Life in Mombassa,Life in Preston, Hinduism 19th April, 2004 sound Sound Cassette English Abhijeet Joshi Oral Interview Interview 034 Bhagwanji Navekar male 62 63 Navsari

Preston U.K. retired I would like to start off with the, start off the interview with just some general knowledge of your family background so we can get an understanding of where you came from. So if you could tell me where your? Okay. Parents were born? Okay. I actually, my parents come from a town called Navsari, in Gujarat, India. I was born in Navsari. My parents went to Kenya in 1940 and I was brought up in Kenya, but I lived in India for my early days until I was about eight. Okay. My, all my educations, I had was in Kenya. And I enjoyed my childhood in Kenya. I came here when I was eighteen plus. And I have made this country my home. Okay. You gave me a very brief outline of your history. I am going to go back over a little bit to get a little bit more detail. Could you, can I just ask you your father's profession? What did he do? I know very little about my father's occupation because when, after I was born he went to Kenya and when I went there he was in a business of manufacturing leather goods. Okay. So he was too busy with his business so rather knowing about his occupation, I knew more about his business. Okay. And why did you decide to go to Africa? Do you know? Well, in those days actually my parent's family were poor. My father's family actually a poor and backward. So he saw that if he goes abroad he can earn good living and improve the family's situation back home as well as he can prosper and look after his family, his well being. Okay. So he went on his own initially? Initially. And then? And then he called us. Your mother. With my mother. And yourself. Can you remember much about Indian, life in India because you were quite young when you left? I remember briefly about playing and films, walking on roads full of sand. I remember going into bushes, picking up fruits and vaguely I remember playing games, which I hardly remember, the rules of now. Okay. But it was a happy time, yeah? Well, I mean childhood times are always happy and one would always like to re-visit it. But it's not possible. Do you remember the journey to Africa? Do you, you got the boat then? Yes. We traveled by ship. It took us about eight to nine days and the journey was rough because we were not used to traveling by ship and I was very sick all the time and by the time we reached here, Port of Mombassa in Kenya, I mean we were, because we couldn't eat much and due to sickness. Yeah. We were really seen and we were happy that we were landing then. Okay. You were glad to be off the boat. Off the boat, yes. So your father, who met you then? Yeah. So did you settle in Mombassa? Yes we settled because my father had his own business by then, a small shop of manufacturing leather goods and shoes. And I think my life standard improved then, I, better than what was in India, went to school there, primary school and high school. At the same time I was interested in different activities and I started going to Sunday schools, which in those days in Kenya we had a Church Missionary known as C.M.S. And we used to do Sunday schools. And I was interested in going there and I started learning more about culture in England there. And because Mombassa was a Cosmopolitan city and it had a Harbor, lot foreign ships used to come there and we had lot of visitors. Because my parent had, my father had a shop and I used to sit in the shop and watch everything. I learned more about different people, what they wear, how they talk, where they have come from and so on. So it was quite an experience. What did your family think of you going to Sunday school? Well, my parents were liberal I mean, they didn't take it that, because if I go to Sunday school, I become a Christian. Because at home we had a shrine and there were two temples in Mombassa we used to go and worship. So it wasn't the concern that I would rather convert into Christianity, but it was, more it was an interest to learn different things, different values and experience. Just to go out and. And it also improved my English. So there was a benefit for me rather than you know thinking adversely. Okay. So after your secondary school did you carry on with your education or? After my secondary school I actually came here. 18 plus. I had very briefly tried to run my father's business. But I thought because of the political situation by then in 1950's, the fight for Independence was picking up, it was very intense by 1958 and they were asking for Independence and we knew that something might happen after independence which can cause lot of concern to lot of people and perhaps the life will change then. And taking that into consideration I spoke to my father and I decided to come here in 1960. So how old were you then? I was only 19. So you were very young. So did you come, did you have any family here or anything or did you just? Well, when I came I was unmarried. I work here in different trades like engineering and textiles. Then after three years I went back, I got married, I came back, I joined a textile firm here again and then I called my wife and I also called my family