This is an account of a trip made by two middle aged Infant
School teachers to the Indian Panjab in the spring of 1984, ending
about six weeks before the Indian Army invaded the Golden Temple
in Amritsar so it was limited to a certain extent. We went because
we wanted to discover more about the lives of our pupils and their
families, and to show the community we work with, that we really
valued the contribution and enrichment they gave our life in Britain.
Once, Cranford was a village in Middlesex; now it is a suburban
sprawl of houses, offices and warehouses on the eastern edge of
Heathrow Airport. In the 1960s, when the Asian population of Southall
(largely from the Indian Panjab), grew, and families needed to
buy new houses, they moved south into the private housing estates
built in the 1920s and 1930s in Hounslow West and Cranford. Later
other people joined them straight from the Panjab and by the 1970s
the community was changing fast. Now there are Panjabi doctors,
dentists, chemists, grocers, greengrocers, butchers and drapers,
as well as a cafe! take-away, video hire, hardware and motor spares
shops. This means that the children who go to Cranford Infant
School grow up with a strong sense of their identity and before
they come to school they may have had very little contact with
the English language.
Many of the parents work at the Airport and extended holidays
are a feature of school life. By mid March 1983, sixty-three children
had visited the Panjab in the previous six months and many more
were planning to go in the next six. We all felt that these holidays
were very important to the children, but that we could not share
the experiences in any way. I found that the vocabulary for the
experiences was often in Panjabi and that I was unable to make
comments or ask questions which triggered off more than one- or
two-word answers. We were worried by this failure of communication
as to so many of the children it was obviously a very enriching
experience and for some it seemed to change their school achievement
and give them a new confidence which more than made up for the
short-term gap in their school work.
In the Autumn term of 1982 we began to discuss the idea of a
school sponsored visit to India. When the Head mentioned the idea
to visiting parents she got a very enthusiastic response which
was encouraging. In September 1982 some staff had started a course
in Panjabi for teachers taught by Harjit Kaur Assi at Hounslow
Teachers’ Centre. As I had responsibility for English as a second
language and Vivienne Wills for curriculum development, and neither
of us had pressing family commitments, it was decided that it
would be best if we went. Once this decision was made, we made
an application to the London Borough of Hounslow for paid leave
with cover for three weeks in February 1984, which with the addition
of the week of half-term would mean that we could spend four weeks
away. We outlined the objectives and value of the visit and the
use to which it could be put afterwards. We wanted to go to the
main towns and some villages in which our pupils’ parents originated
to gain an understanding of some of our pupils’ experiences and
to visit schools, both state and private, to increase our understanding
of the parents’ attitude toward, and expectations of, education.
The leave of absence with cover was agreed and the school set
about raising the money. It was March and already too late to
get an official grant from an educational body so the money had
to come from many sources. Everybody at school contributed in
different ways. We held a bring and buy sale, parents and staff
gave donations, we dressed and raffled a doll, and the Head even
gave up smoking and put the money saved into the fund. Education
Advisers gave small grants and at the end the Education Committee
gave a final sum of £400 as a local emphasis on multi-cultural
education was underway. Oxfam gave a grant and two local gurdwaras
gave us grants and one gave us a letter of introduction to the
Golden Temple. We sought publicity in local newspapers both English
and Panjabi and asked for and received contributions from local
businesses. While we were raising the money we were also discussing
our plans with the parents — we had a stall with a map of the
Panjab at the summer parents’ evening and we sent a letter home
saying that we would like to take photos and letters to relatives
in India, and we also asked if anybody had people with whom we
could stay or just visit. Every parent who visited the Head discussed
the plans and we learnt many interesting things such as who was
related to whom and the fact that in one road there were about
thirty people from the Moga district south of Amritsar. But, sadly,
despite these efforts the message did not get home to everyone
— when we came back and people saw the photographs they said,
“Oh, if only we had known that you were going we could have given
you introductions”, or “you could have visited my family”. We
learnt that however much you may think that you have made contact
with people and told them things. you may well be wrong. Letters
get lost, are not read, or the language is a barrier!
The person who gave us the most help was Harjit Kaur Assi — our
teacher of Panjabi. She became very involved and we have formed
a lasting friendship with her. She gave us private lessons in
traveller’s Panjabi. endless advice and best of all organised
that our first stay in the Panjab was with her father in Jullundur.
