For The Illustrated Weekly of India | April 12, 1970
Easter was the first holiday of 1968. And so the people of this affluent society gave themselves up to an organised, single-minded pursuit of leisure. Ten million cars on the roads, traffic queues miles long with police in helicopters trying to unsnarl them, hundreds of fatal accidents – all these were taken in their stride by the holiday seekers. I went south to holiday resorts on the coast. A watery sun and a cold gale were considered by all to be fine weather. And so one found determined sun-bathers huddled among the sand dunes, and the beach huts.
But for us April was Baisakhi time. A Punjabi’s heart turned to the yellow dupattas and turbans of Amritsar, the kite-flying, and the processions of the Nihangs at the Hola Mohalla of Anandpur. One felt homesick. But not for long. There is a little Punjab here in the London suburb of Southall. In Southall you might be walking in Jullandur. The familiar turbans, old ladies wearing salwars or sarees, the children romping about the streets unmindful of traffic rules, the sweet shops full of barphies and jalebies are all here, Pan supari, spices, achars – ask for anything and you will get it. You may not in Jullundur – if you are keen on unadulterated stuff.
No doubt there are English faces, but they have to learn Punjabi. A Cockney shouts “Alu gobi le lo”’ Our old matrons don’t learn English and don’t suffer from any complex either. I was told of a group of old dames who went to the market and talked Punjabi to the sales girl. When she shook her head, said one to the other: “What a stupid, illiterate country we have come to. No one understands the language”.
Southall Gurdwara
There is a massive Gurudwara with a hall to seat two thousand or more. Sitting inside, with pictures of the Gurus on the walls and hearing shabad kirtan on the loudspeakers, could you imagine that Buckingham Palace was a few miles away? Fierce lectures are given and fiery poems sung on Bhagat Singh and the Sikh wars. And, of course, there is Guru-Ka-Langar. Food is cooked elsewhere in vast brass vessels and brought here in vans. All around the Gurudwara there is one vast crush of cars belonging to the faithful. On the lawn there are thousands of shoes neatly arranged in rows watched over and dusted by Sevadars.
Out for a stroll on a Baisakhi morning. The Sikh family in London is among the many hundred thousand Indians now settled in England who remember the Old Country with a nostalgia which can only be shared and understood by other emigres.
While the good Christians went to the seaside on Easter and the churches stood empty and forlorn, the Southall Gurudwara was packed. They came from miles around to get together and dream of the harvests and the first flush of summer in a land five thousand miles away. On the morrow they were back in the factories of Britain at the hard grind – to earn the money to buy a place in the sun. After the Gurudwara all adjourned to the pub for a glass of beer. It is always the glass – “will you have a glass? Coming for a glass?” In Punjab villages we always had a “Chhanna” of milk. Here it is the glass – the faithful will perhaps, call it a milk of sorts.
Watching the Baisakhi of Southall all the English were baffled. I like to think that like a faulty film reel, history is being played out in the reverse. Is it our turn to invade them? Now that Smith has done it, a U.D.I. declaration by Southall is not impossible. I am sure Whitehall has plans for sanctions ready in case this should happen. Cut off the pan supari and garam masala! Said an English friend to me, “I always carry my passport when I go to Southall”.
There is another story of an old man who went back to his Jullundur village for a visit. The village folk found no change in him, not even in his dress. So someone asked him, “Baba, you have come from England but there appears to be no improvement in you.”
“I have not come from England”, he replied, “I have come from Southall”.