from Kenya and my parents and everybody. Okay. Did you come to Preston when you first come to England? I landed in Birmingham first. I was there for about three months, but then I moved to Preston because I had a contact, a person who used to work for us in Kenya and he was in Preston. So I had a contact, I came here and then I found a job here so I settled down. Can you tell me what your initial thoughts were when you first landed in the U.K? Did you straight came to, did you fly in to Birmingham or? Did I fly in to Birmingham? In to Birmingham? Yeah. And what were your initial thoughts when you arrived? I mean. My thoughts were first, it was evening in June and first thing I saw, it was hazy and dark and wet and well I said that perhaps it's due to because it was an evening as night was falling and so perhaps it's dark and wet because of rain and so on. But then after that, in the morning when I got up there wasn't much change apart from bit of light. And I said well, I asked that chap and I said, what's this? Is this the weather like this all the time? He says most of the time. And well, I said does the sun come out at all? He said yes in summer. And I don't know what summer was by then. I was quite ignorant about the weather condition in England. And I said okay, let's see what happens you know and it was Saturday night so Saturday, Sunday morning I mean, he took me round into a village called Oldbury, that's where I was living and near Birmingham. So we just went around few streets and he showed me an Employment Exchange, where I could go and inquire for jobs and said okay this is the office you can come to and ask them if they have any jobs, they will send you. I said okay fine. I mean, I couldn't do much, I needed all the help I can get. But on Monday morning they went to work. I was on my own at home. I decided to go out and walk around and went to the Employment Exchange and I inquired there. I said well, I am looking for a job. I have newly arrived. They did all the paper work there, registered me and then they said well, we will give you couple of cards. You go to this employers you know, factories and foundries and they will interview you and they will give you the job if they think you are fit for the job. So I said okay fine. I went there in morning and I was a given a card, I went to the employer, it was a foundry and I was offered the job of a storekeeper. They took my test to see whether I can do figures and what I can do, I can write small reports and whatever. It was not trouble to me because I could speak English, I could read and write and I was educated, so I got the job straightaway. Yeah. There was no problem. And they said when can I start? And I said well, I am here to work so I will start now. No problem. And that was? So that was it. I started working and I was there for three months. When I, on Christmas holidays in 1960, I came here to see my friend and then I decided to move here. I got a job again here. Then I worked here in textile from 1960 to 1978 and from '78 to 1991 I worked at British Aerospace and I am retired now. You are retired now? Humm. Okay. Back then, can you tell me a little bit about what life was like for you in Preston? I mean, both religiously, but also socially as well. Right. What was the? Life in Preston in 1960 was rather dull. This was a textile town. There lot of people of ethnic origin coming in. From Pakistan, from Bangladesh and from, but, from India, but there were very few Hindus, there were only handful of Hindus then. And if I remember correctly there were about 15 individuals. They are about two families. So, to practice Hinduism or to develop an activity for Hindus, it was like getting together now and again, do something. But by 1965 there were about, it became to, the number of families were risen to 150. And we decided to form a small organization called Gujarat Hindu Society, only because unless we start doing something to get together and celebrate perhaps holidays and religious events, we will then otherwise lose our culture, our background. And for families because they were, they had young children. Yes we want them to integrate but we wanted them to preserve their own values and culture. And that was the all concern we formed this organization. And from that day, in1965, since inception, we start doing activities and it built up and built up and built up. And now we can see it is 4.2 million center you know. Tell me a little bit about the initial projects. Initially we, by 1975 the population in Preston has grown to about 4000 Hindus. And the demand was for place where we can get together and worship and carry on the activities of culture activities and perhaps also educate our children with our mother tongue because to preserve any culture or any religion the mother tongue plays the vital part. Without the original tongue of that culture and religion, if you translate it, you bound to loose the vital ingredients while you translating it. It's not same as in original tongue. So we decided yes, we want our children to learn English, to educate, to integrate and prosperous and become equal counterparts with the Host community but the same time we must not lose our culture and our religion