06.09.2026
A small council house. That’s where I grew up. So small that any noise filled the entire house. And my bedroom? One wall was missing. Because the front room upstairs had been converted into a bedroom and it had a balcony and not a wall. The room itself? I shared it with my brother. I never had my own bedroom until I was eighteen.
All evening long, after school, the stereo would be going off. My brothers were playing hardcore gangster rap on it. Downstairs, the TV could be blaring.
In this environment, in which a middle class white person could never find any time for study or focus, you found the straight ‘A’ student that is now known as Dr. Suneel Mehmi. The student that got the best results in his sixth form.
Despite the distraction, despite the noise, despite the challenge, I got top grades. I would sit there at the desk in spite of everyone and everything.
Here, you found a student that had dedication, hard work, focus, determination and self belief. I believed that I was the most intelligent. And therefore I was the most intelligent. And moreover, I had a genuine love of learning.
One phrase follows me around my whole life. Our family came from the Untouchables in India, the lowest castes. We were Dalits. We were denied an education as part of our oppression. And my grandfather, who a rich man had plucked out of poverty and sent to university, where he became the top student and top athlete, he had told me this story. That our people, the Untouchables, we would stand outside classrooms, study with no light in the dark, study with nothing to become Big Men. Like Dr. Ambedkhar who was the architect of the Indian Constitution.
Again and again that story assails my mind. And I remember it as the detail he told me, that we had to stand and study while others were sitting. In other words, we faced adversity while others had every comfort and privilege. We had hardship and suffering. Others had the ease and luxury of being taught. They were spoilt. We were not.
This is the supposed level playing field of education in the United Kingdom. It is with this distraction and noise that we, the working class, we the sons of immigrants find ourselves in, the world in which we study.
And yet, despite everything, we succeed. I am the holder of five degrees including a PhD. I have published a book and articles, curated in museums and for websites, written journalism, poetry, reviews and articles for website upon website. You cannot kill talent. You cannot drown it out. You cannot kill the focus of a superior mind.
We don’t have excuses. We have achievements. I graduated in the top 10% of a degree in Laws at the elite and world-class university, the LSE. While working part time at Pizza Hut. I did an English degree in two years with First Class Honours. I remember skipping classes to work part time. While working 70 + hour weeks over the past four years, I got a First Class Honours Degree in Art History. When I did my PhD, I was working part time as a teacher, volunteering in a museum and at after school homework clubs for children, as well as volunteering as an English teacher for refugees and migrants.
And you that’s reading this. You who will like any underdog story. I know you will not like this story. Because when it comes to the real underdogs, the Dalits, the Untouchables, the working class ethnic minority male, this story means nothing to you. Because this is not a sob story. This is the story of resolution. This is the story of the Dalit that shared his grandfather’s dream, that shared Dr. Ambedkhar’s dream: to have education for our people.
