‘Bristol, let’s come together and lead by example’

I remember walking past two old Sikh men, once, in the town centre. We smiled at each other and nodded upwards, once, firmly – the safety nod. ‘Do you know them?’ my mate asked me.

‘No,’ I told him. ‘It’s brown person solidarity.’

I’ve lived in Bristol for five years and I’ve always found it to have a curious relationship with race. There are, of course, the links to its slavery past. There is the immense sound system culture that birthed so many incredible bands. There is the feeling, sometimes, that there are more white people wearing bindis per capita than anywhere else in Britain. There’s the guy who sells what he calls ‘Proper Indian Masala Chai Tea…’

As we all know: chai means tea. Chai tea is tea tea. Masala chai pre-dates ‘proper’ India, which came to be in 1947. And proper Indian? What does that even mean?

I wrote an essay about race in Bristol for an essay collection I edited called The Good Immigrant. The essay is called Namaste, and it documents the times someone has said Namaste to me in the street. Spoiler: it hasn’t been because I’ve been pleasantly greeted by a fellow brown person. It’s been because of a) faux yoga spirituality outside Hamilton House and b) because I asked some students having a massive fuck off party to turn the music down so it didn’t wake my baby. I won’t go into those instances here. You can read about them in the book if you should so choose.

Moving to Bristol, a multicultural city, five years ago, I realised I didn’t know a single brown or black person here. It’s not completely unbelievable. I only really knew my wife’s family and my best mate. But it felt jarring for me, to not have any Gujarati community to go to, where I could chat in my first language, to not have a multicultural friendship group. I found myself unable to settle. I feel safest in groups of people of colour because I feel the most me. I can be my full self. I don’t have to code-switch as much. I can talk in the voice that nods to my Gujarati parents, my London upbringing, my comic book reference points and the slang I grew up on. I find myself slurring, umming and erring in company otherwise, as I struggle to find the right voice to exist in. The longer I’ve lived here, the more my friendship group has diversified to a level I’m comfortable with, and I’m starting to feel like I live in the city.

Going back to that nod, it’s important to do. I find it lets people know that we’re out here for each other. There’s an old Zora Neale Hurston quote: “I feel most coloured when I am thrown against a sharp white background…” That’s why I take every opportunity to meet people with a similar background to me. Here, so far away from the community I grew up around, it makes me feel more like this is my home. That’s why I nod.

Since the referendum results, there has been a sharp rise in hate crimes throughout the country. I think it’s important to highlight this because while I, and a lot of people I know, have experienced racism in Bristol firsthand. You could say that this is happening everywhere. I would counter that I don’t want it to happen anywhere. Especially here, in my new home. That purports to be an open multicultural city of opportunity and culture. Let’s lead by example. Don’t stand for any racism if you see it. Get to know the new communities coming here. Think long and hard about wearing that bindi. Do the nod. Let’s come together and lead by example.

Nikesh Shukla is a Bristol writer whose new book The Good Immigrant brings together 20 emerging British BAME writers, poets, journalists and artists to confront issues of race and immigration.

Read more: 10 Questions: Nikesh Shukla