Hinduism sound Sound Cassette English Oral Interview Interview Abhijeet Joshi 120 Nirmala Bhojani Female Delhi

Leicester U.K. post graduation in journalism and mass communication EN Gujarati, Hindi, Sindhi, English Could you tell me where your parents were born? Both my parents were born in India, originally in Sindh, which is now part of Pakistan but this was before the partitions so it was in the India before the partition in a place called Sindh so they are Sindhis. They are practicing Hindus. And were they born in the same village or? No. They were both born in different villages, in fact they met after the partition and they had an arranged marriage and that was in Delhi in India because they both moved with their families when the partition occurred and they were both very young, they both moved to India. My mother was studying. In those days she was one of the first women to actually do her Post-Graduation. She did an M.A. in Economics and my father was a Civil Aviation Engineer, an Aeronautical Engineer. So theirs was an arranged marriage and they both met in Delhi after they had moved and gone to school and college and university. And did they tell you many stories about the divide and the? Yes. They had many vivid memories about the partition because they lost everything they had. They were both you know children whose parents had lots of land and things back home, property. And then they moved to India of course their, my grandfathers from both side, my maternal and my paternal grandfather, both started from scratch. Luckily they were both professionals. My maternal grandfather was an Architect and my paternal; my dad's father was in the Police. He was actually the District Superintendent of Police in Delhi so they had chauffer driven cars and stuff even in those days. Very nice. And do you still have family in Delhi? Yes. My oldest Uncle; my dad's brother and his whole family, his children are there, his grandchildren and they live together. I still visit them whenever I go back to India. My mom is in Poona, which is where my mom and dad moved to when I was about five years old. So I started my Education right from first standard school; first year at school until my University in Poona. And where were you born? I was born in Delhi. As I said my parents had an arranged marriage, which happened in Delhi I was born in Delhi, and then because my father worked with Civil Aviation he got transferred to a place in Uttar Pradesh. It was called Allahabad and that's where both my brothers were born. So I have two brothers; who are both younger than me. I am the oldest. Okay. And will you tell me a bit about growing up in Delhi and all about? Yeah. I remember my first vivid memories of both my brothers being born in Allahabad so yeah. We moved to Allahabad when I was a couple of years old and I started my kinder garden education there. I used to go to a Convent school and I still remember they used to pick us up in a little cycle rickshaw, which had seats in the back and we would all sit in there hugging together about eight to ten of us little kids and we had a uniform and we yeah, used to take a little packed lunch to school with some biscuits and drink in there, so that was nice. Then we moved to Poona, which is where I started my secondary education. Again I was in a convent school in the beginning. My first day at school my dad was supposed to pick me up and I remember sitting under a tree because he hadn't turned up. Apparently he had asked one of the neighbors who was coming to pick her grandchildren; of course she took her grandchildren, left me sitting there under a tree crying. So I said I am not going back to this school again. And that was probably lucky because then I got out of the Convent System and into a Hindu School. This school was actually called St. Meera's and although it was a private school it was based on St. Meera's values. You know Meera Bai; who was a great follower of Lord Krishna and it was a school where they had a great emphasis on moral teaching and human values rather than just the curriculum that we would have normally been practiced in other school. So we had an Assembly every morning and we celebrated all the festivals but we also learned about all the different religions and we prayed, we had to learn the Bhagwad Gita, memorize it. So when I was a child I actually memorized the whole of the Bhagwad Gita in Sanskrit with the English translations as well. I have forgotten now but I do remember some of the verses so when somebody is singing them I can join in you see. Oh that's Amazing. When did you move to Britain then? Well. That was a long time later. I got married after I finished my post graduation. I did my post grad in journalism and mass communication. I was writing for a newspaper in Poona then. I also got the opportunity to interview Indira Gandhi and Mother Teresa while I was working for the newspaper. So I guess I was really lucky because I met two very strong and wonderful women who inspired me in many ways. I thought great I mean women, Indian women can do things and achieve things it's not just a man's world like we were taught to believe. Yeah it must have been a great experience to meet those ladies? It was, it was wonderful Yeah. I still remember you know I was very young then but just being in their presence, it was awesome and I also had the great opportunities to attend lots of different celebrations, where there were people like the Dalai Lama I have seen him as well. I was covering events for the local paper, so obviously whenever something happened. I got sent out with my pen and paper; we did not have all these Hi-tech gadgets then. So I have been making notes, writing out reports, typing the matter next day and yeah it was all a good experience I think. Fantastic, and then, so you were working? Yeah. And then yeah, I came to Britain. I