Alisha Sharma

So Harminder just to begin with, do you know how your family came to Uganda initially?

Harminder Kalsi

Oh yes I was born in Kenya, my grandfathers chacha, uncle, was the first person to go to Kenya when the British were building the railway, so he actually worked on the railway running from Mombasa to Uganda and I found this out very late in my father's life. So that's how we arrived in Kenya, my father was 4 years old when he arrived in Kenya with my granddad and he grew up there. Got married there to my mother. We provided sand to construction companies, my dad's company was one of the major companies, and I can remember as a child lorries standing in our yard and at that time I think he was one of the few people that had these lorries, and my memory goes back really, really far as a young child so I can remember these lorries and these big mounds of sand that used to be stored in our yard. Anyway there was some disagreement in the family and my dad moved to Uganda when the Apollo Hotel was being built, this is a big hotel in the capital, it's a round building in Kampala, so my dad worked there for a while and then settled down and then we arrived by train overnight which was brilliant.

Alisha Sharma

How old were you then?

Harminder Kalsi

I must have been around 9/10 years old, it’s a vivid memory of getting on this train.

Alisha Sharma

What year would that have been?

Harminder Kalsi

That must have been 1968/69, and then travelling out meeting dad and then settling down in Kampala, and we had a house that we were in and all of my siblings, my brothers and sisters, were born in Kenya, so we all moved across. My elder brother Ranjit, I think in either 1966 or 1965 travelled to England, he wanted to come to England, so he travelled out to England.

Alisha Sharma

Did have a British passport?

Harminder Kalsi

We all had passports which is interesting because some documents, I've kept all these documents which are my dad's documents. This is my dad's old British passport so this is a colony and protectorate of Kenya, this is my dad's passport, so that's October 9 1956 when it was issued. (See Photos 1-5)

Alisha Sharma

So it was a British passport that he had?

Harminder Kalsi

I think it was overseas citizenship, we were a protectorate of England, so because Britain owned Kenya, because we were born there, we became part of that. So it's a really interesting position to be in.

Alisha Sharma

So your brother didn't have any issues coming to England?

Harminder Kalsi

No, none whatsoever. So he ended up there, we lived in Kenya moved to Uganda, 1968/69, I think it was when we moved there, and we lived an absolutely brilliant lifestyle, wanting for nothing, my dad worked and my second elder brother Surinder supported dad.

Alisha Sharma

So how many siblings do you have?

Harminder Kalsi

There are four from my mother which includes me as the eldest. I've got two younger brothers and a younger sister, so that’s four of us. My father married early on but his wife passed away so he had four children out of the first marriage, so my mother is the second marriage, but we never saw each other as step brothers or sisters, that's how it was. So once we moved there my eldest sister Mohinder got married in Kenya, so she stayed in Kenya, my eldest brother Ranjit, moved to England, my second youngest brother Surinder and second younger sister Satpal, older than me, we moved to Kampala. So went to school in Kampala and you know how life was there it was just absolutely brilliant, the weather is brilliant, the house is great, we lived there and you know we had people who worked for us and most of my friends were Africans.  My mother used to say “You should have been born into an African family”. One of those things I just liked being around people, so I had lots of African friends and eventually settled down, went to primary school there I went to secondary school, this is around 1971. Secondary school started and my dad by then had built a workshop, he had a construction company and we had a big yard with machines and guys working for us, we made flush doors and did construction work, and our dad’s foreman was Musa, I remember him so distinctly, he was like an elder father figure for us kids, brilliant beautiful person, and then we had Nyongo who was who was one of our guys who worked in the kitchen, and we also had Ben who also worked in the kitchen and they did all the housework and various things like that.

Alisha Sharma

That's interesting because my question was going to be what did your daily life consist of?

Harminder Kalsi

Daily life was, weekdays obviously school, would get up in the morning and walk to school which wasn't very far from where we lived, we lived in old Kampala. [There] was a side road that we took walked to school with neighbours friends of ours, one of my classmates was Pradip Patel, he lived next door to us in the next housing estate. The houses are slightly different to the way that we have houses here, so he and I we would get up, get ready and then go off to school, come back after school. You had these guys who would sit outside school, they’d have mangoes and guava and various things like that and they used a rusty old plate to cut it and sprinkle some salt and pepper on it, and that was our treat for the evenings or you’d pick up a stalk of sugar cane which cost a few pence and we’d rip it open with our teeth and then chew that, those were our kinds of daily stuff, go home and then dad would come back from work, wash, and then we’d all sit down to a meal. We had three dogs Reene, Poppy, and before we came here we had an Alsatian female dog, and I forget her name because we didn't have her for too long, but Poppy and Reene were with us for a long time they were beautiful. One was an Alsatian mix and the other one was a sausage dog, and in the house we had a big veranda, a 12 chair table, we’d sit and eat and the dogs would sit underneath and when it was mango season you could give a mango to Poppy and he'd strip it clean and you'd have a white seed at the end of it, he just loved that kind of stuff. And then weekends we’d walk around in the evenings, sometimes when dad and local gents were free, my dad created a volleyball ground a few hundred yards from where we were, there was some open ground and he just asked the guys to create a volleyball ground, so the local men would gather and in the evenings they would play volleyball and they’d invited other local teams to come and play.

Alisha Sharma

So volleyball was a popular sport at that time?

Harminder Kalsi

Oh it was a very popular sport at that time. So these guys would play and the kids would sit around the side lines and shout for their teams, and when they were practising they would let us play with them, so we learned how to play volleyball as well, which was great. So it was one of those pastimes, and weekends was, Friday nights or Saturdays, “Let's go to the drive-in cinema”. So we had a Peugeot van with an open back, so put some blankets in, get our meals together and drive off to the drive-in, and then we’d park up and then we’d slide under the blankets and put the speakers on the sides and you'd watch this drive-in cinema. So you had this huge screen with all these cars standing next to you and all the families would be there and weekends were spent like that.

