I thought I knew Britain in 1969, when I came to this country from India to study at Loughborough University. But I quickly realised that was not the case. For me, the last half-century has been a long process of learning. At times this was very painful. Once, I even feared for my life at the hands of football racists. I have also seen the UK reinvent itself as a much more caring, welcoming place. However, we still have some way to go to become a truly diverse society.

My initial surprise was to discover that, on their little island, the British did not live as they had done in India during the Raj. Not only were bathrooms not en suite, but many homes even had outside loos. The dinner jacket that had been specially tailored for me before I left Mumbai proved redundant, as I found the British no longer dressed for dinner. The only people I saw wearing dinner jackets were waiters in Indian restaurants.

Not that this made Indian food acceptable, as I discovered when, in the spring of 1969, fellow Loughborough students and I came down to London to see the musical Hair. All of London seemed to be taken up by this story of multiracial, multicultural love. After the show, as I headed to an Indian restaurant, I saw two police officers rush past me and grapple with a burly white man. The windowpanes of the restaurant were shattered, and an Indian waiter in a bow tie held a towel to his badly cut forehead. Despite this, he could not stop the blood trickling down his white dress shirt, colouring it crimson. When I inquired of a passerby, he said: “Some drunk had a fight with an Indian waiter. But then only drunks go to these curry houses. Dreadful.”

That opinion was........

© The Guardian