One reason why so many people in neighbouring countries may be ambivalent about Indians is because of our belief that everything in South Asia is either derived from India or is actually Indian. So, Indians will refuse to take Pakistani food seriously: “Just Punjabi food made by Punjabis who mistakenly imagine that they are the heirs to some Awadhi tradition”. We regard Bangladeshi food as being a mere sub-branch of mainstream Bengali cuisine. Nepali food is dismissed as just another Indian regional cuisine. We deny that either Bhutan or the Maldives can boast of a proper, full-fledged cuisine. And so on.

All of these dismissive generalisations are arrogant, unkind and unfair. Regrettably, they are also not necessarily entirely inaccurate. Otherwise, why are there so few Pakistani restaurants around the world? When Pakistanis do open restaurants in America or the United Kingdom (UK), they call them Indian restaurants. As for the Bangladeshis, they don’t even have the nerve to serve their own food, delicious though it may be. Instead, in places like the UK, they serve a made up curry-house cuisine which is native to no part of the world, let alone South Asia.

The one country where Indian culinary arrogance collapses,........

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