Thread by @faisalislam

Let me tell you just two* stories which might have wider resonance about a special person who we were saying bye to today... Dadu, Mukul, Chow to some, to me... Dad.

A few years ago, I spoke at the 500th anniversary of my old school. trying to capture spirit of Manchester...

I spoke of Dad, an Indian Muslim student, being given his first career push in 1960s by an open minded Jewish accountant. It turned out he Yitz was in the audience. They reconnected, had big joint clan dinner in Mcr.
He gave a eulogy today.

& I’m godfather to his granddaughter

Dad was very proud to be British, Indian, Muslim, Bengali and Mancunian, saw no contradictions... born into rural Bengal still under British control, first memory the RAF flying over his village on the way to Burma in WW2, his dad’s tannery supplying leather for army boots...

But it meant an extra resonance to having two of his children get education from @TrinCollCam where Nehru/Gandhis got their education...even more so when on day in 1998 I got my econ degree from only ever Bengali Master of Cambridge college, soon to be Nobel winner Amartya Sen...

Prof Sen asks us to the Lodge, with Newton’s artefacts, Henry VIII portraits etc as entertainment for his mother, by singing Tagore.
A seat of the British establishment temporarily a Bengali community centre.
Dad joked to me - this was not what the East India company had in mind

Many people going through grief at the moment, but his is a positive story of Britain, with strange arcs in history.

As a journo I know we can overly focus on extremes, intolerance, & morons.

The great mass of people are just extraordinarily ordinary, good & get on, like Dad.