Steve (host):
Welcome to the 26th Wonderspace journey. It's great to have you on board. My name is Steve Cole and since September 2020 I have been asking the same 6 questions to people from around the world. The questions revolve around life and wonder, places of reset and stories of hopefulness which I think we need more than ever. The setting for all of our interviews is a virtual window seat on the space station 250 miles above earth where we see everything from a different perspective.

Steve (host):
This week our orbit will take us from western Europe to central India And to experience these views with us in this ultimate window seat we welcome Ivor Peters, also known as the Urban Raja. For years Urban Raja has been innovating and creating new generation Indian food that is now about to be launched nationally across the UK in the coming months. As a business Urban Raja also has a compelling social purpose as you will hear in Ivor's story. A shorter version of this episode together with footage of this journey to central India can be found at ourwonder.space. I start by asking Ivor, from this window seat 250 miles above earth, which place, city or country would you want us to fly over and why?

Ivor:
I think if we were to be doing a flypast over anywhere in the world, I think for me it would probably be over Chennai on the east coast of India. That's really because that's where the journey of my food brand Urban Rajah started off. And it's this incredible city. It's something like the fourth largest city in India. My heritage is from both India and Pakistan.

Ivor:
So from the Indian subcontinent. So for me, I have an instant sort of connection with it, but it's about the fourth largest city, and like most big Asian cities and Indian cities, you have this cheap bai jiao wealth alongside poverty. So you have these incredible high-rise, amazing apartments and office blocks, and then squished in the middle of all of that are slums. You know, it's a coastal city as well, and being a foodie, I'm all over the food of Chennai. In fact, actually 1 of my favourite dishes is a dish called Chicken 65.

Ivor:
You know, it sounds like it should be a dish from like a fast food outlet, but I tell you it is 1 of the most addictive dishes that you can taste when you're in that part of India. So Chicken 65 from Chennai. When you glide over that part of India, you see this network of lights, you know, that just illuminate all of that part of India. And then it stops and it's like somebody has just carved a line right through all of those lights because you've got the city on 1 side and then you've got the sea on the other side so it's a real stark contrast so yeah that's where it would be for me Chennai.

Steve (host):
Ivor give us a glimpse into your life story so far with an emphasis on what you're doing currently?

Ivor:
So a glimpse into my life story so far is that I am a second generation British Asian. I grew up in Britain in the 70s in a place called Slough and lots of people have poked fun at Slough over the years but I'm Slough, born and bred and proud. And for listeners kind of around the planet, it was at 1.1 of the most multicultural towns outside of London with the least amount of recorded racial crime. And 1 of the reasons I think about that is that, as immigrants, we would always be in and out of each other's homes. So parents might be working double shifts in a factory and your mate's mom or dad would take you in for tea after school.

Ivor:
And so what would happen is you would get to know other cultures and other cultures food because you would be hanging out with your mates. And so you would end up understanding a little bit more about their culture and their rituals and their customs. And so that's where I grew up, in a single parent household. And it's true, you know, when they say that it takes a village to raise a child, my village was my mates, it was their families, it was my grandparents, it was my mum, my dad who was still on the scene and living locally but just not with us and that's very true so that's kind of where it started off for me And I guess the passion around food really started at a young age for me. So being part of an Asian family, you know, we wake up eating breakfast but thinking about lunch and dinner.

Ivor:
And there were 3 smells actually that probably narrated growing up as a child. 2 of them were really good ones. 1, not so good. So 1 of them was, we had a chocolate factory, we had the Mars factory and a Horlicks factory in Slough. So we would wake up, like sleepwalking to school, smelling chocolate in the air.

Ivor:
You know, it was just like being in Willy Wonka town. That's what it was like. And then actually then walking back from school, you'd be able to tell the cultural background of who was living in a certain house because of the smell of the food that was emanating from that house on your way back from school. So you would smell like jerk chicken and rice and you would smell onions and garlic. Then the third smell, not the best 1 actually, was the smell of the sewers from across the motorway on the other side of Slough, not so good in the summer.

Ivor:
So life was rich and pretty colourful growing up. So after spending a career in marketing and comms and PR, and then a really significant period of my life was working with a social action organization, a charity, a global charity called Oasis Trust. And I guess from a really young age, right through to working with Oasis, I had really observed that actually To live a meaningful life is to live a life which is beyond yourself. And it actually is about giving. And that really sort of got to me when we were traveling around India and we were in Chennai and we had seen how much a little goes a long way to transform lives in the slums as well as those in bonded labor and human slavery.

