Ahir Shah’s fantasy dinner party: the cast of ‘Goodness Gracious Me’, Gujarati cooking, mango lassis

My mum is fielding questions on loudspeaker. A decade of practice means my renditions of her recipes are no longer simply pastiche. Indeed, they’re fast approaching convincing forgery. But when catering for a crew, one needs the wisdom of the old master.

Asafoetida, turmeric and whole spices meet hot oil and sizzle down the phone line. Mum inevitably asks if I’ll get changed before my guests arrive. In 1969, Wembley schoolchildren cursed an already terrified Asian kid with a new fear: “smelling of curry”. Half a century couldn’t lift that curse, nor can I. I hate that fear. But I don’t share it. By the time I stood in that same schoolyard in the mid-2000s, things were different. We are now freer to acknowledge when, to quote comedian Nish Kumar, we smell fucking delicious. 

Vegetables join the vaghaar. Gujarati cooking is simple: vegetables, beans and pulses gloriously elevated through spices and served with roti or rice to make a balanced meal that costs, even these days, just a couple of quid per head. Veg, spices and time.

The doorbell rings, earlier than expected, and I open it to find Jayaben Desai, leader of the Grunwick strikers in the 1970s. She can’t stay, she says, she’s on her way to have dinner with my grandmother. It’s been far too long since they talked about working in north-west London factories and making good trouble.

Everyone helps themselves. A couple of ‘shaaks’, some ‘daal’, we all know the drill, nothing fancy

She hands me a bag of sweets from Ambala in Wembley: jalebi, bright orange wheels of fried batter soaked in sugar syrup, and gulab jamun, milk solids balled and fried and bathed in syrup. Basically, Type 2 diabetes. I touch her feet and thank her for all she made possible. Before she goes, we quickly FaceTime Mum, who assures her that, yes, she is still sewing and, yes, she knows one must never lose practical skills.

Time is running away from me. I plan to serve a round of Hoppers’ “Arak Attack” cocktails when people arrive, and there’s a crate of Kingfisher in the fridge, but I’m pretty sure everyone’s really going to want the mango lassi. Proper Ealing Road, so-thick-the-straw-is-redundant mango lassi.

I lay out menu cards: “12 bread rolls, butter. Scampi, prawn cocktail. Gammon steak. Cod mornay. Steak and kidney pie. 24 plates of chips.”

The doorbell rings, later than expected, yet exactly when expected. My guests from the TV sketch show Goodness Gracious Me are here: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, Nina Wadia and Kulvinder Ghir. Aged seven, I sat at my grandparents’ feet and watched these comedians “go for an English”. Every week, I heard my grandparents, so hardened by life, soften into laughter at themselves! With themselves! I remember, in the car home, my parents scarcely able to believe it. Such laughter from nanaji and nani! I remember vividly, sat cross-legged on a floor in Alperton, thinking, “we can do that?” And I remember never wanting to do anything else.

As the four actors enter my home, I touch their feet and thank them for all they made possible. Them “going out for an English” changed my life, so I wanted to invite them round for an Indian.

A Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan record plays in the background, and I pass round the drinks. Inevitably, conversation starts with work. I struggle to talk shop with comedians I grew up watching on TV. They act like I’m a colleague when I am, in fact, an egg. But I give it a good old go.

Everyone helps themselves to food. A couple of shaaks, some daal, we all know the drill, nothing fancy. Normal, fingers-not-forks, eat-what-you-can-it’ll-keep food that nani taught mum who taught me. For dessert, alongside the jalebi and gulab jamun, I’ve made sure there is — what else? — rasmalaaaaaai, flying saucers of cheese curd floating in flavoured cream.

When you ask people about their fantasy dinner party guests, it’s remarkable how often names such as Winston Churchill get thrown about. Saying you’d like Churchill at your dinner party makes me think of that YouGov poll in which 17 per cent of Americans reckoned they could take an actual chimp in a fight. What possesses people to think they could host a hero of such monstrous scale? (I’m fairly certain all heroes of sufficient scale are monstrous. Gandhiji looks far better at a distance.)

Much nicer to share a drink, a chat, a laugh with people who made things — smaller things, but significant things — possible. And nicer still, to do so over food passed down from those who made possible life itself.

A few days after writing this, a British Indian became prime minister of the UK. Bloody hell.

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