Balti Britain: A Journey Through the British Asian Experience
by Ziauddin Sardar (Granta, £20)
In Pakistan, a balti is a bucket. In Britain, it’s a dish served in Pakistani restaurants. So it is, as Ziauddin Sardar spends the first 30 pages of this book explaining, emblematic of British Asian identity: it’s not British, it’s not Asian, it’s British Asian. That’s a trivial insight, but I mention it to warn the reader that Sardar—a major Asian and Muslim commentator, a columnist for the New Statesman, a maker of programmes for the BBC and Channel 4—often spends a long time presenting arguments that no one disputes.
One other general assessment: Sardar can’t write. He renders interesting people into dull, overused adjectives. For example, the smart women that he meets are invariably “slim” (the slim women are invariably “smart”). And, once he has listed his four adjectives, all that remains of the people he introduces is the dull dialogue he gives them. As Sardar quotes himself asking, “Where does Afghan-ness feature in your mental makeup?” No one talks like this, and no one ought to write like this either.
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