Life in Mbale, Life in Wellingborough, Hindu community 12th December, 2003 sound Sound Cassette English Oral Interview Interview 065 Ranjan Saujani Female 51 52 1953 Mbale

Leicester U.K. B.A. in Politics, M.A. in Social Work community worker and social worker EN English I would like to start off the interview with you telling me a little bit about your parents and where were they born? My parents were actually born in India, both of them. But my father left India when he was thirteen. He went to Uganda, in East Africa and he mainly went because his family was really-really poor in India and they needed somebody to earn the bread and because my father had an uncle in East Africa, who had a business, a small shop. He thought it will be a good idea to go and join him and try and earn some money for the family. Whereabouts in India where they from? They were from a small coastal town called Salaya, which is near Porbandar. And because there were on the coast, they saw so many, not ships but yachts at that time coming to and fro, trading with the Arabian, trading with the East African coast. So that is how he decided to go to East Africa. So he went to East Africa on one of these yachts or on a? On a very small boat, yes. In fact, my mother tells me, she went, I mean, my father went at the age of thirteen. He went back to India when he was eighteen and they arranged a marriage with my mother for him and my mother was only thirteen at that time. So what happened was, my father, after his wedding went back to East Africa, but my mother stayed with her mother-in-law, my grandmother. And after like, five or six years, my father said, she could come to East Africa and it was the time of the Second World War. And it was, she tells me, it was really-really dangerous time and she went in a very small boat, which consisted of about thirty people. And you can imagine, in the Indian Ocean, going from Porbandar, in Gujarat to Mombasa, she said and they did not have steam engines or anything. It was purely guided by the wind and there were days and days, when the boat was just still, they could not move it and at night they had to have a blackout, because if there were planes flying over in the night and they saw light, they might just bombard them or whatever, because of the war. So when my mother came to East Africa for the first time, it took her over thirty days to reach. A journey, which is now at the moment done in like six and half days from Mombasa to, it took her thirty days and that is how she came to East Africa. So she was only what, seventeen or something when she? That's right. What was your father working out at the time? He was working with his uncle. Yes. But what business did they do? His uncle had a small shop and they called Duka, in East Africa. Duka is a, an Swahili word for shops, small shops and they used to sell cloth, they used to sell some utensils, they used to sell some rations. And what my father's uncle used to do was, he gave my father a job in the shop and you know, gave him a few shillings a week, as his earnings. But he was also given his full board and at that it time, it meant sleeping in the shop on the floor or it meant cooking the food for everybody who was there and things like that. But I think, one of the great things that I do admire in my father, I still ask him, I say, 'When you left at thirteen weren't you afraid? You were leaving your parents, you were leaving your friends, you were leaving a country, going to a strange country altogether.' And he tells me, even now, he says, 'no, because it was an adventure. And I said to myself, I am going on an adventure and that is was it was. You know, going to a new country, trying to work, I was getting food, enough food, which I was not getting at home. And I said to myself, I want to earn money and you know, do something good for my family.' So he took it as a complete adventure and he succeeded, which is really good outlook I think. Yeah, absolutely. So then how did things progress then when he was in Africa, you know, after your mother arrived? How, did he get his own business or did he stay with your uncle or what happened then? What happened was, my uncle's business increased slowly and he wanted a partner in the business and my father was a very hard worker and he offered my father a partnership. And they worked really-really hard as partners and expanded their shop. When my older sister was born, they then decided to split the partnership because by that time, my uncle had his sons, who had grown up and who were ready to help him in his shop. So my father then, from his partnership he got a bit of money and he set up a shop in a small town called Mbale and that is where he sort of, took it up from, yeah. So he got a house and your mother and your elder sister moved there? Yes that is right. And then, when were you born? I was born in 1953 and I have an older brother and an older sister. And by that time, my father had a shop, he had a house and there were some other shops that he was renting out, in that building as well, so. Wow! So he was very established. Yes. At that stage. Yeah. And what are your memories of, what was the name of the town again? Mbale. Mbale. What were your memories of that place and how old were you? How long did you stay there for? I