NISHA TANDON: ‘Our political leaders must champion ethnic diversity’

Northern Ireland’s largest cultural diversity festival, the Belfast Mela, will return for its 15th year with an eclectic programme of world music, dance, street theatre, art and food (including a fiery curry eating competition) at various venues across the city from August 23-29.

The ever popular jamboree, which usually takes place in the scenic surrounds of Botanic Gardens, and generally involves all kinds of ethnic delights from Bollywood dancing and mystical Sufi music to African drumming, has been amended this year to meet Covid safety concerns and the result is still a cornucopia of entertainment at venues across the city.

This year you can expect baby and adult yoga sessions, varied music, a Silk Road Supper Club three-course dining experience inspired by recipes and cooking stories from local asylum seekers and Ulster’s growing refugee community, walking tours, a Caribbean carnival, hula hooping at Ormeau Park and spectacular illuminated sculptures set to go on display at CS Lewis Square as well as little Bollywood sessions, a Global Ceili and ‘Taste the World’ cookery sessions, plus outdoor cinema screenings of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, and a traditional South Asian Truck Art outdoor installation.

The Mela is masterminded by Nisha Tandon OBE, recognised for her work in empowering Black and Asian minority ethnic communities, and director of ArtsEkta, the organisation behind all this multicultural hoopla and razzmatazz.

This New Delhi-born creative powerhouse of a woman has led the celebration of multicultural arts here in Belfast since she founded ArtsEkta in 2006, determined as she was and remains, to enrich Ulster’s cultural landscape with the music, theatre and dance practiced by the spectrum of ethnicities who are increasingly making Northern Ireland their home.

Nisha said: “Mela will continue to reflect the vibrant, enriched, intercultural and ambitious city Belfast is growing to become and unite all communities to feel a sense of identity, belonging and pride.”

She believes, obviously, after 15 years of ever mushrooming scale and size, that the Mela is an important event in Belfast’s cultural calendar, and a key instance of its emerging cosmopolitanism; a city once chiefly defined by orange and green identities is now a melting pot of people from all corners of the world.

Nisha came here from India 45 years ago after an arranged marriage to a Belfast-based Indian man and has witnessed a huge progression of attitudes towards socio-cultural inclusion since she arrived in 1977. The weather was the biggest shock when she reached Ulster and then not being able to get her hands on the kinds of spices and curried dishes she savoured back home.

“I just couldn’t live on sausages and beans and bacon, it was not me,” she laughs. “It was a huge culture shock at first, but I had an aunt in Birmingham who used to parcel all the spices and the rich variety of vegetables I was used to in India, because here they only seemed to have cauliflower, peppers and carrots in the supermarkets.

“In North Belfast an Indian family opened a grocery shop eventually, which was a big relief in 1979. My mother-in-law was from Omagh and used to get us brought in special Indian supplies.”

Nisha is hugely heartened by the way so many of different colours and creeds have chosen to settle here: “We have seen a huge influx of people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds, as well as many people from European countries and from Syria, Sudan and Somalia and elsewhere who have made Northern Ireland their home. The Indian, Chinese and Jewish communities were always largely well established here but now we see more from Afro-Caribbean backgrounds, as well as Polish, Romanian and Slovakian demographics.”

Nisha believes that racism is less of a problem here than it was when communities were largely divided - and in some places still are - into Protestant and Catholic or unionist and nationalist at the genesis of the Troubles, but she still sees room for greater inclusion of those from diverse backgrounds and for this she believes success will be determined by the attitudes of our political leaders and policy makers.

“We need more education, more integrated education and more interaction between established and emergent ethnic communities, for sure. But it has to be the policy makers who make a greater effort to promote cultural diversity, embedding an inclusive attitude within their own political parties and communities.”

She added: “Ethnic voices need to be listened to, they need to be heard . We need leadership to pave the way in the celebration of diversity. We need to change this pernicious narrative that is often peddled, that people who move here from other countries are here to ‘steal jobs’ and the like. People like myself are here to contribute, to work, to help build a better society and to pay our taxes. Look around at our hospitality industry for example, where there is a real need of labour and it is generally migrants who are willing to fill these vital roles. We need to work together. But we can only integrate ethnic communities if we give them a platform, if political leaders champion the cause and if their multitude of voices and perspectives are listened to.”

BOLLYWOOD HAS MADE NEW HOME IN BELFAST

As an example of how ArtsEkta envisages a communion of local and ethnic cultural icons, the illuminated sculpture display at CS Lewis Square set for this year’s Mela will see depictions of the City Hall, the Titanic, the Harland & Wolff gantries and the Giant’s Causeway featured alongside the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Pyramids.

At the ‘Mini Mela’ event there will be a showcase of ethnic performers’ work and a Sufi singer, doing “fantastic” Pakistani and Indian style singing which has moved down the generations and is thousands of years old.

