Hansaben Mehta (1929–2011), Ba to everyone, was born in the haveli in Khadia, crossed the Indian Ocean in 1952 to join her husband in Nairobi, and crossed again to Leicester twenty years later. She packed thepla for both journeys and for every one after.
Early life
She grew up in the pol with nine cousins in one house and learned to read from the shop accounts her father brought home. She could add a column of figures faster than anyone in the family, and still checked the newsagent's till in Leicester every night until she was eighty.
Family
She married Pravinbhai Mehta in 1947. Four children, two born in Nairobi. Her last Diwali in Kenya — Diwali in Nairobi, 1971 — is the one the family still measures every other against.
Later years
In Leicester she ran the house, the temple kitchen on Sundays, and a waiting list for her achaar that she pretended did not exist.
Stories about them
“She never said she missed anywhere. She just cooked it.” — her granddaughter Priya