stayed in Mbale till I was seventeen, till I did my 'O' levels and did my Secondary school education. And my memories of my childhood are really-really fond memories. Now, when I think of living in an industrial country, I think, the place I was born in, was like a Heaven. The town of Mbale was on the foothills of a mountain called Nkokonjeru Mountain and we had extremely fresh air, the soil in Uganda, and especially in Mbale where we were, was so fertile. If you put a seed anywhere, it would grow into a plant and we used to play these games every holidays, where we used to ask our moms to, whatever vegetable they were cooking, we would get the seeds and everyone would plant a different seed and you, by the end of the holidays, like six weeks, you would see a plant growing and some grew and flourished into really big plants and gave out fruit or vegetables and things like that. So my memories are really fond of Mbale. It was a very, it was a town with, small town with about three thousand people, Asian people there. The schooling was really-really good. Played a lot, played out a lot in the fresh air and you know. The communities lived very well together. There was a lot of community involvement. We had a temple, we had a Mosque, we had Churches, we had Gurudwaras there and everybody respected each others religions. And the fondest memory, I remember was, we used to celebrate so many occasions, when we were in Mbale. So, if it was Diwali, the whole community celebrated Diwali. We would take the, you know, plates of sweets and savory dishes to each other's houses and you know, fireworks and everything like that. When it was Id, all our Muslim friends, they would be celebrating, so they would bring sweets and savory dishes to our house. If it was Christmas, it would be the same. We had a lot of Goan friends, who were Christians from Goa. And they used to invite us to their Churches for Midnight Mass and things like that. So we used to go there. There were Mosques, which did Khushalis and you know, Id celebrations, we went there. The Gurudwaras had celebrated Baisakhi and we used to go and celebrate Baisakhi. So it was a very close community, where everybody respected each other's religion and really lived together as community, which is what I find very difficult in this country. Because, a) it is an industrialized country, so life itself is very different. It is not laid back, like it used to be there. Life there was very laid back. Each person sort of, knew their role. Children were children; moms were moms, they didn't have to go outside to work, things like that. They knew what their roles were. Dads new what their roles were, they were like. And the schooling was wonderful. We used to play games everyday. So it was games from Netball to Football to Cricket and Badminton and everything. And that was a part of the school curriculum and a lot of outside play as well. And every evening there was a tradition in our town, where people went out for a walk to this new Post Office building and it was from the town for about, it was a, the Post Office building was like three quarter of a miles away. But it was just; people just went for a walk there and came back. It was like the tradition. So it was a really-really good life. You obviously went to school and every thing, what, at what point then, did you have come to the U.K.? What happened was, after I finished my 'O' levels in Uganda, I wanted to go to University because my sister had gone to University in India and my brother had gone to University and I wanted to do further education as well. So I went to India as well. All right, okay. I went to India and I went to a town called Pune, in Maharashtra and studied there for a year and then moved to Bombay, to complete my University degree. What did you study? I did B.A. in Politics and then I did M.A. in Social Work, in Bombay. So, yeah, and by that time, what had happened was, while I was studying there, my parents were thrown out of Uganda by Idi Amin's Regime. So they came to England. What happened was, my parents were supposed to come to India because you know, that is what they had always thought, that they would retire back, they would go back home and that retire there. But when this thing happened, when the Indians had to leave Uganda. They would not accept British passport holders in India at that time the political games that were being played by this country. So, my parents had to come here and what they thought was once they here there will stay here for a year or so and then go to India and so they came here and they called me to visit because they thought I will never get a chance to visit if they went back to India and I came and visited the place, I went back. But then they decided to stay over here because by that time my younger sister and brother were in schools here and they did not want to spoil their education so they decided to stay and here we are still here. So what was it like for you going back to India to study there I mean, because you were following everything you know, Hindu traditions and things in Africa but was it different then going back to India, was the culture slightly different or was it the same? And there many things kind of change people who take things to countries, they change and then when you go