Roundtable
Living in The Diaspora
The Roundtable Open Forum # 52
EDITOR
The following is this week's topic for discussion.
LIVING IN THE DIASPORA
For those of us who moved from Punjab or another part of the world to where we now live in the diaspora, the choice was not accidental.
It was consciously made, with a lot of planning, risk and soul-searching going into the decision to, a) move, and b) decide on the country of destination.
Each person who made such a decision had good reason to choose his or her new homeland.
POINTS TO PONDER
Which country did you choose?
Why did you choose this particular country?
What was it about this country that made it attractive for you and your family?
Did it meet your hopes and expectations?
Any regrets?
Is this where you would like to continue, if you had a choice to move again?
If not here, where would you like to live ... now that you are older and wiser?
December 3, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Harinder (India), December 03, 2010, 3:44 PM.
Is it really our choice, or is it the hand of Waheguru that guides us in one direction or the other?
2: Ibadat Singh (Montana, U.S.A.), December 03, 2010, 3:44 PM.
Living in India, I decided to come abroad because I saw no future in pursuing my higher education in the country. I chose the U.S. because I figured it was the best place to pursue my education, especially since it was the world leader in the medical area I wanted to specialize in. I love living here and see it as my permanent home. There are no glass ceilings if you have the talent, the ambition and the energy to follow your bliss. I am grateful to Waheguru for the gift of this home. Having been in this country for well over three decades now, I know that I wouldn't trade this homeland for any other ... for anything!
3: Axeman (Ayton, Ontario, Canada), December 08, 2010, 11:56 AM.
Well I didn't have a choice since I was 3 - I had to follow my parents. But they emigrated from Fiji. Our family's exodus from Punjab began generations before. I enjoy hockey, lacrosse and maple syrup and, even with it's imperfections, I am a proud citizen of the the True North, Strong and Free.
4: Jas Singh (Seattle, U.S.A.), December 08, 2010, 6:27 PM.
I moved to the U.S. in 1990 when I was 18, for two reasons: 1) youth in Punjab was getting killed by Indian police and armed forces, left & right. 2) My uncle was in the U.S. to help me start a new life here. Besides relatives, it was the employment opportunity that attracted me to the country. It took me a few years to get used to the culture, language and lifestyle in general. After that, I decided that this is the place where I wanted to live for the rest of my life. Here in the Northwest, people are full of kindness. After I got used to the culture, I never felt like an outsider (even with my beard and turban). In terms of employment (I am a construction contractor), I feel like I have an edge over others, because there are people who actually told me that since I take pride in my appearance and culture, I must take pride in my work as well. So just for that reason, I am able to land contracts. Living in the U.S., I feel truly blessed. I get to practice my religion freely and am actually complimented for it. I would not trade this land for any other.
5: T. Sher Singh (Mount Forest, Ontario, Canada), December 08, 2010, 7:31 PM.
My parents, not long after they were married, lost their home, all their belongings - every material thing they had - during Partition. They settled a thousand miles away, in Patna, Bihar, India, to start a new life ... and did well. Two decades later, they felt the rumbling of dark clouds again on the horizon. Indians across the country were beginning to demand that their states be limited to the locals and the rest leave - "Bihar for Biharis", "Orissa for Oriyas", etc. As well, Hindu fundamentalism had suddenly taken a turn for the extreme and the wacko, and was surfacing everywhere in the form of terrorism - trust me, I do not use the word lightly, frivolously or as off-handedly as Indians use it to slander Sikhs. Hindus were beginning to vociferously demand that English be eradicated and a Sanskritized form of Hindi become the sole language of the land. Mobs were stopping cars on the streets and painting over their English number plates. Store signs were being painted over or defaced. Anybody who objected or resisted would get beaten-up. As a science student heading for engineering, I was lost in university lectures that had precipitously switched to a mongrel Hindi. I switched to the Arts and defiantly opted for a full-time study of English language and literature. Amidst all of this, my parents, with incredible foresight, foresaw another Partition-like upheaval and started considering moving away, even though they had sunk deep roots in Bihar: all their children were born there and being brought up there. They took some time off and traveled around the world, visiting over 40 countries in more than 7 months. And fell in love with Canada ... and selected it as their new home. We moved here in 1971. (A mere 13 years later, my parents' fears proved true - India erupted in 1984 and Sikhs once again lost their all.) Canada has proved to be a wonderful home. It's certainly not perfect but it is as close to heaven as it gets on this ever messy earth. Much of our extended family is all now in North America; at last count, there were well over 400 identifiable relatives here. [Too many!] We thank the good Lord everyday for the gift of this home and for being able to leave that sad land behind. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world. And wouldn't want to live in India again even for a king's ransom!
6: Baljit Singh Pelia (Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.), December 08, 2010, 10:29 PM.
Well, I must confess that I just came for the blondes and the cars, but ended up appreciating the freedom, self-respect, prosperity and the fair rule of law in this great country.
7: Jaz Singh (London, England), February 27, 2011, 11:10 AM.
We moved to Canada when I was 10 but ... like a lot of London-born Sikhs, we moved back to England a couple of years later. At the end of the day, there could be a million Sikhs in Canada ... a Sikh Prime Minister in Canada, even ... but nobody in the world would ever know. The world would simply ask: "Where and what is Canada?" I remember when we first moved out there, my sister was in correspondence with her English friends back in London. They were all shocked that there were any towns and paved roads in Canada as they, like most Europeans, believed that Canada (with the exception of French speaking Canada) was just ice, polar bears and eskimos. On the other hand, a Sikh here in London, or New York, only has to catch a cold and it makes international news. Anyway ... Grandad arrived in London in 1949. Like most of the others at that time, he arrived under a false Muslim name and Pakistani passport. (At independence, the British started to become concerned about the increasingly large Sikh population living in the east end of London, so pressured the Indian goverment to move its passport office well away from the reach of Punjabis; the feeling being that if these people could not get a passport, they could not get to come to England. The Indians obliged and moved the passport office from Delhi to Bombay. The Sikhs then simply crossed the border into Pakistan, got themselves Pakistani passports and sailed to England from Karachi). Mum and Dad were also born in West London and interestingly are more 'English' than me in their speech. This is because they grew up in London when London still had the local cockney accent ... whereas I have grown up at a time when there are so many of us Sikhs that we have our own accent which is a little bit of Jamaican, little bit of cockney and a helluva lot of Punjabi. Anyway, as E.U. citizens, my family and I can go tomorrow morning and live in Barcelona, Berlin, Lisbon or the Adriatic coast of Italy. It wouldn't even occur to us to move anywhere else outside the E.U.