got married when I was 21. Well my in-laws are from Malawi, which is in East Africa. So suddenly I left India and went to this place called Blantyre, which is in Malawi; which was compared to India totally, totally different, the culture was very different. It is an African country but in those days it was like moving to a one-horse town really for me because Poona where I grew up is very cosmopolitan. It's called the Oxford of the East because a lot of people from all over the world come there to finish their education. The University is very well known. They have a standard, which is equivalent to Oxford and Cambridge and a lot of East-African Asians would send their children to Poona to study and that's how I met my Ex-husband. He was studying in Poona. We got married; went to live in Malawi with his parents and then I had my daughter, my older one when I was 23. She was about 5 years old when we moved to England and then I had my younger one who am I got here just the year later. So it was all changed. So what was your reason for moving to Malawi? My in-laws lived in Malawi. They had a business there, of course. So once my ex-husband had finished his education, he wanted to move back and get involved with the family business. What business? So I moved there with him and I used to help with the shop. They had a wholesale, retail and manufacturing garments and things like that. Yeah. So it was they, a very established business and I moved there for few years and they all decided to move to England. So we all moved here in 1986, that's a long time ago. What was it like first like arriving in Britain? I arrived at Heathrow Airport, wearing a Silk sari so you can tell how naive I was in those days. And now you have to actually force me to wear a sari. Yeah I used to wear saris a lot then because of course it was in keeping with my in-laws who are very traditional and they wanted me to sort of you know wear Indian clothes and we came to Heathrow Airport, it was the summer so it was lovely. As soon as the winter started and I was then expecting my second daughter and so I was pregnant and it was the worst winter they said they had since the record started so there was snow about a few feet high and there was me pregnant in a sari trying to walk up and down the stairs. We lived in rented flat on top of a shop; top of a corner shop so it was not easy but I think I got through it and I used to then think I must have done some really bad karma to end up in this country. That was my first year. That was because of the winter being really bad, I was in a new country, I had no friends, the community, there was not a lot of people around because obviously we lived in South Harrow though there are lot of Asians, they are very-very, it was different to what I was used to. People did not talk to each other. They were not very friendly. They were very westernized and believed that they kept to themselves. In fact I remember when I had my daughter. One of my next door neighbors who used to go to school to pick up her own children, I said to her could you take my older daughter to school and bring her back when she went to drop her own kids because obviously after you had just delivered for the first week or so you cannot go out. We in India for a month you stay at home but I was here where there was nobody to look after the house or my older daughter and she said to me yes she would do it for a charge. So I actually paid her, 15 pounds in those days, which is a lot of money to drop my daughter off and pick her from school. It was already a Thursday so for just 2 days she charged me for the whole week and then the next week she said do you want me to pick your daughter and I said no I am going to drop her and pick her myself. So I took my little one who was about a week old to school to drop and pick my older one who was 5 then. So it just made me realize that it was a very selfish country here. People were so materialistic because until then I had always been like I still am the sort, if somebody said to me can you drop my kids of all these years, all my neighbor's children I have dropped and picked them off from school because you think that's what it's about I mean you would expect people to help you out when you needed them and you do the same for them but not everybody in London is like that. So that was your experience with the Hindu community? My first experience with the Hindu Community. Yes, this was an Indian woman, a Hindu woman. So I was just like I said I was gobsmacked when she said it would be 15 pounds and although I did pay her for the first week because I did not have a choice. It would otherwise mean that my daughter would have missed a couple of days at school. She had already missed the day when I have the baby because she came into hospital to see her, little sister and was so excited. She did not want to go back to school but I did not want her missing any more. So then did you have any experiences with other communities like the white community or the Afro Caribbean community? Yeah. Well I was in London I mean I have did sort of some work for a newspaper in London and I actually met some very nice Asian people as well. So it was just you know I had a bad experience but I did have other people were friendly. The shopkeeper down, the chap who owned the shop downstairs; who was also our landlord, a couple they were really nice I mean there had always sort of be friendly and when I had the baby she had come up to see me and ask me if I needed any help and things like that. And they actually suggested I go and talk to this newspaper when I told them I was a journalist and introduced me to Mr. Patel, who was running this newspaper in London and I remember getting on the underground all by myself and taking my little one with me to meet the editor of the newspaper who said, "oh, when can you start", and