In west Belfast, once regarded as a no-go area for ethnic groups, the Indian community is breaking down social barriers, writes Susan McKay

The first thing that comes to mind when you hear mention of the Shankill Road in Belfast is probably not Bollywood dancing. But these are changed times. The women of the Shankill are dancing to a different drum these days, and it is all down to an inspiring dynamo of a woman called Nisha Tandon. She came to Belfast in 1977 to an arranged marriage. She knew nobody in this country, not even her husband.

Twenty eight years later, women from some of the toughest parts of Belfast pack the Indian Community Centre on Clifton Street to shimmy their hips and snake their arms for her. She leads from the stage, in her floaty traditional costume of lime green salwar-kameez trousers, short top and chiffon shawl. Many of the 150 or so women who are attending the "Women in the Community" event are her personal friends.

There is belly dancing too, with Northern Irish woman Karen Mallon.

"Oh, here, we may get the fire brigade," says one woman as the dancer gyrated sensually to the ground.

"If I wiggled my belly like that it would take an hour to stop quivering," says another.

It is Irish women, too, who perform the Indian head massages.

"Isn't that beautiful?" says Tandon.

Tandon's cookery demonstration was spiced with suggestive remarks. Garlic, she claims, keeps a woman's heart motivated and ready for excitement. The smaller the chilli, the hotter its fire, she warns.

"In India they say, the shorter the woman, the sharper her tongue. You can imagine what that says about me." (Tandon is not tall.) Rice, she says, is temperamental and shouldn't be provoked. It was "like a woman going through her menopause".

The women, and a handful of men, lunch on samosas and vegetable curry, all prepared, it turned out, by Tandon.

"Where Indian women are, there is good food," she says. It was with her cookery skills that she broke through all the social barriers separating women in Belfast's war years. She and her teacher husband lived in the east of the city.

"We were told not to go to certain areas because they were dangerous. West Belfast in particular was regarded as a no-go area for ethnic minorities because of the IRA. I had a friend, a Malaysian woman, and we used to do coffee mornings demonstrating our cookery.

"One day, a girl invited me to Twinbrook [in the far west of the city].I had to ask my husband if I'd be allowed to go there. He told me not to go but I didn't listen. I went and I did a demonstration and I became part of that community. The women were so welcoming and so nice. They were amazing.

"From there, I never looked back. I went everywhere and I brought my culture with me. I've brought such good things - difference, understanding, talking about things. It has been really great."

Her arranged marriage has always been a source of fascination for Irish women, she says. But being expected to defer to her husband isn't strange to many - Kathleen Feenan of the Women's Information Network recalls that when the network first decided women's groups should visit each other in their own areas, rather than seeking out neutral ground, some women had to ask their husband's permission to cross the lines. Many did as Tandon did, too, when met with refusal.

The links forged between working-class women during the Troubles have endured and flourished. However, after all they've survived, the women's centres are now under threat because of funding cutbacks.

So, too, is the Indian Community Centre, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. "We are facing a phenomenal cutback in what we can do," said Tandon. "But we are rich in ideas and skills."

Tandon and her colleagues are involved in providing information and advice, anti-racism training, cultural-awareness training, English-language classes and arts projects. They have recently taken part in youth theatre, multi-cultural fashion shows and a concert at the Waterfront Hall. They place a lot of emphasis on working in schools.

The centre itself is a surprise. Clifton Street has its Troubles scars, and the centre is next door to a big, beleaguered Orange Hall. From the outside, it looks like the Victorian Protestant church it used to be. Inside, however, the walls are pink and the ceiling is hung with purple stars. The centre houses Ireland's Hindu temple, a gorgeous room in which gods and goddesses robed in gold and silver smile from shiny carmine lips. There are tall murals of sequinned green and gold palm trees and spirals of sparkling lights. Religious events and festivals are held here every week, often combined with social gatherings.

The Indian community in the North is small, consisting of about 2,000 families. However, it is growing, with a recent influx of several hundred, mostly nurses and IT workers who have moved to Belfast in the past couple of years. The first generation of immigrants came in the 1930s and 1940s, many of them fleeing India after the upheaval of partition in 1947.

"My husband came in 1955 and worked as a door-to-door salesman," says one woman, who prefers not to give her name because she didn't want people talking about her. We will call her Auntie.

"In India everyone older is called Auntie or Uncle - it is a respect thing," she explains. "He came back to India and married me and I came here in 1960. It was very lonely and very cold. I remember it snowed a lot in my first winters. I used to sit beside the fire. Sometimes, I'd go out with my husband in the car when he was working.

"We were poor but so were the Irish people. They had outdoor toilets and no cars. Farmers would sit down to dinner and it was potatoes with raw onion and butter and a glass of milk. We couldn't find any of our own things - no one had heard of yogurt and you couldn't even get cauliflower. There was one shop in Belfast where we got lentils and spices. But I was young. I adapted - and people were very friendly."

The couple had a shop in Unity Flats but they had to give it up after "the craziness started". Then they opened a small clothing business, but "after two or three bombs", they had to give that up, too. Auntie worked in a clothing factory for a time. These days, she looks after her grandchildren. One of her sons married an Irish woman. "There is a lot of intermarriage," she says.

Indian businesses suffered badly in the Troubles. A young pregnant woman was shot dead by the IRA in Derry during an attempted ambush of a police patrol. Last year, shopkeeper Brij Sharma was beaten to death in what may have been a racially motivated attack. Racist attacks have always been a problem, according to Tandon. "But it is only recently that people have spoken out about them," she says. "They were afraid, and they are business minded - they didn't want to complain."

Satya Roberts is an intercultural facilitator at the Windsor Women's Centre near the Donegall Road, the scene of a spate of racist incidents recently.

"When I talk about both sides of the community, I mean the majority community and the minority community - the ethnic community," she says. "Mutuality is a great joy - we need to integrate for everyone's sake. When I first came to Belfast, a little girl asked me, 'Do you live in a different world?' That question keeps haunting me. I don't and I do."