and our background. And that was the motive behind. So we bought derelict school, which was at this place. In 1975. It cost us seventeen and half thousand pounds. And we only had 500 pound. So we said well, where we going to get rest of the money? We had three people who came forward and they said, look if you want to buy this place we will buy it. We will hand in deeds for houses as a Surety to the Bank. Yeah. And become guarantor that if the community can't pay, we will stand. And it was very generous of them. They did it and we acquired this school. It was, because it was derelict we had to do lot of work ourselves to bring it to the standard where we can use it as a Community Center and a place of worship. And we carried on from then until 1992 where we started filling a bit of a crunch. It was becoming too crowdy, because the building was old it was costing us more in maintenance and more or less what the fund we used to raised used to be consumed by maintenance and very little was left for other charitable activities. So we say we rather now think what we want to do, rather we want to buy anther place or perhaps develop this place and it took us, we started doing feasibility and so on. By 1996, we come to the conclusion with help of the community that we need a new center. So we decided to look around for piece of land perhaps. And we couldn't find the land that could accommodate all our activities and again remain in the center of the city, where everybody can have access you know. Obviously we couldn't get land but we could get then by then but it was out of town. And we didn't want to go out of the reach of local people. So we decided to demolish the school and rebuilt the center on the same place. So by 1997 we started talking to authorities and we applied for the Lottery Funding and we got our Lottery Funding in 1998, and we were successful in building the same place. Fantastic! Can you tell me just a bit about some of the activities and things that go on here because, yeah, it's a temple but, and like you say it's also a Community Center. Can you tell me you know, who exactly would serve and what all happens here? Well as I have said that we had started with a derelict school. I will just pause it . Right. Well, as you know in 1975 we acquired the derelict building, we start Community Center. And we had a, we converted one hall into a place of worship and we converted other rooms into activity rooms where we started sports so that the children can come and play sports, badminton, etc. you know, weight lifting, whatever they want to do. We had a room for cultural activities where we can get boys and girls together and teach them our songs and how to play that stick toms and things like that, plays and we also used those rooms to teach mother tongue language and I initiated a school, in Gujarati mother tongue school in 1975 with 50 childrens and by 1980 we had 250 children on the record, on roll and we started running seven classes so we had to hire rooms from the neighboring schools at weekends to run those classes. So and we registered ourselves as a Examining Center for G.C.S.E and all our peoples then can apply for G.C.S.E in Gujarati. And our results are 100 % from day one. Between 'A' and 'C'. So all very good grades. Very good. We also setup activities for elderly's; we setup activities for women's group. And we also started doing charity work for local causes like for hospice and hospitals and so on and we raised funds and we will give it away to charities and so on. So its not just looking after our community but our concern is also to be as helpful as others, to put our share of the contribution into the community at large and try and do our best. Okay. Can I just ask you a few questions just about your religious practices over the years? I mean was your family a very religious family that you came from would you say? I would say most Hindus are all religious. It's hard to define whether they are very religious or. But come to certain days in the year, certain ceremonies and certain period of Lent and so on. All Hindus will try to observe that. And particularly my parents, my father he was rather more conservative Hindu and he used to practice it as much as he can. So I had a early influence from my parents of going to temples and worshiping and fasting and Lenting and so on. So when we established this center, we requires to worship. I was involved in selecting a priest from India and we brought a priest. And since then I have been involved in religious practices also. So I have developed my interest in religion and my practice as well I have helped others and yes I am a staunch Hindu. Although I am liberal but there are things I will not compromise as a Hindu. Like what for example? Like going to temple and after having a meal somewhere else where perhaps I don't know but if there is a meat product involved or anything. So we don't consume meat products when we took oath yeah. Always have bath before we come here. Always observe the rules that we have to before we enter the temple. Also preserve the sanctity of this center as a Hindu and see that the others do. So I have been very actively involved in promoting the practice of Hinduism, not