I ended up doing a woman's column for a weekly newspaper in London. So what did you write like in the women's column? In the women's column, oh I had to interview lots of different Asian women because it was a newspaper for the Asian community and I remember doing a feature on women counselors, Asian women who were counselors in Middlesex because that was the area we lived in. And I remember doing various news reports which we had to do also different things. I remember for Diwali I did a feature on Sita and I have to interview few people to ask them what they thought about Sita and was she still relevant in modern society you know the fact that she was the first single parent, things like that. Issues, which were coming, you know becoming quite common within Britain and British-Asians. So it was yeah I did topical features on various issues for Asian women. What about, were there any like family events that happened at the time or community events? How were they celebrated or where were they celebrated? Yeah, I went to the Navratri celebrations, Diwali celebrations; it was of course in Harrow, there is a large Asian community. They had all the celebrations around in the local Hindu temples and I would join in and also my in-laws. I had two sisters-in-law living with their families in, around London. So we would go up to theirs, they would come around to mine and we celebrated festivals together. Of course they all had young children so my daughters also had cousins who could you know join in celebrations with. We had family meals and they come around to see us, we go around to visit them in the weekends. So it was you know normal community. I did also go to my local library and make friends with various English people who lived around me because I am naturally a very gregarious person who would talk to anybody so it was like all the local shopkeepers, the bakery, the Super market if I went in I got to know them. Moving on to your practicing religion and stuff like that. Were you practicing Hinduism when you were in India and Africa? Yes, yes. I have always been, I have been brought up like I said I went to a school where we were you know where religious education was a part of the main stream teaching and we were brought up, my family both my parents have been very spiritually inclined so we had to go to the temple regularly, we attended all the Havan and all the religious ceremonies and we attended all the festivals because we did not have a choice, it was not like my mom saying, "do you want to come to the temple". It was yeah we are going and everybody went as a family. Sometimes we did not want to go and listen but now in that respect when I look back I think it was a great thing because all the things that we learnt are very valuable to me now. It becomes part of you; you know when you learn right from the cradle to be honest and to be a good person and to help other people and not to lie you know things like that which were part of the religious practice of Hinduism. It isn't just about praying and lighting candles and doing all the ceremonies. It's a whole way of life and I think that kind of now I am aware of the fact that all those traditions that we grew up with are so valuable in modern times. I think they have really helped me through life getting to the stage I am now. When you are talking about Hinduism its there is like its two aspects, there is the rituals and then there is what's inside? And it seems that you have put more emphasis now on what's inside? Whereas when you were younger it was going with your parents, it was rituals Yeah. Even my parents were not, we did not believe in rituals as in doing the Arti everyday. My mom and dad always said to us if you don't see God in people, is no use you know sitting in front of the deities and performing pooja and doing ceremonies because you have to see the divine presence in every living being. It isn't just people, its animals, its flowers, its trees, its nature. So we were brought up to see the supreme consciousness in everything around us. So you value every little creature even a little insect I wouldn't step on it if I saw it coming. That was we were brought up in that tradition of non-violence or we were vegetarian. We grew up you know in a family where if you saw a little ant, you picked it up and put it out of a window instead of stepping on it and it was you know basically a compassionate religion rather than just praying. So although we did pray and we attended all the temple ceremonies, we were every time we went to the temple we learnt something more about being a better human being and that's what I think now for me, helped me to be where I am because its you know being happy within yourself with what you are. When you did go to, when you go to the temple which temple do you go to like then and now and which deity do you worship? I go to all the Hindu temples in Leicester with my work I cover a lot of the festivals and all the religious events at temples. So I go to the Hare Krishna temple Thoresby street; I go to the Sanatan Mandir on Catherine Street; Weymouth street I go to the Hindu Mandir, the new Indian temple on St. Barnabas street, I go to the Ram Mandir; go to the Swaminarayan Mandir. There are a lot of different Hindu cults. And although I am personally, I believe in Lord Krishna, I am very happy to go to all the temples because I see all the deities and all the Gods as manifestations of the same God. It is just the same Lord Krishna with different names being worshipped in the different temples so I don't have a problem with worshipping other deities like some people who would only believe in Krishna and say I not going to worship anybody else because they are, because Lord Krishna is the supreme God. I agree with them but I see all the Gods that Hindus worship as incarnations of Lord Krishna, as manifestations, as