Talks in Tan-dem

It feels fitting that I’m writing this special edition around Valentine’s Day. For the first time, this isn’t a story about one person, but two! A partnership that has lasted 51 years. Although we’re not related by blood, Indian culture has a way of filling in those gaps. And so, they’ve always been Aunty and Uncle to me (and to you for the rest of this read).

Uncle has a special talent for turning strangers into family. At the Gurudwara in Glasgow, he meets people — often spotting fellow Punjabis from the west side like himself — and begins conversations that somehow become lifelong connections. That’s how he met my mom and dad, newly married and newly arrived in the city, even before my sister was born. Together with Aunty, they have a habit of creating what I can only describe as satellite families. As they described it: when it clicks, it’s forever.

They spent this past Christmas with us. And somewhere between cups of tea (teabag dunked for only 10 seconds for Uncle) and the delicious meals my mom made, I sat down to interview them. It was the first time either of them had ever been interviewed, and it felt like a walk down memory lane on a warm summer’s day. 

Laying the foundation

Before understanding how they built their life together, we have to go back to how Uncle built the foundation. And to really understand the start of his journey, we need to go back to the Partition. In 1947, British India was divided into India and Pakistan; a line drawn across maps that uprooted millions overnight. Families were displaced, communities fractured, and the aftershocks were felt for decades. Like many Punjabi families of that generation, Uncle’s family carried both the difficulties and the determination that followed.

His eldest brother moved to the UK in 1963 in search of stability and opportunity, taking on whatever small jobs he could find. His father’s businesses back in Delhi were not proving successful, and in 1966, he made the move to the UK too, chasing the same promise of a better future. Uncle’s parents were clear about one thing: their children would be educated. But life had other plans. Uncle was only 17 or 18 and hadn’t finished school when he left India for the UK in 1969. But getting there was a journey in itself.

He travelled by train from Delhi to Bombay. From there, a seven-day ship to Iran. Then a three-day bus to Istanbul. A train to Munich. Another to Antwerp, where he stayed with an uncle for six weeks. And finally, a train to London. 

But what his future lacked in certainty, he made up for in resolve. In London, he and his father shared a single room. His father even learned to make atta (whole wheat flour flatbread dough) from scratch so they could have fresh rotis (an impressive skill that I have yet to master). Their goal was simple: save £2,000 and open a business of their own.

Uncle’s father enrolled him in school, but those first six weeks were painful, because he struggled with the level of English. Eventually though, through a family friend, he found work in a warehouse, and that’s where everything began. He started as a packer, and within a mere six months, he became a manager. He worked from 9h to 18h, then came home and continued helping with family business matters. The work was relentless, and very very hard, but business was already in his blood. After all, at just ten years old, he had been selling to customers in his father’s shop back in India.

In partnership with his bosses — whom he still speaks about with deep sincerity and gratitude — he helped open multiple warehouses. But they didn’t just offer him a job, they helped settle his entire family in the UK including a brother-in-law in Manchester, and a brother in Glasgow.

And in 1972, alongside his brother, Uncle opened his own warehouse in Glasgow. The foundation was set.

A beginning across borders

While Uncle was starting a new chapter of his career in Glasgow, another chapter of his life was about to quickly unfold back in India, where he was heading for his sister’s wedding in 1974. 

This was the year he was introduced to Aunty, and it began with a meeting: an arranged marriage. But not in the way many of us might imagine. Their families arranged for them to meet, but the rest was up to them. Both, as they now laugh, were considered quite the catch, and neither was short of options.

Aunty was living in Calcutta when she received a telegram from her family asking her to come to Delhi. She arrived at her grandmother’s house and met Uncle there, who visited with his cousins. They met on a Saturday. Her first impression? He just couldn’t sit still, so much so that she secretly nicknamed him “the jumping frog”. 

Clearly Aunty had made an impression on him, because he wanted her to attend his sister’s wedding reception with him, but alas she was busy. Still, seven days later (the following Sunday), Aunty and Uncle were married. On Monday night, still strangers in many ways and newly husband and wife, Uncle flew back to Glasgow alone. Aunty remained in India to arrange her passport. Six weeks later, she packed her bags and followed him into a country, and a culture, she had never seen.