by converting people but by informing people. Because I have been involved in taking visits from schools and institutions and so on. And our objective has been that as Hindus we want people to see what we are, what we do. And Hinduism is a very liberal religion. It teaches us to love people, to help people rather than to hate because of the habits or their food or whatever. Says well all right, it doesn't suite us, we keep away from it. But if it suites you fine, but when we meet we can talk on mutual grounds you know, we can compromise certain things. You observe our rules and you are most welcome. So I would always talk to institutions and schools and I think Hinduism is more about being good humans rather that being fanatic about certain rules of religion you see. And I would say that you don't have to convert to Hinduism to become a Hindu. If you are informed, if you are convinced and if you practice you are always a Hindu. Because principle of Hinduism is to build one's knowledge of humanity so that one becomes a good human beings. Because we are all humans. We are born as humans. We are not born with a religion; we are brought into the religion. Or we just adopt a religion. So why fight about things we adopt or we are brought into. Why don't we conserve and think about humanism because we are all humans. We are born. We are not born with a religion; we are born as humans. And all religion teaches you one fundamental thing, is that's to become a good human. So that's the cause we are promoting here. And that's how I will promote Hinduism, rather than being fanatic about certain rituals or rules and say about, you have done this and this. Okay fine, if you have ignorantly come here with something you know, we'll say look, nicely, I will convince you, I will talk to inform you and say this doesn't apply to us. We can't accept this. Can we please next time observe this you know, and that's the best way to deal with the problems, rather that being fanatic and taking offence because you don't improve things by taking offence. You can only improve things by informing and by convincing people. So when people think about hatred or racism, I mean, racism is something that's not given to you nor you can take it from anybody. It's within you. It's your thoughts. But your thoughts can be influenced by other people's ideas and how they convince you. And we need to educate people that rather than hating racism, rather hating individuals because they make racist comment or whatever. I would say make friends, talk to them, convince them. Try and make them think positively rather than negatively. And that can help you a lot in integrating and promoting good harmony within the community. Can I ask you how you feel that you have developed maybe spiritually over the years? Well, I think. Do you think that you have changed? It's hard to say because as people grow and their experience grow, people always change. And I think same thing has happened to me. There is nothing special about me. This is it. Okay. Just a couple of general questions I want to ask you. The youth of today, do you feel that they are more or less religious than when you were youth yourself? Well, I would say that all youth, perhaps now-a-days or when I was a youth, we all, we would all have same sort of thoughts and attitude towards culture and religion whatever. But then again, the older people need to understand that the youth is the age where people are inquisitive and they are also rebellious because they may not understand the reasons behind it. And we need to talk to these people sensibly, calmly and be sensitive to their thinking. So that we, once you start talking to them as a friend with open mind and make them understand the concept. I don't think the youths will then either conflict or going to rebellion but they will want to know more. Once they get to know more, they will then be flexible to adjust themselves to perhaps the requirement that we want them to behave and whatever. But I think it takes lot of efforts to talk to youths and elders particularly when they are agitated or aggravated due to some actions. They need to remain calm and think and perhaps you know, calm down, bring those youths, talk to them as friends. It can help. And in my case I have done that and I have got good results. Okay. Another topic that people often ask questions about or confused over is the caste system. Do you feel that, that's still present in the U.K today and does it have any relevance? Let me tell you, the people who have come from India and they have brought these values with them of caste system. But if you look back now in India the caste system is dying there. There are a lot of inter-caste marriages happening and even more than here now-a-days. So I think the caste system is now dying. Rarely you might see some people who are adamant, very obsessive. But very rarely it comes out now-a-days. People have changed their ideas, now that they have perhaps lived in Western country for forty-fifty years. I mean they know what their generations like and what future generations will be. We can preserve the values of our culture and religion but we cannot preserve the systems that we can bring, we brought