back to the country barge in and it is like oh, it is very different to how I have been told it should be or things like that. How did you find India when you went there for study? Well, I think in terms of religion we have always been practicing Hindus. When I went to India I think I got a shock in the sense that I found that religion, culture, way of living was not separate to the religion. It was how people lived and I will give you one example in college we, I was a taking part in a drama. We had a drama society and every time we went on stage I would find the local Indians what they would do is every time they went on the stage they would say a prayer you know, they would put the hands together, do this and I say, what you know, what did they doing. But it was so, it so much part of their lives. So, I would watch people local Indians. If they passed anywhere and they saw photo of God or a shrine or in, they would actually stop for a minute and bow down and I thought, gosh, it is so intricate. It is the way people lived. Whereas in Africa religion was slightly different from everyday life. In India it is your life, it is part of your life but it is not even. I think it is the way of living, Hinduism is a way of living and people you know, for example the taxis in India would have a photo of God in front you know, blessings and all that. Every morning you wake up, you have a, you see, you know, specially the place where I was in Puna and Bombay, woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning, you would see people praying to the sun, you would hear the all India radio not blasting out Bhangara music or blasting out any other music. They would actually the playing the morning Ragas and you would see the sun rise even in a busy heavy city like Bombay, you did not feel you were in a city environment. It was like you know, you woke up with a really good felling of being one with nature in spite of all these building surrounding you and these massive population of Bombay surrounding you. You still had that moment that you could feel that you know, you are part of nature and so and I think that is the great thing about India because religion is not seen as separate. You know, you cannot be a practicing Hindu; you cannot say I am a practicing Hindu. You are a Hindu, you are. And by that mean you are part of, you are a Hindu you are part of nature, you are part of that mighty being, you are part of creation, you are part of, you are not a separate part, you part of this and it is just like its being yeah and that is the greatest thing. I think it coming to western country or any other country you sort of have to make time for it and forget many a times which I do now because of you know, the sort of lives we live. You have to make time for being whereas there I felt you are, what you are, yeah. And how did you feel then when you, I mean you went to, you came to visit the U.K. and then went back to finish studying and how did you feel then when you were told or actually you know, home is now the U.K., you are coming to live in the U.K.? How did that feel? It, I must say, I was not very happy. There was you know, people in India said, to me gosh, you are going to live in England and it is really nice and I said, you have not been, you do not know what it is like because I had experienced the winter when I came, so I was not happy about that either. I had felt my parents were living in a three bed rooms, in a terraced house at that time and it was like everything seemed very confined and to me it felt like giving up a life of freedom and coming to a life where there were so many rules. You know, I still feel like in a democracy like England you are not free as you are in India. There are too many rules and regulations and big brother watching you doing this, big brother watching you doing that and yes of course it is very disciplined society you know, compared to the organized chaos in India for example. And but I think that freedom I cannot still feel that freedom in England. Yeah and so what was it like then when you actually first came here, you know, left India to coming here, how do that feel that the day, did you fly here? Yes, I flew here. I just was I think the very first day I was really tired. I just wanted to go to bed. That is all I can remember. But waking up the next day I wanted to go out and explore and says, my mom used to say no you cannot do that, you know, you cannot do that. I think one of the things was she, I had lived in Bombay, I was an independent person and she had not seen that change in me so she was really protective and saying you know, what if you cannot you know, you do not know where to go and what if you get lost and things like that? So all the maternal instincts were sort of, but no I mean in somewhere, I think I was quite positive as well. It was not as if no, I am not going to make the best of it. And I was very positive I wanted to make the best of where I was. Okay and was this is in London where your family settled or Leicester or what? No, there in a town called Wellingborough in Northamptonshire and that is where I started my sort of a life in England. And were there many other Hindu families there at that time or other Asian families? There were a few. I think Wellingborough is, we my