Imran Mahmood – Favourite Things

Each week Reaction Weekend brings you Favourite Things – interviews with interesting people about the skills, hobbies, pleasures and pastimes that make them who they are.

Imran Mahmood is a practising barrister with almost three decades of experience fighting cases in court. Originally from Liverpool, he now lives in London with his wife and daughters. His debut novel You Don’t Know Me was chosen by Simon Mayo as a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice for 2017 and longlisted for Theakston crime novel of the year and the CWA Gold Dagger, and is currently being adapted for the screen in four parts. His second novel, I Know What I Saw, will be published by Raven Books later this summer.

These are a few of his favourite things…

Scrubs 

When my eldest daughter was born, I was shown into a room in the hospital and presented with some blue scrubs to wear for the delivery. I had no idea that that would be the start of a journey into fatherhood that would forever rob me of any sleep. Afterwards (and after quite a lot of begging and chocolates), the kind nurse looked the other way as I folded the scrubs into my bag. I never wear them, but I bump into them every time I open the T-shirt drawer; they remind me how fortunate and blessed I am to have my wife and children in my life.  

My barrister’s wig

In 1992, I was called to the Bar and officially became a barrister at law. As part of the whole fuss and ceremony, I had to buy a wig, a gown, a shirt with a collar that came off, a collar with a wing on it to put on the shirt when the collar came off, and some bands to put underneath the wings. Over the years, the wig has lost the odd curl and has had to be repaired expertly by my wife with a needle and thread. It has seen me through some terrifying moments of my life, as well as some of the most rewarding. It has put bread on my table and a roof over the table (and some walls, windows and all that other stuff you need to hold up the roof). I’m very grateful for the life that my wig has shown me, and I’ve become so attached to it over the years that my own hair is turning slowly into the exact shade of white and grey of my wig. And if you want to know – they’ve both developed the same horse-hair texture…

Musalla

My musalla or janamaz or plain old prayer mat is one of my treasures. It’s not especially remarkable in itself; it is gold and has some hand-stitched flowers on it but otherwise is quite ordinary. But I bought it in Mecca (Makkah), and it reminds me of the Hajj I performed there with my wife and our mothers. I will always treasure it because whenever I get on it (not often enough) it transports me not only to Makkah and Medina but also way up into the sky.

Watches

When I was younger, myself and everyone I grew up with had a digital watch. Mine had a red-black face and was a futuristic bit of mystery that revealed itself as a watch only when you pressed the button and the time would appear in red lights: 22:22. These days, I collect watches. It’s a small collection, but they are always mechanical. There is something about the beauty of a hand-wound watch with its tiny precision pieces that makes me wonder about the ingenuity of man. A watch, for me, isn’t just a marker of time and how little of it we have, but a marker of history. It took a thousand geniuses a couple of hundred years to perfect. And how perfect it is – all without the interference of a microchip – this quietly ticking thing on my wrist. I wear a Universal Geneve TriCompax Moonphase, in case you’re interested. In my opinion, it is the most beautiful watch ever made.

My desk

I made my own desk over lockdown. I say I made it, but it was more like I bought a piece of wood, some legs, and screwed them together. But it’s not the desk I love as such; it’s the wood. I bought a piece of Black American Walnut which came delivered sanded but otherwise unfinished. Then I spent the next couple of weeks oiling it and wet-sanding it until it glowed like honey. The waves in the grain are so relaxing in the gentle way they weave across and through the wood; I feel soothed as soon as I sit at my desk. I am sitting at it right now and already beginning to doze off…