here. Because the systems keep changing every so often, as new things come into existence, technically, culturally and so on. And the all systems in, are bound to change or die. So I will not be surprised in the twenty years India will not have a Caste system at all. And perhaps here also people stop talking about Caste. How did you feel that the Hindu community has changed then over the years? I mean it's really established itself in the U.K. so maybe you know for thirty-forty years. And how do you feel? I think. That it's progressed and also how do you feel that things can change to help even more progression? Well, Hinduism has progressed greatly in England now. There are so many temples and I have lost the counts now you know, there are nearly 200 temples. You see, the religion here has prospered a lot. In comparison to India I think the people here are more religious, more conservative religiously and culturally. At the same time they have become more liberal and mixing and integrating with the Host community. And they are standing on similar level now where you see they can compete with Host community. And perhaps prove themselves even better. So I can see they will prosper, they will progress and the religion and the culture will also prosper, it won't die. Yes, the technically there might be some changes. They will start using new things perhaps. They may work within the original boundaries of the religion with a new theme. But that happens, because over the, if you go back to thousands of years and look at the Christianity or look at the Hinduism or look at the Islam, it's been changing, it's been evolving and the things change with time. So I don't think people should worry too much about it because your life span is so many years. I mean, I can live to sixty, seventy, eighty or ninety years and I go so what does it matter to me? To me what matters is, I must do my duty towards my religion, my culture and my community, my people. To do all my best to help them to progress and prosper; in peace and harmony. And that should satisfy me. I am not bothered about what happens after another 100 years because the, other people will come and they will take charge. And they will be as much responsible I think and I hope they will be and do their best. So, rather than worrying about it, why not improve the presence? They will not, my idea is do not dwell in past and do not get lost in future. But dwell in present and if you improve your presence your future will be bright. Okay, thank you. Couple of final questions now. If somebody was to ask you who are you? How would you identify yourself now? I mean you know, because you were brought up in Africa, lived there for such a long time, born in India, lived in the U.K. for very long time, very you know, strong Hindu as well. So somebody is to say you know, who are you? What would you say? Well, let me tell you; first of all I am a Hindu. As a religious person but before that I am a human. So I am a human being practicing Hinduism. I am British subject, living in England. So I domicile in England. And I would say this is my country, this is my home. And as far as my religion and culture is concerned, I will say I am quite happy. I have preserved it, I have conserved it, I have passed it to my future generations and I think I am quite happy to see it prosper and as a Hindu and as a human, I would say all humans should satisfy after doing their, giving their contribution to their community, to their religion and culture. Watch it and be happy with it, rather than be sad about future or past. My next question was going to be where do you see as home now? But I think you have already answered that. Well let me say one thing, you cannot live in England and call your self an Indian. Yes, I am originally Indian. But now I am British. I am a British Hindu. So my domicile is here. My loyalty is to this country. I must not get involved in Indian politics because it won't help me. I can sympathize with them up to a level but then there is a limit what I can do. But I can do best for my country, this country where I live. Do you ever go back to India? I visit India every few years to see my relatives and I have made so many friends. I enjoy the weather there; I enjoy the food there. But it's like a holiday place for me. You don't feel the attachment? Well, let me tell you one thing, once you live abroad from home for so many years, although the country in England we are called foreigners if I go back I will be called foreigner there, right? So I rather be a foreigner in my country, where I domiciled where I lived, than the country I have left. Okay. Finally then do you have a final message or thought to give to people who would be listening in the future? Well, I would say if people call themselves human, then they must learn the values of being a human being, preserve it, conserve it, follow whatever faith they are in, follow the teaching of the faith with open mind, with understanding and take the values that will help you and others rather than being fundamental and restrict yourself in prosperity and progress because if you restrict others, you also restrict yourself. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.