parents went to Wellingborough because we had a cousin who had come there and he, because of his contact my parents decided to go there. When they first came, I think Wellingborough traditionally had people come straight from India, the Indian communities, small Indian community. And they were the people who had come here as to work in the factories here and they were at that time living in rented accommodations, they were sending money back home. Their wives were still in India so, a few people would be living together like five, six you know, sharing a house and things like that. There will be a morning shift of people who would go to work and then they will come back at night and then night shift would go and you know, that sort of life. When we went to Wellingborough after a year we had an influx of people, Indians from where was it, from Malawi in Africa as well. So other few people came and I think people who would come from East Africa were, I feel very motivated in the sense that they had, they knew this was the place they were staying in, there was no going back to Africa. There was no going back to India and so we had to make this as home and that is when we started sort of getting together as a community and say, we want to get together as a community. So we for example started a youth club, all young people got together and started a youth club. We took part in the Wellingborough carnival at that time and you know with the little things like that and we had a really good community relations officer there in Wellingborough and she helped us out to you know, rent a small Church hall where we could play games and things like that. After that what we did was we as a youth club we actually arranged a cultural show and we invited the whole community to come together and that was like a starting point for the community to come together. About two, three years down the line the community decided we wanted to have a temple in Wellingborough and I was the cynic then I, you know I thought, how can you get the so much money to build a temple. But we had some very good leaders in the community who said no we could start small and if you have a temple people could come together and pray and then you know, we will expand this, we sort of. So the whole community which was like about two hundred people decided to fund raise for a temple and like in two years time there was a temple built in Wellingborough. And people you know, thinking now I mean you know, this is going back in like 1976, the first temple I think around that time the first temple was built. There were people who pledged their whole salary; one percent salary from the house, saying okay that will go towards the temple. There were others who did raffles, some did other fund raising activities and some went to other towns to get the funds and so on. And the first temple built in Wellingborough which is you know, there today and it is a thriving temple, it has got a community center there as well and a thriving Hindu community in Wellingborough. So is that, that was when before then how did you like celebrate various festivals like you know, Diwali or Janmashtami or Navratri, did you, you know hire the halls to do these festivals or did you not celebrate them in as much a style, did you? No, I think when we were in Wellingborough, we the first year we actually felt the loss of not being able to celebrate because there was nothing going on and it was like oh, but you know even at Diwali if you would not celebrating, it feel really bad and I remember the very first Christmas I spent here, I thought gosh, I felt sad in a way because I thought here are all these people celebrating Christmas and I cannot even celebrate anything. So it was really sad in some ways, good in some ways but then the youth club that I am talking about and the community there, we slowly we started celebrating and I remember saying to the community relations officer that we wanted to celebrate the festival of Holi and she said, what is that and we said, we have light a big bonfire and things, so she said, oh no you cannot do that, you need special permission from people and you know, authorities before you do that and. So she said, she will talk to the authorities, when she did talk to the Wellingborough council they said, no, so many restrictions and all the rest of it and what about health and safety and all you know, all those sorts of things. But we were very keen. We would not, they said where would you get the wood from? So, everybody had you know, old furniture that they said, they would bring and you know, we would light a bonfire and the very first Holi, we were only allowed to have it on the ground outside the fire station and that was mainly because they could be on duty, should anything go wrong with all these Hindus going round the fire and everything then they were on hand and it still takes place there. Yes it is next to the fire station, so. Well it is a really good memory to think, they had small bonfire, everybody brought in a broken chair or a broken shelf or whatever they had and we did the first Holi there, which was really nice. Oh, that is brilliant. The other festivals like Diwali and Janmashtami and things where in a way it is slightly easier to organize because we would just hire out the