Ivor:
So my wife and I, when we got back, we thought, we're gonna run supper clubs in our home. We called it Cash and Curry. You came along, we gave you A34 course feast, and you would pay what you thought the meal was worth. And then all the money, we'd go towards funding doctors, nurses, teachers, and all sorts of social impact workers in Chennai. And that's really where Urban Rajah was born.

Ivor:
And the supper clubs turned into a blog, the blog turned into a cookbook, which turned into food festival demos and pop-up restaurants and doing stuff in the media as well. And that's actually kind of all culminated into the growth of the brand and the transformation that we hope to make and the impact that we hope to make. We've been developing a range of retail products that would be available in shops and supermarkets and online as well. And it's Urban Rajah Indian food to go. So it's next generation Indian food.

Ivor:
But here's the really exciting thing. So what Urban Rajah will do is feed people the food that they love. It will take your taste buds on an absolute journey, but at the same time, the whole mission is about taking people out of human slavery. There's 40 million people in human slavery right now, all around the globe. And that is bonded labor.

Ivor:
That's people who are being trafficked into the sex industry. It's people who are being trafficked so that they can harvest people's human organs. If we can do something which is as simple as feeding people really tasty food, that at the same time helps liberate people and take people out of human slavery. That is worth getting up out of bed every morning and thinking what can we change today and so that's really the purpose and the mission of Urban Rajah. Free people's taste buds and liberate people from human slavery.

Steve (host):
Where on earth is your place of reset or recharge?

Ivor:
So when I think about my place of reset or recharge for me there's not 1 place it's largely in nature so it can be in snowy mountains it could be in wooded glades it could be on sun-drenched beaches But the key to all of that is whilst I'm in nature, for me, I have to be alone and it has to be quiet for me because That's when I'm able to distill my thoughts, be quiet in my thoughts, but be totally nourished by nature.

Steve (host):
What wonder of the natural world excites you the most?

Ivor:
Thinking about the most exciting natural wonder of the world, I'm probably taken to a place that I've never seen before and may never ever see again in my lifetime. And it was the salt plains of Uyuni in Bolivia. And I've never seen a landscape like it. It is like 360 degrees of white and then the blue horizon that just meets this flat salt plane and I managed to stay in a hostel in the salt plains which was made of salt. How cool is that?

Ivor:
So I think it's probably Bolivia, the uni salt plains.

Steve (host):
Ivor, what is your story of hopefulness that's not your own about a person, business or non-profit who are doing amazing things for the world?

Ivor:
So I think when I think about hope, I also think about miracles. Often people say miracles, they're few and far between. And that's the right definition of a miracle. But I look around me and I see miracles happening every day. People's lives who are lifted out of poverty, out of hopelessness.

Ivor:
And I think 1 of the brands that I just admire and put a smile on my face and just think, yes, that is hope in action. And it's 1 that's dear to me because I love chocolate and it has to be Tony's Chocolate Only. Come on, that brand is just amazing. They deliver the most amazing chocolate. But the fact is they are slave-free chocolate.

Ivor:
They help take people out of slavery and they have a clean supply chain all the way through and you know the best thing about it it is definitely for me the tastiest chocolate on the planet so that's my definition of hope people who are doing amazing things but doing them every day by doing the simplest of things.

Steve (host):
Finally, as we prepare to re-enter, what insight, wisdom or question would you like to share with us?

Ivor:
I think when it comes to sharing insight or wisdom, you know, this is stuff that I've picked up along the way and it's not something that I own. You know, this is plagiarized wisdom, as most wisdom is, right? You know, we learn it through others. There are so many huge issues that we face every day and every generation faces how can I change the world And for me the answer isn't necessarily in that macro sense? The world is made up of people.

Ivor:
So maybe it's about whose world can I change? I may not be able to change the world but I can change someone's world and that's really my piece of insight wisdom. Probably challenge is this is whose world are you changing?

Steve (host):
More information about Ivor can be found at urbanraja.com. In Ivor's story of hopefulness he talked about the chocolate brand Tony's Chocolate Only which is well worth checking out at Tonyschocolonely.com. Ivor was also keen for us to promote a great charity fighting slavery which you can find at justiceandcare.org. To join the Wonderspace community and share your own wonders and stories of hopefulness or to listen to the previous 25 interviews the website is ourwonder.space I want to thank Ivor for joining us on this Wonderspace and I hope you can join us next week for more wonders and stories of hopefulness.