When it came to it, this was the best thing that could possibly
have happened. As the offers of hospitality arrived we planned
an itinerary. First to Delhi. then on to Harjit’s family in Jullundur
and Ludhiana, later to Amritsar. Faridkot back through Jullundur
to Chandigarh and Simla then back to Delhi via Patiala staying
with contacts everywhere except in Delhi. We arranged to leave
Heathrow during the week at a time when the school could be involved
in our departure and some children could come to the Airport to
say goodbye. We left on the 1st February, 1984.
The hospitality that we later met wherever we went began on the
plane where we were invited to a wedding near Jullundur and to
visit another family from Ealing in their village. In Delhi we
were advised to travel second class if we wanted to see India,
and what excellent advice it was. The train journey was endlessly
varied; not so much the country that you go through but your fellow
passengers. It was dark by the time we reached Jullundur City
and got off the train, but we stood still as instructed until
we were found by Harjit’s brother and father and taken home.
The next day we went by bus to Ludhiana to stay with Harjit’s
sister Harminder. There, we visited the government school where
she works. It was called a model school which means that the language
of instruction is English, the children speak and write Panjabi
and also learn Hindi. We found that when they had lost their shyness
the thirteen-year-olds spoke very good English and we had a stimulating
time talking to them. Harminder applied on a piece of paper there
and then for leave to look after us — teachers are entitled to
fifteen days leave a year for social and family commitments. This
discovery is important as it has changed our understanding of
the children having time off to go to the Airport to meet family
and to go to functions and so on. These things must be important
if it means teachers can get official leave!
Later we visited the large public school where Harjit used to
teach; the Head was a most impressive woman. When we went shopping
in the bazaar Vivienne got a message from a friend via a shopkeeper;
it was for ‘two English ladies wandering in the bazaar’! It found
us because we were apparently the only Europeans in the Panjab
at that time! This was because of the unrest, strikes, bombs.
After five days we returned to Jullundur where we visited factories,
families of children at school, and the bazaar in the old city.
We also walked off the street into a large private school where
we were welcomed by the Head and shown around by the Deputy. It
was a Hindi medium school and we met some children whose families
had returned to India. A brother and sister from Altrincham who
were Panjabi speaking had had to have private tuition in Hindi
— the school did not give them extra support. They described school
journeys to South India and Goa and said that they found the different
sciences difficult as they had done General Science in England.
Also the different background knowledge needed for History and
Geography made for difficulties. They had returned to India as
their mother was very home-sick. The kindergarten of this school,
like others we visited, had huge bags of books under each desk.
The classrooms were arranged rather like those in good English
schools in the ‘30s and ‘40s — desks with separate chairs (not
one piece of furniture) and posters and carefully coloured children’s
work rather high on the walls. But all round this well-equipped
school there was that busy hum that somehow indicates a happy
school.
In Jullundur we lived as daughters of the house which meant that
we spent time sitting in the courtyard with Harjit’s mother, two
sisters-in-law and the eldest granddaughter — a music student
called Pinkie. We sewed and knitted and chatted, and occasionally
felt a bit constrained as it was not proper for us to just get
up and go off up the road, jump in a rickshaw and be independent.
But we also decided that, provided you had a kind mother-in-law,
arranged marriages had as much chance of success as any other.
There was a good feeling of sisterhood in the courtyard; children
were plucked from mischief and danger by any passing adult, fed
and comforted by all; and fun and worries could always be shared.
By 11th February we went off alone independently by train to
Amritsar where we stayed in the Guest House on a large modern
University Campus. We went with our letter of introduction to
the Golden Temple where we were given a private guided tour by
a young history student. Because of the troubles it was not too
crowded to see the huge marble complex easily. It was very pure
and beautiful. The gateways on all four sides of the complex signified
that the four corners of the world were welcome. This has been
true in the past as Hindus worshipped there and the three-storeyed
Rest House had been home to many Western hippies backpacking in
the ‘70s. The huge langar hall with rows and rows of matting on
the floor could feed 25,000 people a day. We most unusually walked
back to the University, attracting on the way some very lively
beggar girls who pestered us for some way, until suddenly passers-by
swooped on them, even leaping from bicycles, gave them a good
scolding and chased them off. We found that this rescuing was
constantly happening. Destinations were explained to rickshaw
wallahs, fruit on stalls was priced and advice on hiding our money
given. Everyone was really kind and hospitable.