halls and celebrate it there and for Diwali we used to have cultural shows and so everybody would get together and wish everybody happy new year and things like that and so, yeah that is how it started and. That is how it started. Yeah. I must say there were very in Wellingboro, the very motivated leaders, motivated people who help see the whole process through and even now very very committed you know, people who run a very thriving center there, yeah. Oh, that is right. And, you obviously highly involved with the community you know, ever since you arrived in the U.K. and you are a very qualified person. What did you do then with regard to working and things like that, did you get a job when you arrived here or what happened? I, my first job was to work as a clerk in an insurance company but because I had done my degree in social work that is when my heart lay. Before the first two years because I had practiced social work in India and in the slums of Bombay, when I came here, I though why do people need social workers because in Bombay every time you were working with an individual or a group, the money the resources were not there at all. So, you were going to charities, trusts then and I will give you one example, I was working with one individual who had lost his leg, had been amputated because of cancer and he did not have very long to live but you know, I had to make the best possible, sort of give him the best possible chance in life and I had to go to like three four charities before somebody would sanction money for him to get a wooden leg so, that we could make his life comfortable. Because I was also placed in a hospital in Bombay, there were I have seen a lot of patients and the doctors were discharging patients from the hospital, who then just became destitute on the road because the families would not come to pick them. And when I visited the families and said, they said they could not because they did not have the money to buy the medicines for the people and if a person just recovered from T.B. or whatever they did not have money to feed that person and so on. So these people just became destitute. So I must say, I worked in extreme conditions. When I came here and I thought you get social security then if it is, you get free milk, you get free education then you get free at that time free medicines as well, free NHS, I thought what is the problem with people here? Why cannot they just live a happy life? They got everything that they need. So, I must say for two years I did not believe people needed social workers in this country. It was only later I realized why and you know, it is a different type of social work that you involved in, yeah. And very much ruled by legislation here you know, in terms of child protection issues, in terms of you know, all though you know, legalities that people are ruled by and social work is part of that. But I remember, very well I mean going back when I was in India, when I finished my B.A. degree and I said to my father I wanted to stay over and do my M.A. and he wrote to me and said, so what M.A. you want to do? And I said, I want to do M.A. in social work. And I had to explain to him what social work was and I remember him writing to me and say, you cannot do a degree in social work. Social work you do from your heart. It is not done by a degree. And I was saying, no but you got to have a degree so that you can get a job. To this day he does not agree with me and I can see, why, because in India social work is but voluntary work. You do service to with people, yeah, you give your time and you do it from your heart and I think the advantage of having that background is you mix the two. You have to have a qualification in this country to be able to work as a social worker, so advantage of you know, coming from a family like that is to you have to mix the two otherwise you do not. But, the way I, when I first came people said I could not use my degree here. I had to go and work in a factory because qualifications from India were not recognized which in many cases they were not at that time. But luckily for me I met somebody who said to me, don't you believe that and it was somebody, an Asian person I met in the Wellingborough market, he says, your qualification is recognized the world over. The M.A. that you did in India and don't you forget that you have to go for it. That is how I worked as a social worker as well. So, from then on you have always done social work? I have always been involved in community work and social work, yeah. I have worked with social services for about three years in Leicester but all the other time I have been involved as a community worker. Okay, and then what in your private life then did you get married or what happened and then once you know, your family was established and stuff and everybody was settled, what happened then? Yeah, I moved to Leicester when I got married in 1978 and I have been in Leicester since the, and I worked as a community worker and social worker in Leicester, since then, yeah. Okay, all right. And moving on now, if you give me a brief out line of your history and your family's history and what life was like? I would like to ask you now about your own personal beliefs and practices of Hinduism, I mean what do you believe actually