different forms of Krishna. I also see all human beings around me as manifestations of Krishna so I think whether its white people or Caribbean people or Indian people; they all have something divine inside them which comes from the supreme Lord whether they believe it, they know it or not. Okay. In the Hindu temples for somebody coming in, as an outsider there seems to be a, you know segregation between the man and the women and the stuff like that. How do you feel about that or, would you like to, may be, explain how does this kind of division work in the temple, different roles for different people and is that still applicable to deity you think? I went into an Indian temple where they were had one of their spiritual leaders coming in and because that particular temple they are very strict about the men not even looking at the women. They said if, while I was interviewing him for the paper that he would be sitting behind a screen and I would have to talk to him from the other side of the screen and I said to them why do you have to do that I mean if he is a spiritual leader, he has obviously seen women its not like you know seeing a woman would be for him, something sinful and they said it was because their Hindu sect, the sect that they are belong to believed in segregation. Not all temples would have a physical barrier like a fence or a partition but in this temple they have a partition so the men sit on one side and the women sit on the other side. And they explained to me this was because there was no physical contact, no visibility. The men would be more focused on their religious worship. If there were women they would get distracted. I disagreed with that and in fact I had a great discussion with them, when I went in, saying that if a spiritual leader is at that level obviously he is so evolved that he wouldn't see a woman as a woman. He would see her may be as a manifestation of the divine or as a mother, or a sister, or a daughter. So it shouldn't really distract him in the way they meant and they said yes although that was true that they still did not want any temptations for the men. So the women always had to be segregated. That's one way of looking at it. The other way is in the temples where we have women sitting on one side, the men sitting on the other side. They respect each other and although they are both in the same room they just sit separately may be for the same reason that if there is not, sort of a man and a woman are sitting to close together, they might get distracted. I guess that's the logical reason I don't agree with it. I think if you are spiritually evolved and if you see Krishna in everybody you wouldn't see that as a woman; you would see her as a Gopi. Won't you? Okay. I want you move on a bit now to talk about yourself and your community today and how things are today? I want to know where do you see as home now? Is home still India or is home England or where do you see? For me my home is Leicester where I live because I have lived here a long time. When I came to Leicester I felt at home straightaway. I did not miss India at all. While I was living in Harrow, I was going to India every year because I just felt really-really home sick and I came to Leicester and it was like you know it was so multi-cultural. We had so many temples and also I got so involved with doing things with; being part of the community; I was actively involved with the school in all their celebrations because both my children had started school then. And I was involved with writing for the local newspaper for the Mercury so I was covering lot of Hindu events and I just felt that this was home. Although I still think of Poona as my home in, when I think about my childhood and my youth. Now if you asked me where I felt more at home it would probably be here. And do you still have an Indian passport or British passport? I have a British passport. I only got it done a few years ago. I had an Indian passport for a long time. The only reason I got a British passport was every time I was traveling within Europe with an Indian passport, I needed a visa and it gets quite difficult if you want to travel in a hurry. You have to go and queue up at the Embassy in London and all that so I got a British passport just for practical reasons because I do travel a lot within Europe. And how if somebody asks you how do you identify like how would you identify yourself to somebody else? Would you call yourself you know like a British Hindu or you know what would you call yourself? I would call myself an Indian because that's what I am originally. A Hindu, yes because I am an Indian who is a Hindu. And I am not particularly fond of being called British-Asian because I did not grow up here. My children would probably identify with being British-Asians because they were you know they spent most of their lives here. To me half of my life I have spent in India, so and those, that's where my childhood years, my years when I developed and grew were so I guess I call myself an Indian Hindu or a Hindu Indian. What aspect of your identity is the most important to you? Like you know being a Hindu or being an Indian? What is the most important thing that makes you, you? Well I think it's a whole combination of like I said it was my background. I think I was very lucky that I had parents who were very spiritually evolved. That we got a chance to go to the temples; my parents were not materialistic in the way many Indian parents were. We were never taught to value you know things like oh, everybody has got a new television so we have got to have one, everybody has got you know a new hi-fi. It was basically we were taught to value being good human beings; being good people. So there was never any emphasis on achieving materially, it was more of we were encouraged to have a good education. So obviously because my