By Community Correspondent K Patel The arrival of Channel 4’s The Family blew me away last week, the adverts leading up to it reeled me in hook line and sinker. This week started with Arvinder rummaging through an overstuffed cupboard shouting up to the Mrs, “Ola!”

“Tut, what do you want?” She growls back at him, sitting at the edge of the bed nodding off.

“Cup of tea!” “Cup of tea!”

Here we go again I thought. Tucked into my sofa ready to engage in more knee hugging feel good stuff I was taken aback when it got too serious too soon, I would have enjoyed a few more episodes of ha ha hee hee before we got down to nitty gritty domestic life. I can predict there will be many pinnacle moments from this series.....my top two from this week were.....The patriarch asks his wife the habitual question, “Have you made tea yet?” I don’t deny this was a bona-fide question on his part but Sarbjit was snoring in bed next to him!

The other was Jeet spending quality time with his toddler, he was recalling his Bollywood somewhat deflated acting career, they sit together on the sofa watching one of his movies. With such pride he says, “Here’s daddy holding gun”, as the camera homes in on the gun her eyes become as wide as the huge dummy in her mouth. Indians don’t do seven pm bedtime or TV censoring. My mum used to let us watch Dracula at midnight, I was six and scared shitless but enjoyed every minute of it. I’m in awe of the producers they have hit it on the nail finding the next “ordinary family” how genius of them to pick the Grewels from Hounslow, clothes drying in an unattended garden by the wind from the planes skimming the chimney top, just like my ‘Unti’s’ house.

This to me is a typical Indian family with all its 21C immigrant issues, the house overflows with warmth and love, each character having a strong position within it. The Indian household is far from a shrinking violet and is a boiling pot ready to explode. Ingredients: Take one Daddyji, one mummyji, mix together and you get three British childrenji, sprinkle a touch of cricket, Bollywood, an arrange marriage, a love marriage and an evil mother-in-law, sit back with hot parathas dipped in milky sweet sweet chai to watch the explosions bigger than Guy Fawkes could ever imagine.........diabetes anyone? For me I feel excited that my white contemporaries will for the first time get a sneak preview of a typical Indian home, my father arrived here 50 years ago and we Indians are now so deeply engraved in Britain.....but are we really known or understood? There may be a chance to find out in this fantastic fly-on-the-wall documentary. I wonder what Joe Bloggs will make of it.