The BBC presenter talks about her strict childhood and how
she and her husband find playing golf together is great for their relationship
Naga Munchetty.
Naga Munchetty.
Photograph: BBC/Guy Levy
Joanna Moorhead
Interview by Joanna Moorhead
Friday 17 June 2016 13.00 BST Last modified on Saturday 18
June 2016
My full name is Subha Nagalakshmi Munchetty-Chendriah – can
you imagine spelling that for people when you’re a small child at school? But
my mother started calling me Naga, because it means cobra and she dreamed of
snakes when she was pregnant. I’ve always hated the name and for a while I
thought about changing it to Nadia. In some ways, I wish I had.
Names are so important, identity is so important. Once when
I was a child, a woman called my mum Michelle. I said, why are you calling her
that? And she said it’s her name and I said, no it’s not, her name is Muthu. It
made me think, that’s a difficult thing to have to deal with; it’s like losing
your identity. But it’s what used to happen, immigrants anglicising their
names.
Mum is from Tamil Nadu, Dad is from Mauritius. They each
moved to Wales in the early 70s to study: Mum was doing dentistry, Dad was
training to be a nurse. They met and fell in love but it had to stay a secret
because that wasn’t part of the deal, they had come to study, not to find a
partner. In the end, they got married in London without telling their parents
until they had done it.
After she got pregnant with me, Mum switched to nursing, and
for many years, as my sister Mimi and I were growing up in south London, our
parents worked at the hospital seven nights a week: Dad did five, Mum did two.
It must have been really tough for them and it instilled a very serious work
ethic in me.
My parents were very strict. We were never allowed to go to
sleepovers, although they were always very welcoming of our friends at home. I
remember my mum driving me to a party one day when I was 15 and when we got to
the block of flats we saw two of my schoolmates sitting on a bench drinking
cider, and she said: “That’s it! I’m taking you home.” And she did.
We were always a bit different from other Asian families in
the neighbourhood because my parents came from different countries. My mum was
always very keen that we were in this country and we should be part of this
country. English was my parents’ common language, so we all spoke English at
home.
Growing up there were occasional phone calls to my
grandparents, and letters came and went, but it wasn’t until I was eight that I
went to India and met Mum’s parents, and I was 12 before we went to Mauritius.
My Indian grandmother was wonderful. She would make bhajias, but I wanted
chips. So she learned to make chips!
I did well at school and my parents hoped I’d become a
lawyer or a doctor. They had struggled; they wanted security for me. So when I
told them I was doing English literature at university, my mum was like, “what
are you going to do with that – become a poet?” But today she’s my No 1 fan:
she records the programme every time I present Breakfast, and she watches it,
fast-forwarding through the bits that aren’t me. She gives me proper feedback;
it’s really helpful.
When James and I got married almost 12 years ago, one of his
aunts said to us: the best bit of advice I can give you is to simply be kind to
one another. She was right.
James and I are both golfers, and I think it’s great for our
relationship. It gives us a few hours together when we’re walking and talking
and catching up; it really makes a difference. Golf takes you on a journey
together, and it means you stay in touch with one another.
• Naga Munchetty presents Sunday Morning Live on BBC1 at
10am