parents were both graduates and me and my brothers, we went to University it was you know no- no for us. We did not have a choice. We weren't sort of asked. We just went. It was an automatic decision but throughout our childhood we were a kind of encouraged to be ourselves. And I think my identity would be a combination of being Indian, Hindu but also now I have lived in this country for about seventeen years and for me, I have, over the years changed my attitude to many things. And I would probably say that what I am now has been affected by my experiences here. So although I am a Hindu I may be a more tolerant and a more, I am not an orthodox Hindu. I have friends who are practicing Christians, Jews, Atheists and the lot and we get all fine with them. I wouldn't impose my religious beliefs on anybody and I think religion is something personal. Its your own bonding with the divine and its something that I would practice in my own way; my children practice in their own way. My older daughter is very much in to rituals, she does the Pooja everyday, she does the arti everyday. We offer everything we cook in my house to Krishna before we eat. So we do have certain practices and traditions, which are religious, but I would not say I am particularly religious as in I do things that religious people probably won't do. I watch films, I watch television, I watch Eastenders and play, I go clubbing. I do certain things that may be my religious friends won't do. Some other aspects to do with religion as well. You have mentioned your daughters and one of them you said, is particularly in to rituals etc. And you talked about your childhood as well and you have talked about your beliefs and stuff. So what like stories and stuff would you tell your children? What did you give to your children? You discussed like the beliefs, what else did you pass on to them? Yes, yes. I have passed on all the stories that I learnt as a child, I mean all the Hindu scriptures that we were taught as children; the Ramayana, the Mahabharat. All the stories, about the Gods and Goddesses, why they are worshipped, I have shared these with my children over the years. Of course whenever there is a particular day when we have a certain ceremony I would tell them why we were doing it like the Ganesh chauth when you worship Lord Ganesh; Janmashtmi when Lord Krishna was born; Ram Navami when Lord Rama was born. All the festivals as we celebrate them I do share all the things I know which I learnt from my own childhood and from my school with my children. My children also read a lot of religious books, and magazines and I think my older daughter is probably more aware of the Hindu mythology than even I am. Because she has a particular interest in religion and she reads more religious and Hindu books then I do. And she also goes to the temple regularly where as I only go once in a blue moon. So I am not you know one of those who is there every Sunday while she would go every week, she prays everyday, she does all her offerings everyday. So she is more dedicated than I am. Some other questions to do with religion and Hindu beliefs? Yeah. What does karma mean to you? Karma is obviously the actions, the deeds you perform in your life. And as a practicing Hindu I think that whatever we do is going to be rewarded or paid back eventually. So whatever you do in this birth, because we believe in reincarnation we think that whatever we are now is a fruit of our earlier births and our earlier actions. So if you perform good deeds the chances are that you would have a better rebirth or even in this life, the fruit of your actions would be sweeter than if you did things that were bad, wrong and harmful to other people. So if you were wild and turn aggressive obviously you would end up suffering in your own life. Karma is just like saying what you sow that's what you reap. Okay. With that in mind do you think its important then to do charity work or to give money to charities or do voluntary work and if so, do you do any of that? Yes. I am involved with lots of local community groups where I do voluntary work and I have over the years in fact ever since I moved to Leicester, I have been involved with practically every voluntary group there is and I have been with all the temples' fund raising activities. I think as part of my job as well I do reports about them but I also get involved with things like sponsored walks and stuff like that and in my own life whenever I go to India because there is an orphanage there near where I live. I actually go in personally and feed the children and we feed the poor people and there is a religious institution where they have hospitals for poor people and hospitals and schools for people who are not financially well off. Temple in India and feed the poor and there is a hospital run, a charitable hospital where I go in and help out and also donate money whenever I can. So whenever it's the anniversary of my father, we actually feed people in the temple or in the hospitals there. Here there aren't so many poor people and although the temples are all doing fund raising, there is a lot of donations and money that people are willing to give here. And I think for me personally I would rather help people in India because there they need us; they need the charity more. They are penniless, they are in a situation where they don't have food or shelter and I think for me charity is something that is, should go to the needy rather that to you know, by building another bigger temple or building a bigger garden at a temple. I don't agree with that. And if a temple is raising money for building a new building, I would rather give the money to feed the poor people in India. Right okay. And now the another question. What do you believe happens then when you die? I think I still believe in re-incarnation. But I also think that whatever you