makes you a Hindu you know, what inside you is the defining thing that makes you a Hindu? I think first and foremost I believe, I am born a Hindu and it is like it is my identity, nobody can take that away from me. I am a Hindu. I am a born Hindu, so it is not like being converted into or out of it in any sort of way, I am just born Hindu and that is the way I am. And that is how I have brought up my family as well. You are a Hindu. How much you practice it is up to you. And it is not a matter of practice, again Hinduism is a way of life, so my family and I are strict vegetarians and we come from a Vaishnav background. My mother is you know, a great devotee of Lord Krishna and she is a Vaishnav which you know, believes a lot in the love of Krishna and the purity of Krishna and she has actually given us that education through her own way of living. She has been a big role model in our lives. My father on the other hand does not practice it in so many ways but the way he has been a strength to us, is he says, as long as you believe that is what most important. So you know, in Hinduisms there are so many deities for example that different people believe in and although my mom is a staunch Vaishnav, she will not argue with you if you say you believed in another deity. So say, for example I said, you know, I went to the Ram Mandir or I went to Navratri and prayed, played sorry prayed to Ambaji, there is no big deal about it. You are a Hindu and that is part of Hinduism. And I think people at different times in life need different strengths and can give out different strengths. So you know, as a, my mom is a great devotee of Krishna. She believes so much in love. So it is how you treat your family. How you treat your guests, how you treat outsiders. And you know, she does not say a bad word about anybody. You know, it is like that sort of practice. But I also belief for example, there are times when you need strength and you have to sit down and you have to meditate and get that strength back. I am a very strong believer because we are not in a society where Hinduism is everywhere around you. You need to sit down and find those strengths from wherever and it is finding that time, it is making those efforts. And making sure that you are, who you are? You self realize yourself as to who you are? And do you have a family Guru that you follow or I mean you said that your mother is a devout worshipper of Krishna. That is coming down in a line so do you have a Guru as well that you would follow in particular? Yes, I mean as a Vaishnav one of the traditions we have is at some age, I mean I was given Brahma Sambandh by a Guru when I was two. So, every child has to have like an initiation ceremony. I am not sure whether it is same as Baptism or whatever but there is a Guru who will put a bead around your neck and give you a special mantra and so we have all been given Brahma Sambandh and Brahma Sambandh is like you are now under the protection of Brahma, Lord Krishna and he will save you, no matter what because you are you know, you have tied that know with him. And my children have had the same and you know, obviously they have not had it like as early as I had it, but we have made sure that they have got Brahma Sambandh as well and they follow the things that they have been, they have been asked to follow as a family tradition. We do not have a Guru in the sense that you are there, I mean my, I have not met my Guru to be honest since I had that Brahma Sambandh. My children have not met their Gurus but we know he is there. He has made this link between us as souls and the higher being and that is the most important thing. But I also know my children's Guru when he was here and he did the Brahma Sambandh. We have got his address and everything and should I have to write to him or ring him, he would be the first person to give the advice so, you always you know, always there is somebody who will be there if you need it. Somebody there at the end of the line. Yeah. That is right, very much so. Okay. And how important then is it or how do you go about giving this knowledge to your children or to your other Hindu children in general. Like with this you know, the Western society and all that, it is quite a strong influence, so how do you go about actually passing on these traditions to your children? I think here you have to make effort, more effort because children are living in so many different cultures now because of the globalization and the influence of the media and television and every thing. The way I have done it, I have done it in different ways. For example I was the president of the Lohana Mahila Mandal. Lohana is a caste that I belong to, Mahila Mandal is the women's group and when I was the president in 1990, I think, there were talks with in our community. We had bought a building in Leicester and we wanted to convert part of the building into a Mandir because it is believed that the Lohanas are the direct descendants of Lord Ram. Lord Ram had two children, two twins Luv and Kush and we are the direct descendants of Luv and for that the Lohana community wanted to build a Ram Mandir. And there were talks and I, my husband and I played a very big part in that. So the whole temple was, well the temple when it was build we played a very active