Even the law is useless when the people refuse to see the truth of a matter. The failure to remove ignorance and poverty is the single most important cause of the slow rate of change in India. It would be disgraceful if India failed to win the battle against superstition on the eve of the 21st century. This dish which at best is a strangely over-rich, creamy affair, is about to be exported to the subcontinent. We Brits, it seems, currently love curry more than anything else and are keen to foist it on a few ex-colonial outposts as well.
Plans are also afoot to see which city can justifiably claim to be the curry capital of the world .
The subtext to all this being that maybe, just maybe, a British audience is more discerning than an Indian one. Don t hold your breath. For much of Britain s postwar existence, the Indian curry house jostled on the High Street alongside the Italian trattoria and the Chinese takeaway. These were inexpensive eateries serving up watered down anglicized versions of alien cuisines that the British had taken to their hearts. Any subtlety and simplicity was eradicated, any sense of the fine balancing of spices and herbs utterly lost.