26 May 2023 , 07:00
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She grew up enduring horrendous racism and questioning her identity as a British Pakistani - but now Sophia Choudry is celebrating her Asian heritage via her successful business.
The mum-of-two spent her childhood battling with her identity and appearance in a desperate attempt to fit into her community in the 80s.
Verbally abused and spat on, as the only Muslim in her Sunderland school, she faced relentless racist bullying.
“I was regularly called P*** and told to “go back home P***”, she says.
“I was only a shy and quiet young girl but it made me extremely anxious. It’s not like I was a threat to anyone but I still got the word thrown in my face."
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Sophia Choudry spent her childhood battling with her identity (Sophia Choudry)She adds: “It got to the point where I thought I deserved to be called this name. I ended up believing this wasn’t my country and I didn’t belong, even though I was born here.
“My father was eight when he moved to England. We had Sunderland accents but even that didn’t make a difference.
“I never fitted it. From the age of four, I always had to explain everything, like why I wore trousers, why I couldn’t eat meat, why I took a day off for Eid and then explaining what is Eid. It was non-stop and exhausting.”
But Sophia, who now lives in Maidenhead, says the lowest point came when she was walking with her three younger siblings and she was spat on in a sickening racist attack.
Sophia with her parent Shanaz and Shaid (Sophia Choudry)Sophia, who grew up on a council estate, says: “I was only 19. We’re crossing the road, when a man spat on me, smiled and walked off for no reason. It was the worst moment of my life, it shook me to the core.
“I was dressed very fashionably and I remember thinking no matter what I do, I will never fit in. All these incidents made me feel very lost and alone.”
It was only after Sophia’s parents decided to move to a more diverse neighbourhood that things got better.
She adds: “I started to make friends and I wasn’t afraid to leave the house anymore.
“What I experienced in my childhood made me feel worthless, I had low self-esteem, and little confidence for many years as an adult.
“As I got older I became desensitised to it and learned to shrug it off but I had to have therapy so I could heal and move forward.”
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After graduating with a first in Business Computing at The University of Sunderland, Sophia got married and had two children.
Sophia using the Rotibox (Sophia Choudry)She now runs a successful business called Rotibox, inspired by her father Shaid’s creation over 40-years ago.
Rotibox allows people to make traditional roti (chapatis) without making a mess because the flour stays within the box unlike when you roll the chapatis on a worktop or on a roti board.
“When my mum got married, she moved into my dad’s family home of 12 where she was often making roti three times a day for the family,” she says.
“The continuous mess drove her crazy, she would clean up the flour only to recreate the same mess a few hours later, so dad, who is a dab hand at DIY, made her a wooden box so the mess stayed in there.”
Sophia at the production site (Sophia Choudry)Two decades later Sophia launched Rotibox where people can buy the box to make their chapati as well as other accessories like rolling pins, roti grills and rotiboards.
Sophia adds: “It took me 20 years to pluck up the courage to bring my idea to life and start Rotibox, my lack of self-belief held me back for so many years.
“Not only did I want to create a solution to the roti mess, I wanted to keep the beautiful South Asian culture alive.”
Rotibox has a ‘you buy we donate’ policy, where £1 from every Rotibox sold is donated to feeding refugees living in camps in Lebanon. The company provided food to more than 11,000 families last year.