Hello and welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service with me,

Reena Stanton Sharma. As part of our week of food themed programs, we're heading to India

when the fusion of two cultures resulted in a mouthwatering new dish. It's the late 1980s

and a famous restaurant in Mumbai is attracting big celebrities.

I remember Mr Rajiv Gandhi coming to the restaurant for lunch and we had to close the entire

restaurant for him and back then he was the prime minister. I was very fascinated because I remember

these huge guys in black shirts and black trousers with machine guns all outside the restaurant and

my father was explaining to Mr Gandhi the food. That's Edward Wang. He's talking about his dad Nelson.

Nelson Wang was born in Kolkata in 1950 to Chinese parents. As well as attracting top politicians,

his restaurant called Chinagarden also drew in Bollywood's glitterati. Mr Amita Bachchan was a very

good friend of my dad. I've played with him and Shami Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor Uncle. I mean they're

all uncles to me because they've seen me grow up and I've literally played with them. For me they

were just my dad's friends. I didn't know how famous they were. To put it in perspective they're pretty

famous. Amita Bajan is like the dawn of Bollywood and the Kapoor's are a cinematic dynasty with over

90 years in the industry. But wrapping shoulders with celebs wasn't always the norm for Nelson.

He came from very humble origins. You went to Chinese school didn't really know how to read and write

English. Wasn't very educated. Seventh eighth grade dropout and did various odd jobs just to make

money. So my father has been a street performer, a fire eater. He's been a limbo dancer. He would dance

the jive in clubs in Bangalore with ladies I guess who would come to the club. He was the in-house

dancer to make ends meet and then he's he's been a shoemaker as well. In 1974 he moved to Mumbai

in search of better prospects with nothing but the clothes on his back and started working as a

dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant. He got to learn he would watch the chefs cooking and go home

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