Prompt:
My Dad always said I looked like the mirror image of his grand-dad. He’d smile as he said it, ruffle my hair, look across at my Mum & they’d laugh, at some private joke. It was kind of a nice thing to hear but also strange as they never explained the joke.
I’d never really believed this until we were re-furbing the restaurant. He came across an old ‘photo album of the family back in Mumbai. This must have been the 1950s I suppose, as not long after that, the entire family had left India, settling in London. And, like generations of immigrants before them (and no doubt after) had opened a restaurant to cook the vegetarian food that we loved.
We’d been here ever since. Even had a couple of newspaper articles praising their cooking, pinned up. Rightly so, our food was pretty bloody special.
Lots of black & white photos in & around the water-front. We flicked through together, laughing at the old style clothes & hair. And then, they stopped, looked at each other, laughed that laugh. Handed me the album.
The single photo, alone on the page. A handsome Indian man. Him. And in the mirror next to him? Me. As I am today…
