IN MEMORIAM: Flowers left outside King’s Cross station

Bombed out and recovering

The ones who are the most upset about the London bombs are people like my Pakistani friends, who fear they are going to have to reap the whirlwind because of the actions of a handful.

One, an air stewardess for a major airline, said she heard so many abusive comments about “Pakis” on the bus that she came home and wept ? with impotent rage. Two months ago, she had told me about a young man in her own family who had become so radicalised that he forced his mother and sisters to adopt the hijab.

Now she wondered why the majority of Pakistanis have remained silent and allowed their youths to go astray.

My friend, who returned recently from a holiday in Pakistan, said: “In my circle, I did not find a single woman who wears a hijab. In many ways, Pakistanis in Britain are more ‘backward’ than Pakistanis in Pakistan.”

The British authorities are desperate to understand what turned “our British boys” into suicide bombers and, in some ways, almost blame themselves.

The British haven’t yet understood that the terrorist problems within Pakistan need to be tackled first. This is not going to be easy. President Musharraf has discovered how he has divided Pakistani society by being forced to join Bush’s “war on terror”.

There is a spillover of the jihadi philosophy from Pakistan into the British Pakistani communities of cities like Leeds, which produced the bombers, Hasib Hussain, 19, and Shehzad Tanweer, 22.

British Pakistanis go to Pakistan for the same reason that British Indians travel to India ? for holidays, to attend weddings, get married, and generally have a good time.

But a few are recruited by militant groups in Pakistan and groomed for jihad. This British/Pakistani link needs to be cut if British Pakistanis are to resolve the phenomenon of home grown terrorists. But it is also easy to understand why Messrs Bush and Blair ? or even India for that matter ? do not want to destabilise Musharraf at this stage.

As for London, friends from India have asked, “Is it safe to come?”

The answer is yes.

Actually, London has faced bombs before and will get back to normal pretty quickly. An IRA bomb outside my office in the Docklands in 1992 killed two and brought down thousands of tons of glass. The reality is that Londoners have no choice but to use Underground trains and buses.

What the bombs on July 7 have done is illustrate what a civilised people the British are. Its leaders are fighting to ensure there is no backlash against what Michael Howard called “our Muslim community”.

IN GOOD COMPANY: Manmohan Singh at the ceremony at Oxford

Word of honour

A funny thing happened in Oxford during Manmohan Singh’s visit when I came across a word no longer used in polite British society.

That word was used by the former Labour (and now Respect) MP George Galloway when addressing Saddam Hussein during a visit to Iraq in 1994.

Addressing the Iraqi leader, Galloway was caught on television telling the Iraqi leader: “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.”

Embarrassingly for Galloway, that footage has been played repeatedly on British television.

However, the word “indefatigable”, which most people find too hard to pronounce anyway, is no longer used in Britain, except to make fun of Galloway.

Until Manmohan Singh came to Oxford, that is. There I was sitting on a wooden bench in Convocation House, listening to the Public Orator explaining why the University of Oxford was conferring the honorary Degree of Civil Law on the Indian Prime Minister.

“I present a brilliant economist, a sagacious statesman, and an indefatigable champion and defender of his people, Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of the Republic of India, an Oxonian and a citizen of the world, to be admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law,” concluded the Public Orator.

He used the Latin, “indefessum”, but the translation handed out for those who did not have the benefit of a classical education at an English public school (probably the entire Indian crowd), used the word “indefatigable”.

To which, the chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord (Chris) Patten, replied: “Wise leader of your people and enlightened economist, who has served your country nobly and with incorruptible integrity, I on my own authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law.”

Everyone clapped, even the journalists.

But this should not be taken as endorsement for “indefatigable”. It was a once only use. Thanks to Galloway, it is one of those words which has now fallen into the dustbin of history.

THING OF BEAUTY: Shaukat Azmi (right) with Jyoti Moolnarain in the 1958 production of Shishe Ke Khilone

Role play

May be it is just me, but Indian women don’t look like they used to. Take, for example, theatre actress Shaukat Azmi, mother of Shabana.

There is a photograph of Shaukat which has been used on a flyer for a new Hindi/Urdu play in London, Shishe Ke Khilone.

This is an adaptation of The Glass Menagerie, written in 1945 by Tennessee Williams. The American Depression gives way to the slums of 1960s Bombay. Sheel Verma lives in reduced circumstances with her children, Rahul and Mira. Then Raj enters the scene.

The new production, adapted and directed by Rifat Shamin, is being staged at Waterman’s, a west London venue.

“This play depicts our social problems,” says Shamin. “It’s as though it was happening in my mohalla, my house. Art can change human life.”

Shishe Ke Khilone was first performed in 1958 at Jai Hind College Hall, Churchgate, Bombay. The present flyer shows the two actresses from that production, Shaukat Azmi and Jyoti Moolnarain.

Love above all

Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah has not been forgotten. Derek Malcolm, who was the Guardian’s long time film critic but now writes for the Evening Standard, lists Pakeezah at number 55 in his list of 100 DVDs he would like to have.

“Pakeezah qualifies as one of the most extraordinary musical melodramas ever made,” Malcolm once wrote. “Other Indian popular films may be subtler but few have quite the force and romantic conviction of Amrohi’s. He never struck gold again, and nor did (Meena) Kumari, whose last film this was. But gold Pakeezah definitely is.”

TINSEL TALK: Subhash Ghai with Ashok Amritraj at Cannes

Tittle tattle

When Ashok Amritraj passed through London recently, he tried out a different Indian restaurant each night. He was a little disappointed with the well-known Red Fort, a couple of minutes away from his very posh hotel, the Soho. But compared with LA, where he has produced over 85 films ? I watched Antitrust (about an IT megalomaniac) the other day and enjoyed it ? he has no doubt that the standard and availability of Indian food in London is vastly superior.

He was on his way to Chennai to join his wife and children for their annual Indian holiday. But Ashok tells me he is keen to strengthen his Indian links in other ways.

He wants to make a big budget Bollywood movie, “complete with seven songs”. He adds he would insist on ensuring its worldwide distribution, just as he does with his Hollywood films.