, let alone cooking an Indian curry.

Until the late 1960s there was hardly any Indian restaurant except Veraswami in Regent Street in London, and another one in Glasgow, where we used to go sometimes, while studying in Edinburgh.

Veraswami (established 1926) is the oldest surviving India restaurant in Britain (There was only one before it). It was started by Edward Palmer, an Anglo-Indian retired British Indian Army officer, the grandson of an English general and an Indian princess. Veraswami was his grandmother's surname. Among the famous diners were Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. When I visited in in the 1970s, it was served by turbaned waiters and saree-clad Indian women.

Nowadays, most people in Britain eat Indian curries with rice, parathas or naans, as well as Italian pasta dishes, such pizza, lasagne and the good old spaghetti Bolognese.

Over the years, many Indian restaurants, mosques, Gurdwaras and Temples have sprung up at various place in the country. Ironically, more and more British churches were closed due to lack of attendees as Britain became more atheistic.

It will be sacrilegious to write about Britain without a word about whisky (spelled whiskey in Ireland). I have had the privilege of a tipple every night for 30 years. For many years, my taste buds were sharp-tuned to Johnny Walker Black Label with its distinctive mellow smoky note.

The world famous Scotch whisky can only be made in Scotland. The Japanese tried without success. Whisky is the national drink of Scotland while Bitter Beer is for England, and black Guinness beer is for Ireland. Different tastes of whisky comes from the use of peat (Scottish) in the malting process and the type of wood barrel it has been aged in. The longer it has been aged the better is the taste, usually 12 years. The colour comes from the oak wood barrels in which sherry has been stored previously.

Inverness, almost near the northern shore of Scottish Highlands is a beautiful breath-taking small city. It prides itself for many brands of single malt whiskies from the distilleries around it. The most famous being Glenmorangie. There, I found so many brands of whisky which I have never heard of. Inverness is where the castle Cawdor in Shakespeare's Macbeth is located, there are many distilleries all around, producing single malt whiskies.

A few brands of whisky in my bar at home

The 5 star Balmoral Hotel at Princess Street in Edinburgh, prides itself having more than 500 brands of whisky in its bar. You can drink 4 single whiskies from £65 to £159 per person. A pour of whisky in 3 seconds is about 25-30 mm. In Scotland it is usually drunk neat.

Dinner with friends. On my right is Dr Valerie Wilson, my colleague

Life in Britain is very good indeed. It is exceedingly good for immigrants. The British culture and their habits are very admirable, barring racism. They don't in general, interfere with other people's life. My next door neighbour will not come to my house without asking first. We might not see each other for the duration of the cold wintry months.

British people love independence. So, old people prefer to live alone in their own house as long as they can with some physical help from the state, such as a cleaner for the house, meal delivery and regular visits by family doctors and nurses. Independence is in their blue blood. Once children have grown up and finished their education, most of them move away as soon as they find jobs, so that they are free from parental discipline. So did my two children.

Well-off people who lived in big houses will scale down their houses once they retire and many of them move away somewhere. It may be near where one of their children has settled. Nobody starves as they get social security benefits. That being said, there are many homeless people in the city streets. They are all drop-outs, alcoholics or drug addicts. They cannot have social security benefits as they have no fixed address.

Social security benefits have many categories: (1) Help with housing, housing benefit, Council Tax reduction. (2) Help with home heating; (3) Help for pensioners with winter extra fuel payment. There are other financial support for disabled people and so on.

As examples, if you are ill and unable to work you get social benefit. If you are unable to look after your children you get benefit. If you are caring for a disabled person, say a parent or a child, you get extra benefit. For low income groups you get benefits for housing costs and other living costs.

There is no longer stigma for girls having children when unmarried. A single mother (without boyfriend or husband) gets a lot of benefits so many girls prefer that lifestyle. They do not have to go to work. And a house will be provided. The more the number of children the more is the financial benefit. Regardless of your financial status, everybody gets Old Age or State pension.

And extra heating allowance for the winter is provided. If you have a mentally disabled child, you get all sorts of benefit so that the parents do not need to work at all. A disabled man can get a car as a mobility allowance, depending on the nature of his or her illness.

An evening barbeque in my garden with friends, Malcom on the right

Apart from the pub life and English language there are ethos of the British culture that are remarkably virtuous. They are the 4 British values: Democracy, Rule of Law, Respect and tolerance and Individual Liberty.

Over the past 70 years and after the demise of the empire, British character and British values have mutated. Partly due to the environment of living with Asians who are not bothered with that kind of polite language, such as using the words 'please' or 'thank you' and partly due to the loss of the Empire, for which they had to keep an image of 'sahib' and dress accordingly.

They are no more the usual polite people per se, especially to immigrants. Their dress code has become universally casual. Women do not wear a hat except for great social functions like weddings.

More and more people are drinking wine with or without food. Because of ease of living in a welfare state and professed liberalism, divorce has become commonplace. 4 out of 10 people end up in divorce sometime in their life. Age is no bar. Polls have shown Christianity to be on the decline and British people are becoming less religious. They support a secular state. I had never seen my in laws and other kith and kin let alone my wife, ever going to church or talk about religion. Many churches remain empty.

An evening at home with the face of my daughter Anita on the left

In closing, life in this country is quite peaceful. Personally speaking, my life has been very good. I have kept my head below the horizon at all times. I have also had the satisfaction of visiting my parents almost every year and attending to them when they were ill. I have written 4 books in English and one in Manipuri, as well as over 750 articles, as a columnist of the Sangai Express. They were meant to explore and explain life in general and the metaphysical aspects of living for the people of Manipur.

I know there will be divisions of contemporary opinion, about the meaning and importance of events as they impinged on my life and as my life impinged on events. But my feeling is that I am true to myself and have done nothing to demean myself and to dishonour Manipur. I am immensely gladdened that there has not been a shred of underdog in any aspect of my life, barring the incident of bullying in the primary school.

Slowly and steadily, I started to realise that, although what I had lost by abandoning my hometown, was immeasurable and obvious, I had in an unexpected way, also gained happiness with a devoted wife and two successful children.

For me, contextualised and approached, I am still a brook that runs in its own channel in the vast river.


Author's website: drimsingh.com