do in your life here, once you are dead you leave behind the karma that you have done but when you are reborn then you come back and you have to pay for all the wrong deeds and also get the benefit of get the fruit of all the good deeds that you have done. So depending on what form you are born in and if you can eventually I do believe that if the soul is evolved to a stage where you merge with the divine soul. That's what we all Hindus aspire to but I think that you have to be ready to merge with the divine soul. If you are still you know involved with the world and with Maya, the material manifestations as we see them, then of course your soul is not ready yet to merge with the divine. It's only when you reach a stage of spiritual disassociation and detachment with the world that you can actually merge with God. I don't think if you are still yearning for material things that your soul is ready to be spiritually at that stage. So personally for myself, I don't think I am ready yet. I think I would probably be born lot of times before I get to that stage when I can give up everything and just be totally-totally focused. I hope eventually we all get there like I said it's a stage where you have to, you get to, you cannot just force yourself. And no matter if I chanted sixteen hymns and then I don't think in my mind I was thinking of all the nice things I would rather be doing. That I would be getting the good karma that I should by chanting. I know chanting is good as a discipline but if you are distracted while chanting its no point. Is it? Another thing? Have you ever had any kind of religious experience or inner for example had a you know, may be a feeling that God is present or certain kind of deep spiritual feeling or anything ever in your life? And have you ever had a kind of a moment? Well every time I feel really emotionally amazed by something, I think God is there. It's like when you see a child being born or you know it's the miracle of life to me that is a spiritual, religious experience. I have never experienced this, a vision or any kind of you know the religious experiences people say. I have not seen a big hallowed figure or light or anything like that. But I like to say that I guess I am not spiritually evolved to that stage. I do think that my religious experiences I, every time come across a wonderful human being, I think, oh this is, I am so lucky and this is God's mercy that I have actually had the association of this wonderful person. For me that's a religious experience. In all my people who are around me, all my friends, family, people who do good things for me. That's a religious experience, just knowing them. Isn't it? Moving onto how, do you think things have changed, kind of with time people's attitudes and do you think people are more or less religious now then they were when you were living in India, or when you first moved to Britain, do you feel that things have changed at all? I think the things have always been what they are in the sense that is you always have an upsurge of religion happens when something really you know a natural disaster takes place or suddenly there is like destroyed to be religious. But now I think there are more people turning to God may be because life all over the world is changing and with modern times, there is more stress, there is more illness and people when they find that there is nothing else that helps them sometimes they will turn to religion as a last resort and because some people it may happen when their own individual situation is such that they need somebody and although they may not believe. But in times of, in desperate times they would probably think, oh let me pray and see if it works. And if does then they would, it would strengthen their belief. I think that there is always a wave of a tide, which comes in and people suddenly turn towards religion. Then suddenly it kind of becomes not cool and people will start going off getting into other directions. But I cannot remember that from my childhood to marriage, its very different. When we were young like I said we went to the temple because our parents told us. My kids go to the temple not because I tell them but because they want to. They have a choice. Do you think they are may be the exception? I mean what about other younger generation? Yeah, they are my kids although probably you know the only two I know who would voluntarily go to the temple. Even if I am not going I have to go and drop them because they want to go. So yes they are probably, not most teenagers will be thinking of you know a Sunday afternoon at the temple. They probably prefer the chat rooms or the Internet, or the computer or the television whatever. But I think there are people may be some, it has to be probably you know where you are coming from and where your family values lie. If you are brought up in a family where you remember to pray and remember that God is part of your life, then may be you want to keep him as part of your life. And do you feel that its easier or more acceptable then to be a Hindu. Do you think its easier to practice now? I have never had any problem with being a practicing Hindu, neither in India nor here, when I came here I was always a Hindu and I went to, we have always had temples. May be people who came long long ago when there weren't so many Hindus here, probably had to find somewhere to meet and pray and congregate but I was lucky there was already lots of places here. So I could go to Watford to the Hare Krishna temple. I could go to my local temple so I never had any problem really. And what changes would you like to see for Hinduism in Britain? That's a difficult one. I think my own personal perception of Hinduism is that we are a very very tolerant people. We are, our religion teaches us to respect and accept other religions and cultures. We don't believe in