Peace and love on the menu (From Stroud News and Journal)

Peace and love on the menu

Mohammed Khurshid Akhtar has filled hungry stomachs with top Bengali dishes for years. Now he wants to fill the hearts of the community with a message of peace, love and understanding. Reporter Sam Bond spoke to the Nailsworth engineer turned entrepreneur.

KHURSHID grew up in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka.

He described for me a peaceful, idyllic childhood where life followed the natural rhythms of the seasons and recalled the annual floods as the Himalayan snow and ice melted, washing through the country into the Bay of Bengal.

"Nobody in this world could visit Bangladesh and not like it," he said. "It's a beautiful country - I'm very proud to be from there. "It's not a rich country but a country is like your mother, it gives you birth and even if your mother might be poor you'd still be proud of her."

Khurshid found employment as an engineer working for the government but resigned because he could not stand the baggage that came with the job.

"I'm an independent man and I couldn't cope with all the bureaucracy," he said. "Bangladesh is a poor country and you are expected to take bribes if you are a civil servant.

"Ordinary people would ask for my help and I knew there was nothing I could do for them - I couldn't handle that."

So at the age of 23 he resigned and went to Belgium to study for a masters degree in engineering.

Khurshid knew he was in for a culture shock but nothing could have prepared him for the weather.

"It knew it would be difficult but it was so cold," he laughed. "And the second problem was finding the sort of food I was used to eating. "When I came to England I could get everything, even spices that were hard to get hold of in Bangladesh - all the best-quality food is exported to London."

Unfortunately Khurshid could not afford to complete the course and had to give up his ambition and find a job.

He came to England to work in restaurants and takeaways all over the South of England, from Devon to Milton Keynes.

But Khurshid, 41, is far from being bitter about the unplanned end to his engineering career.

"I never regret anything in life. What I was yesterday doesn't matter," he said. "Of course I learn from my mistakes but I have no regrets - feeling sorry for yourself and surrendering without a fight is a weakness.

"I prefer to face things. If people have vision and drive they can shine whatever field they are in.

"You can take a lump of steel or a hard piece of stone and make it into a very beautiful thing," he said.

"For me, my menus are my poems, that's how I express my creativity.

"I love food, it's my weakness, it's always in my mind." Khurshid moved to Nailsworth with wife Rajna to work with his brother-in-law at a new restaurant.

Seven years down the line he manages three restaurants in Nailsworth, Stroud and Cheltenham and has a six-year-old daughter, Sara.

Always prepared to move with the times, Khurshid has an entrepreneurial eye for innovation and publicity stunts.

He caused a stir in the national tabloids with his saucy sausage-filled viagra curry.

He claims to run the first virtual balti house in Britain, having launched a website where customers can order meals on-line and his restaurants even have copies of the menu on CD ROM.

"There are thousands of people doing food, food is my media, not my business, my business is people," said Khurshid.

"People can get food everywhere but the main thing is to make them happy - communication is more important than food."

"Customers know what they want and the vision I get is through them." Khurshid is not a man who could be accused of not knowing his customers - picking up on the large number of vegetarians in the Five Valleys he has produced a separate vegetarian menu.

His takeaways have been showered with awards and accolades over the years but for Khurshid there is more to life than glory.

"Awards are good but the most important thing is reaching people's hearts - I've achieved respect here," he said.

"Everything I've managed to do is because of the people here, the Nailsworth community.

"We mustn't forget our roots or identity but this is my home now and the people of Nailsworth are my people.

"Britain is a multi-racial, multi-cultural country and I have been happier since I realised this was my country and become more involved in the community." Khurshid is a busy man - ask him what he does in his spare time his answer is simple and to the point: "I don't have any."

Nevertheless he does manage to squeeze in plenty of community work.

He is involved in Nailsworth's Chamber of Commerce, works at the Citizen's Advice Bureau in Stroud and represents the National Society of Asian Workers. He dreamt up the idea of the Nailsworth Food Festival, helped raise funds for Nailsworth schools and he lends a hand to local authorities if they need Bangladeshi translation to name but a few of what might pass as his hobbies.

A principled and religious man, Khurshid has no time for the global politics which have led to the current conflict between nations.

"Politics should be in the hands of the community at a local level," he said. "Otherwise politicians only represent their party, not the people who voted for them."

Khurshid's heroes are Gandhi, Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela. "I want to teach people to love each other. "We don't need violence, enemies and jealousy," he said. "We should live peacefully and peace cannot be achieved through muscle-power," he said. "History has shown this,"

The empires built on military might had all crumbled in the end, he claimed - not Egypt, Persia, Rome, Hitler's Third Reich nor even the British Empire had weathered the test of time.

"No power last's but God's," he said.

Now Khurshid is trying to build bridges between different parts of the community.

He has been involved in multi-faith gatherings to promote the idea that there is not a great difference between religions and cultures.

"This is the 21st century," said Khurshid. "It doesn't matter if we're Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist - every religion teaches us how to become a good human, we just ignore them. "It doesn't matter if we're white or yellow or brown - at the end of the day we are all human beings.

"And if we won't help each other, how can we claim to be civilised?"