While we were in Amritsar we just walked into the Education Office
and met the Deputy Director of Education who took us to see village
schools the next day. These visits were among the happiest we
made — the last school particularly had a very warm and caring
atmosphere with the teachers easily and sympathetically prompting
the children when they forgot their words. The problems are money
and the number of children. School attendance is theoretically
compulsory but people turn a blind eye to non-attendance because
they could not cope if every child did in fact come. Unfortunately,
when we returned to Amritsar we found the city in crisis — shooting
having taken place near the Golden Temple and the railway station
wrecked so a full curfew was being imposed. We were marooned on
the University for two more days and after this there were curfews
of various kinds, shooting, bombing and unrest all over the Panjab
for the rest of our stay, which meant that we had to abandon our
bus trip to Moga and return in the early morning of the third
day to Jullundur. There we were received with open arms and delight
for our safety.
After two days we moved on first to Chandigarh and then to Patiala
in both places staying with families of children in Vivienne’s
class. We visited a slum school in Chandigarh with an attached
nursery class and creche where the children were provided with
a meal (of diminishing quality due to cuts) and the older children
were given yearly school clothing and their parents a grant to
make up for the loss of their earnings. In the evenings there
were adult literacy classes. UNICEF was funding a community site
in the town which included a Nursery Teachers training college
as well as a school and a creche. At a Post Graduate College we
visited the lecturers felt that too much money was being spent
on Higher Education when the real need was with the younger children.
When we returned to Delhi we did a day’s tour of the city and
a day trip to Agra and Fatehpur Sikri. On the train to Agra we
met a family from Cranford who recognised Vivienne from her lunchtime
constitutionals up their road! We bought artefacts for school
and found the Children’s Book Trust of Delhi. We had looked for
children’s books all over the Panjab and only found two — not
many young children’s books are published in Panjabi, a very few
are printed in Russia and China, and a few more by the Book Trust
but that is all.
The bus journey back had been very exhausting and we felt that
it was no wonder the children are ‘spaced out’ when they return,
because in addition long-haul flights leave Delhi in the middle
of the night in order to arrive in the West in daylight hours,
and if they are travelling stand-by there may be hours of waiting
at the airport. London, when we returned, was a culture shock.
Chiswick High Road was bleak and grey, very quiet and sad looking
with no animation. Sitting in my house the only outside sounds
I could hear were birds and the occasional passing car. I remembered
Harjit saying that when she first came to England she had not
known if there was another living being in the world. Day and
night in India other people make their presence known! Sometimes
a disadvantage but how desperately lonely it must be for young
wives coming here leaving their sisterly life in a country with
loudspeakers chanting day and a lot of the night and streets humming
with people. Even in the flat, bright green countryside of the
Panjab you can always see someone somewhere doing something.
Our slides and photographs developed, we showed them all to the
staff who were very tolerant of our enthusiasm. We entertained
the parents to tea, biscuits, a slide show and a gossip. One child
said to me, “That’s where I got these shoes”, and pointed to a
shoe shop in the bazaar in Ludhiana and I answered, “That’s where
I got these chapals”. We share our experience with great satisfaction.
The pictures can always start a conversation especially about
travel, kite flying, cooking and the Golden Temple. We use them
in school to support many topics; houses, transport, food, families
and playgrounds have all been used recently and we have shared
them with children and teachers in other schools in Hounslow.
We have talked to other E2L teams, staff of schools, sixth forms,
really anyone who will ask us, as we had such pleasure we want
to share it. In our school the displays of photographs always
attract passing parents and they are always really pleased to
see where we have been and hear our enthusiasm. It has made a
real difference to our whole relationship with the parents and
the community. We feel that we know them so much better and I
think that they feel it too.
Specially written for this commemorative Shap volume, this article
strengthens and deepens the wider context of religions in education.
It is offered as a piece of good practice — generous, reciprocal
and effective - Ed. |