So too will there be storytellers from India, Japan, Arabic-speaking countries and Indian and Pakistani art with slogans in Hindi, Urdu and English and Bollywood dancers choreographing new routines in colourful, enviable, sequined saris and bindis.

Nisha added: “I would like to pay tribute to all the artists involved in bringing us a bold, vibrant and colourful cultural celebration this year, who have risen to the challenge to adapt and create unique creative experiences to showcase the city’s diversity.”

‘WE NEED TO RESPECT EACH OTHER AND RESPECT DIFFERENT CULTURES’

Having been resident here for 45 years, Nisha lived through some of the worst years of the Troubles, and remembers those perilous decades when “you were scared to go out on the streets, there was military presence, police checkpoints, stone throwing and the threat of being caught up in something. So you stayed indoors, especially in winter when it was dark.”

Now that we have moved past the zenith of internecine conflict she fervently believes that “Northern Ireland needs to move on. We need to respect each other and respect different cultures”.

Unlike some, she has been lucky in having largely been able to escape any experience of racial prejudice, however she does admit to having been “called certain names within certain areas, and say at conferences or seminars I have attended in my career there were times people would look at you as though you were an alien and you could imagine them saying, ‘Oh my God, what is this brown girl doing here?’

“I put this down to ignorance and there was no point in arguing because these people did not know any better, and again it is down to a lack of education really.”

Tandon, a mum of three and grandmother of two, has, like most of us, had to find ways of coping with lockdown, and has done so largely by going on walks while listening to meditative music, pottering around in her beloved garden, reading and cooking (she can cook anything really, but she confesses to making a mean chicken tikka massala, and the key, she says, is getting the spices just right, namely tumeric, chilli powder, paprika and salt).

When Covid swept India, she experienced personal loss when her brother-in-law died after falling victim to the Delta variant, and she lost friends too: “It was hard, and there was a lack of government policy in India and a shortage of vaccines that has had a devastating effect. I felt deeply for my family and others back home.”

A proficient Bollywood dancer with a background in theatre, Tandon founded ArtsEkta as a way of “dissolving cultural barriers”, cognisant that art forms like music and dance can be enjoyed by all, promote interaction, engagement, wellbeing and a sense of community. She little imagined ArtsEkta would develop as it has and it was an immensely proud moment when Princess Anne awarded her her OBE: “My family were blown away, but sometimes with people’s reaction, especially back in India, I have to remind them that I am nobody special!”

Q&A; ‘I’D MAKE VEG JALFREZI FOR MO MOWLAM AND MOTHER THERESA’

Tell us some of your earliest childhood memories?

I grew up in New Delhi and remember summer holidays vividly. In India it is so hot from May to July so we would pack our bags and visit cooler places like Nainital, a beautiful mountainous resort. We did horse riding, swimming and went apple picking. All my cousins would be there around the table to play snakes and ladders. We picked up acorns and wandered through mango farms.

What subjects did you excel at during your school days?

I was very good at languages but art and creative things were my speciality. I loved drama, theatre and dance and of course still do.

Your ideal way to spend a day outside of lockdown restrictions?

I love my walks and I love my garden. I love reading too and cooking. So all those combined.

Who makes you laugh the most?

Programmes like Fawlty Towers. And I also enjoy Give My Head Peace for the way it sends up the orange and green divide.

If you could have a dream dinner party at which you could invite anyone from history who would you bring?

Mo Mowlam, she was so inspiring, Marilyn Monroe, one of the most beautiful icons of cinema, Indira Gandhi, the daughter of the first prime minister of India and Mother Theresa.

What would you make them to eat and to drink?

I would make a vegetable jalfrezi full of fresh herbs and to drink refreshing lemon, cucumber and mint in soda water.

Describe yourself as a person?

Respectful, a good listener, supportive and helpful.

Your proudest achievement?

Founding and continuing to work for ArtsEkta. I want to give people who are new to this country opportunities that I did not have when I first arrived. I am also a proud mother of three and a granny of two who keep me very busy.

Favourite kind of music?

I love the flute. Particularly the music of James Galway. I also love Ravi Shankar.

Favourite book?

Michael Palin’s Great Railway Journeys and his Journey of India.

Favourite film?

It has to be Grease. I love to sing and dance along and I love Olivia Newton John and John Travolta - I love him in Saturday Night Fever too.

Do you have any vices?

I love rice, and I can’t diet because it’s my weakness.

Are you sustained by any kind of religious faith?

I was raised in the Hindu tradition but I don’t really practice. I am spiritual, but not religious. I pray in the morning and evening, but don’t visit temples so much.

Love is...Very charming.

The meaning of life is...To help others, that is the goal.

For more information on the Belfast Mela Festival, August 23-29 at venues across the city, visit www.belfastmela.org.uk.