conversion. We don't want to turn people into Hindus. We believe that if you are born a Hindu, you should be a good Hindu. If you are born a Christian or a Muslim or Jew, you should be a good Muslim, Christian or Jew. And I think that's the greatness of the Hindu religion that it accepts all religions as equal, equally valuable, equally rich and equally respectful. So I think I would like to see that all religions really should be able to live together in harmony and respect each other and accept each other's differences. In fact may be not just accept but celebrate the differences there are between us. Instead of wanting everybody to be exactly like us we should see people from different religions and cultures as enriching and as diverse and as people in their own right who have the right to practice their own beliefs. So I would just probably like to see more tolerance of all the religions and cultures there are. Something you have not mentioned yet, the caste, caste issues and stuff like that and do you think that is more or less important now? Its not so important to young people but I think to people who came here from India or from East Africa, the first generation British-Asians who moved here, for them its still important that their children marry within the same caste but to young people don't see as long as they are Hindus I mean I personally don't have any problem my children marrying anybody whichever religion or caste they belong to because I think that like I said all religions have you know their own right to be themselves and I don't have any kind of notion of some castes being superior and some castes being inferior. I think all people are equal and should be valued for what they are. There is some now less and less emphasis on castes; because I know people of my generation when their children marry someone from another caste they don't mind so much. And for me when I married someone from another caste, in those days it was still seen as oh why do you want to marry someone from another caste when you can have somebody from your own caste. So it was different. Now we accept it more. I think we are more willing as long as they are Hindus we would say but for me it doesn't matter if one of my daughters was to marry a Christian or a Jew or an atheist I wouldn't disown her for it or I would probably be upset to a certain extent but I would accept it. I wouldn't try and change her mind. And how important you think is for young Hindus to know their community language? I think its really important if they know their language then they know about their own culture and their religious beliefs. Also they have a sense of identity because they can speak their mother tongue. Being bi-lingual or multi-lingual is always better than being monolingual. I personally speak Eight languages, all which I learnt in India, and I speak English equally fluently because I went to school and studied in English. But I speak my mother tongue Sindhi; I speak Hindi because that's the national language in India. I speak Gujarati which I learnt after I got married because my in-laws are Gujarati. I also read and write these languages. So for me I just feel that it's great. I can read and write and speak so many languages so obviously I feel more richer than if I only spoke one language. Okay. Do you think it's important for British Hindus or Hindus who moved to Britain to link up with other Hindus around the world? Do you think that's important either by you know I mean internet or you know meeting each other or stuff like that? Do you think that it's important to keep that contact, come in global contact? Well its nice to have information and awareness of what other Hindus, practicing Hindus all over the world are doing for your own self or for your own identity. I thing for young people its important to keep in contact with their counterpart all over the world. Just so they are aware of how different it is, like if they are growing up here, but they have cousins in India, its nice for them to visit and get to know them. Well so it may not be that in India life is any different from what it is here for young people of a certain class. They are probably doing the same things, the young people here are doing. I mean I was in India a couple of months ago and all my nieces and nephews are going clubbing and watching Hollywood films and wearing the clothes that people here wear, so India is not so traditional now. Things are moving on and everybody is changing and I think its important for young people to be in touch with other people all over the world rather young people and older people also so they can see how life has changed for them and compare the differences I guess just so they can realize also how lucky they are to have all the facilities that they do nowadays. Just like they don't have to walk miles to school because you can drop them off in the car, we did, things like that. Okay. And finally is there any message that you would like to add on at the end of this for huge people who may be listening? Well I would like to say I am glad I was born a Hindu because I like I said being a Hindu is very very fortunate. You were fortunate because you brought up with a way of life where you are tolerant and you value people and I think that as a religion or as a way of life, Hinduism is a great option because there is no strict conditioning I mean I am a Hindu, but I don't have to fast or I don't have to perform any rituals; I don't have to do anything unless I want to. And I think that's what I appreciate about being a Hindu. That there is no force on me from any superpower or divine person saying you have to do this or you have to do that. I value the fact that we are allowed to make choices and we are allowed to do the things we want to do as long as they are good and kind and normal. Okay. Thank you, thank you very much.