If you don't know me by now ...

That's the title of the book I've just finished reading, a memoir by Sathnam Sanghera. Sathnam is a private school educated ("paid for by the gorment), Cambridge graduate, who lives in London, has a gori (white) girlfriend and drives a Porsche. Yet he comes from a strictly traditional Sikh family. Neither of his parents speak English. After 30 years in this country, his mother still feels more comfortable sitting on the floor. His grasp of Punjabi is slipping. So much so that he hides from the taxi drivers at the station who are also family members on his return visits and waits for a driver he doesn't recognise. So the book is his "who do you think you are"?

I've written about it in the chat section because apart from being a fascinating account (for me) of recent British history (he grew up in Wolverhampton), he makes the following plea at one point: I felt a deep well of pity for (my parents) ... and then a powerful surge of anger at the multi-culturalists out there who argue that immigrants shouldn't be forced to learn English. It means that ethnic communities can't educate themselves, don't understand what is happening even when the most extreme things occur ... That really made me think, how quick we are to assume what is best for others.

The reason for the above is that Sathnam's father had schizophrenia from a young age and, well you can imagine trying to deal with that if you can't speak English, (and you don't even know what it is).

Altogether a fascinating, and often very funny, book.