role in helping to fund raise, in helping to get the temple started, its activity started and it's a flourishing temple at the moment. And. Is that the temple just down there? That is right. You know what I mean? On Hilliard Road, yes that is right Yeah, I have been there a couple of times, you know. Yeah, Hilliard Road, yeah that is the one. And we still play a very active role, in the temple and its activities. So for example every first Sunday of the month there is a lunch, a free lunch Jalaram Prasad, it is called Jalaram Prasad and my husband always goes out to help. And when my children are back from University and so on they go and help out as well. So, that is one of the ways you know, we keep very closely in touch with the temple and its activities and what is going on. The other way I mean I used to work in a school, a primary school where like in any other primary school they practice you know, different faith assemblies. The school I used to work that they used to have Hindu Assemblies, Muslim Assemblies, Christians Assemblies and I played a very big part in running those assemblies, the Hindu assemblies. So obviously I had to do a lot of research into the different festivals. Why we do this? Why do not we do this? One of the things I find here is, people always want to know why you do certain things? Whereas, in India and when I was brought up you just accepted it, it was, how it was done so you accepted. Here it does not work like that. You have to have a reason why you should fast, you should have a reason why Diwali celebrated, you should have a reason why you put a tikka on your head, yeah. So, I had to do a lot of research myself and before I talked to the children and did plays with the children in the assembly or did stories about festivals and the different ceremonies that we have in Hinduism and so on. Do you think it is good that they question? I think religion is about well, to me religion is about knowledge but, also about experience. Knowledge in itself is not religion. You can read up about anything. I can read up anything about say the atom bomb but until I make it, it is not the same thing. I can read anything about man going on the moon. You know, how every atom is made to but it is not the same as actually going on the moon. And so, in Hinduism for example we have the Gyan Yog and Bhakti Yog, Karma Yog and you know. So you have to have all of those to become a self-realized person and that is what I try to impart. Yes knowledge is good, you know you should know but it is not just about questioning, yeah okay it is this and this, you have to experience it as well and that is what to me Hinduism is. Okay and do you think it is important for the youth of today to learn their mother tongue? I think it is. It is important because through the mother tongue you get to know the culture in its purest form. Having said that I am not you know, against the sort of translations, some really wonderful translations of the text you get these days and I am really really impressed because some text are very, the translations are very true to the original text and they are wonderful. But I think to get the real essence of any sort of culture. The language is very important, I think, yeah. All right. Okay and then it is just a couple of final questions now. How do you identify yourself now if somebody was to ask you, you know, what is your identity, because you lived, you know, you are born in Africa, you have lived in India, you got a you know, Hindu traditions, you lived in the U.K. for such a long time and you are very established here, so how do you identity yourself if somebody was ask you? I think by few years ago, like a lot of people I used to identify myself according to the situation I was in. So it would be something like, I am a mother because I have children, I am bringing up. I am a woman. I am a black woman. I am an Asian woman. I am British Asian person. I am a wife. I am a daughter. I am a sister but I think now, I just say I am a person. I play all those roles but at the end of it I am a soul, I am a person, I am playing those roles. And the essence is I am just me. That is it. Yeah. And where do you see as home now? Home is definitely Leicester. Okay. Yes. And then finally as this is going to be heard by may be your future generations, wanting to hear your story or people doing research or things like that. Have you got any final message that you would like to give them on life or your final thoughts? I think my final thought would be a, if you are a Hindu, not just if you are a Hindu I think religions no matter what religion, has very common things that we need to practice in life. You know, the things like purity, love, truth. Those are the essence of life and when you try to practice something, practice it as a true person. It is not just about knowledge. You have to experience it. You have to sit down and you know, think about it, experience it try it out and the essence of life is to realize yourself. The essence of life is not to change the whole world but to change yourself and the whole world will change. And you know, I think that is it. It is yourself; it is yourself you have to realize. Yourself you have to concur. Yourself you have to, you have to know who you are? Thank you very much. Thank you.