it ll be fine, was because they were scared. you re always tweaking your relationship between. ..the generation you re in and the generation that got you here. i think that my dad s generation, they did whatever they had to to get by. theyjust wanted to survive. i don t just want to survive. i want to live. back in devon, when i was younger, i used to help my dad at his indian take out, and i made one of my early youtube videos about it. this is our storeroom. that s the tandoori oven, got some pilau rice cooking up in there. less and less young bengalis are getting into the restaurant trade now, and the number of curry houses on brick lane has decreased by over 60% in the past 15 years. rising rents, gentrification and lack of staffing are just some of the reasons. but niaz is bucking that trend, and he wants to modernise the curry industry. at the age of 14, i knew that he has more ideas than i do. things that he knows,
yeah, moments like that make me feel, like, ok, ali, maybe you re doing something right. maybe you re doing something right. typically, when people think of british bangladeshis, they may think of, like, east london or tower hamlets or that brick lane street. not for me. you know, i grew up in an area in the county of devon. ..one of the whitest parts of england. look, i live right outside of this river, i ve got views. there s a super pool. they trying to, like, push into me. oi, no! to a lot of my white friends, i was actually the only brown person they had ever met in their entire life, right? it got so bad that once my cousin came to visit me in town, but my friends got me
have a meal then go back home. and that was like a great day out. over 80% of indian restaurants in the uk are run by bangladeshis. many of them here on brick lane. abdul arrived in brick lane in the 1970s and grew up around here. he s owned this restaurant since 2012. so, this is city spice. we re known as the king of brick lane. ..and his son niaz, who s 20, helps him run it. 2012, what was brick lane like back then? it was amazing. it was like a market day every day of the week. hundreds and hundreds of people walking around, drinking, eating. every single shop on this road was a restaurant. more than 60 odd restaurants, and every single one was packed. back in the 70s, when i started off, it was all have a couple of pints, go out the pub
many of them living in brick lane. i m not going to lie, a lot of those haircuts still exist amongst bengali uncles. the immigrant dream, i think, for a lot of people is to have your own business. so, my dad, he was a chef. he was an incredible chef, still is. my dad saved, saved, saved, saved. there was a restaurant in devon that someone was selling, and my dad was like, this could be my opportunity to have my own business. you know, that was the only indian restaurant in my little town. and, of course, white people love curry. so, you know, my dad made a really good decision. we d make one annual trip to london from devon, and you felt a real sense of culture in brick lane. as a family, we d come here and fill our boots up with meat and chicken and halal groceries. and obviously we d go into one of these indian restaurants,
and have a vindaloo. the 70s and 80s, you grew up in east london. report: brick lane, in - the heart of london s east end. the bengalis, the latest. in a long line of immigrant communities to settle here, found themselves the - victims of intimidation, | harassment and hatred. what were those experiences like? i was well prepared. i mean, i was rough and ready, you ve got to be rough and ready to be brought up. my generation has no idea what that was like. we used to get picked on for the way we dressed, the way we smell, you know, the colour we looked. the bengalis who organised the weekend s sit down - in brick lane, the usual sunday haunt of national front supporters. we fought back, we used to get called names, we called them back. if we just sat down and took it, if we don t retaliate, then they ll make a habit of it. we used to live on the bottom of the street. and our neighbour. my mum used to cook food, and he used to complain we smelled of onions. but we left the area. he w