My full name is Subha Nagalakshmi Munchetty-Chendriah – can you imagine spelling that for people when you’re a small child at school? But my mother started calling me Naga, because it means cobra and she dreamed of snakes when she was pregnant. I’ve always hated the name and for a while I thought about changing it to Nadia. In some ways, I wish I had.
Names are so important, identity is so important. Once when I was a child, a woman called my mum Michelle. I said, why are you calling her that? And she said it’s her name and I said, no it’s not, her name is Muthu. It made me think, that’s a difficult thing to have to deal with; it’s like losing your identity. But it’s what used to happen, immigrants anglicising their names.
Mum is from Tamil Nadu, Dad is from Mauritius. They each moved to Wales in the early 70s to study: Mum was doing dentistry, Dad was training to be a nurse. They met and fell in love but it had to stay a secret because that wasn’t part of the deal, they had come to study, not to find a partner. In the end, they got married in London without telling their parents until they had done it.
After she got pregnant with me, Mum switched to nursing, and for many years, as my sister Mimi and I were growing up in south London, our parents worked at the hospital seven nights a week: Dad did five, Mum did two. It must have been really tough for them and it instilled a very serious work ethic in me.
My parents were very strict. We were never allowed to go to sleepovers, although they were always very welcoming of our friends at home. I remember my mum driving me to a party one day when I was 15 and when we got to the block of flats we saw two of my schoolmates sitting on a bench drinking cider, and she said: “That’s it! I’m taking you home.” And she did.
We were always a bit different from other Asian families in the neighbourhood because my parents came from different countries. My mum was always very keen that we were in this country and we should be part of this country. English was my parents’ common language, so we all spoke English at home.
Growing up there were occasional phone calls to my grandparents, and letters came and went, but it wasn’t until I was eight that I went to India and met Mum’s parents, and I was 12 before we went to Mauritius. My Indian grandmother was wonderful. She would make bhajias, but I wanted chips. So she learned to make chips!
I did well at school and my parents hoped I’d become a lawyer or a doctor. They had struggled; they wanted security for me. So when I told them I was doing English literature at university, my mum was like, “what are you going to do with that – become a poet?” But today she’s my No 1 fan: she records the programme every time I present Breakfast, and she watches it, fast-forwarding through the bits that aren’t me. She gives me proper feedback; it’s really helpful.
When James and I got married almost 12 years ago, one of his aunts said to us: the best bit of advice I can give you is to simply be kind to one another. She was right.
James and I are both golfers, and I think it’s great for our relationship. It gives us a few hours together when we’re walking and talking and catching up; it really makes a difference. Golf takes you on a journey together, and it means you stay in touch with one another.
• Naga Munchetty presents Sunday Morning Live on BBC1 at 10am