Full speed ahead

If 1974 marked the beginning of their marriage, it also marked the beginning of a new pace of life. By early 1975, they had bought their first warehouse, and not long after, they bought their first home. Work and life seemed to move forward in tandem (see what I did there). In 1978 and 1979, their two children were born, and suddenly the long hours and constant reinvestment carried even more meaning.

But what exactly were the warehouses for? The business itself was a trade cash and carry, supplying shopkeepers with wholesale goods bought in large quantities and sold on to the retail market. It sounds straightforward, but it requires instinct, resilience and an ability to read people. They built relationships that stretched across generations, and learned to follow trends carefully, stocking shelves with what communities needed. Most instincts proved right, while a select few did not. They won’t soon forget the brief excitement around the famous Dubai chocolate that faded almost as quickly as it arrived for example.

Between those early years and moving into their current home in 1983, the family business continued to grow, expanding as far as Dallas in the United States. Then in 1989, they custom built a new warehouse in Glasgow using only their own money. No loans, just years of saving, and steady, disciplined work. The business was always profitable, but it was never easy. It demanded long days, constant attention and sacrifice from both Uncle and Aunty. 

Then in 2007, everything changed.

A new motorway required the land where their warehouse stood. They were forced to sell it,  and the business that had defined decades reached a natural conclusion, leading to Uncle’s brother retiring. For Uncle, who had rarely stood still since arriving in the UK, the sudden absence of work was disorienting. The warehouse had not just been a livelihood, but also a sense of purpose. Without it, he found himself facing a quiet he had never known before.

Aunty to the rescue

When the warehouse closed in 2007, the loss was felt beyond the family. Fifty-five members of staff had to be made redundant, many of whom had worked alongside them for years, dispersing an entire community.

Even then, Uncle and Aunty were thinking about others, and helped their former employees search for and obtain work. One of the men they helped get a job at a garden centre said he was still waiting for them to restart their business so he could come back to work for them.

And Aunty made sure that they did!

She reached out to one of their former employees, a man who had been with them since 1984, and proposed something bold: to restart the business, where Aunty and Uncle would provide all the capital, and he would bring the operational expertise, but to run it as a 50-50 partnership with him. Six months later, a new warehouse opened its doors. Because of their long-standing reputation, suppliers were happy to work with them again. Around 90% of their customers returned too, and one of their earliest employees eventually became one of their key buyers, a testament to the loyalty they had cultivated over the years.

Aunty continued right where she left off, managing the day to day accounting, learning as she went. She even took courses, including computer classes, adapting as the business evolved. 

She recalls that over the years, one of their most significant internal shifts had been moving from paper ledgers to digital systems. Around the millennium, like many businesses, they made endless backups amid fears of the Y2K bug, when the world briefly believed computers might lose their minds at midnight on 1 January 2000. Nothing dramatic happened, but they were prepared just in case. And so, while Uncle had built the foundation through relentless work, Aunty ensured it could be rebuilt when everything changed.

Built to last

Uncle is now 76 years old and still works twelve hours a day, not out of necessity but out of choice. Work keeps his mind sharp and gives structure to his days, filling them with conversation, routine and a sense of purpose that has shaped his life since he first began at 18. After nearly six decades of early mornings and long hours, it is difficult for him to imagine a version of life that does not include a desk, a ledger and a steady stream of people walking through the door.

But he knows that as those around him gently suggest, it may be time to slow down. Aunty officially stepped back in 2011, although “retired” is too strong a word. She still steps in whenever needed, as she always has. Even when Uncle eventually steps away, he says he would like to keep his back office. 

But when I think about their story, I personally do not think first about warehouses or expansion into Dallas, or even about the bold decision to start again after 2007. I think about partnership. About arriving in a new country with little certainty. About building something from scratch. About raising children while reinvesting everything back into the business. About rebuilding it again, and taking turns when strength was needed.

And beyond all of that, I think about the way they build community and the way they fold people into their world. The way friendships become family. The way, as they say, when it clicks, it is forever. Perhaps that is why writing this around Valentine’s Day* feels fitting. Not because of grand gestures or dramatic declarations, but because of something steadier. Fifty-one years of showing up, resilience, humour, hard work, and tea brewed exactly ten seconds.

_{* Although this article was written around Valentine’s Day, it may be published much later. As you can see, the publishing process is not always linear!}