Alisha Sharma

That sounds so fun, would you say you had a happy childhood?

Harminder Kalsi

Oh my goodness [yes]. Even now, I’m a Sikh, I know my heritage, I know where I come from, where my forefathers come from, but for me my childhood is African and I believe myself to be an African Indian because that country to me is just absolutely amazing.

Alisha Sharma

Would you say that's home?

Harminder Kalsi

That is for me home. You know it's just one of those things, we were so homesick when we arrived in this country, it was a terrible time.

Alisha Sharma

And you said that you identify as a Sikh, what would you say that it was like in terms of religion there was it majority Sikh?

Harminder Kalsi

One of the things that people don't kind of understand is how intimately involved in each others families we were. We'd go to Hindu weddings, we’d go to Hindu temples, we’d go to Muslim homes and our friends would come to our house. The kids were never sitting still we would be at each others homes and none of the parents, none of the mums or anyone else thought of us as any different, so going to anyone's house and we’d sit down to eat with them and we were treated like their children, so we never saw our friend’s parents as different it was just the way that things were, anyone you speak to who comes from Kenya/Uganda they say this. They were always like that we never saw any differences and it was just one of those things where people accepted, without judgement how people were, how people were, it didn’t matter.

Alisha Sharma

What languages did you speak then?

Harminder Kalsi

Swahili, I speak all 3/4/5 languages. I speak Swahili because we were brought up in Kenya, we spoke Swahili so I still speak it, I speak Punjabi because we spoke it at home, Gujarati I learnt from my friends who were Gujarati people, and also at Uni I had Gujarati friends. Hindi/Urdu is pretty similar and because of films and having friends who are Muslim I learnt Urdu from them and you know I speak all of them fluently.

Alisha Sharma

Very multicultural.

Harminder Kalsi

Polyglot as they say. And Sundays we'd get up, and Sundays was gurdwara day, so we’d get dressed go to the gurdwara  - kirtan, satsang, eat and then come back home in the evenings. So that was the kind of lifestyle we had really carefree, go around walking anywhere. One time I remember my dad bought us some bicycles my brother and I. We had bicycles because we used to use, Musa our foreman had one of these big bikes, and he’d arrive on his bicycle leave the bike at our house and then go with dad in the car, so we’d pick up his bike and we’d put our legs through the triangle because we couldn't sit on the seats, so we stood sideways and rode the bikes, that's how we learned how to ride bikes. And then one time dad decided, a birthday present or whatever it was, to buy us bikes. So we had two bikes, my brother and I, and our neighbours son was looking a little bit saddened because we had bikes so my dad took him to the shop and bought him a bike.

Alisha Sharma

Wow very generous.

Harminder Kalsi

So all of us had bikes then, so we’d go of riding in the evenings all over the place . My uncle Baldev who lives in  in London, his youngest daughter, Dippy, my mum and auntie exchanged chuni, headscarves, and became sisters so Dippy would get up in the morning, when she was old enough to walk she’d walk around the corner into our house, and she would stay with us all day long and then go and sleep back at home, and when her mum asked her where she was going, my sister’s pet name was Rano, and she would say “I’m going to Rano’s house” so she’s like my sister you know, so the relationship it was like that.

Alisha Sharma

That sounds so lovely. So sounds like a very happy childhood.

Harminder Kalsi

Absolutely, it was absolutely brilliant. There were no shortages, nothing like that. We’d go tree climbing and when mango season was on we’d go up the trees and get mangoes, and if there was jamuna we’d have those fruits,  and avocados, when I see avocados here it really saddens me because they are like little pears, the avocados in Uganda were like big melons.

Alisha Sharma

My grandad says the same thing, he’s from Kampala, and when he sees the mangoes and he knows it doesn’t hit the same.

Harminder Kalsi

And there was jackfruit, the other fruit that we had, it’s a big nobbly fruit that you have. You cut it, it’s all sticky but the pulp inside, oh my god, it’s to die for.

Alisha Sharma

Yeah I think that’s something, I’ve interviewed quite a few people now, and the one thing they say is the fruit there and just how rich it was, and the soil.

Harminder Kalsi

Ugandan soil and Kenyan soil especially Ugandan soil I think is really rich because you could just kick some of the dirt throw some seeds and cover it up and you'd have something growing there that's how beautiful the soil was and because it's sun ripened fruit as well absolutely amazing.

Alisha Sharma

I want to go to Uganda now.

Harminder Kalsi

And one of the other aspects of childhood was weekends, people would end up at Entebbe, which is on the shores of Lake Victoria. So as families we’d go for picnics there, there was a large park and you’d bathe in the water in Lake Victoria, and then you'd sit down on the sands and the grassy areas, and we chased monkeys in the park, drink water out of the clear water that ran through the park, it probably wasn't but we did. We’d take meals with us, we’d buy fruit on the way, and my dad was extremely generous, he never bought 2 mangoes he’d buy a whole basket full, he'd buy like a truck load of stuff, that's how he used to buy his fruit. And bananas, you know they have these bananas in Uganda which are only about four or six inches, they’re really small and very sweet, here you get 6 on a bunch, we'd buy the whole bunch and it would hang in our kitchen, in our veranda, you could eat them at any time.

Alisha Sharma

I feel like I want a mango now! Thank you for setting the context, I think that's really important then when we think about the next stage of your journey. So I think to summarise, that sounds like a very happy childhood, in a multicultural society, just good people around you and that's really nice to hear.

Harminder Kalsi

Just an interesting note is we went to a performance, and my wife is very good and getting acquainted with people and getting their life stories as well, she just sits down and makes friends. So I went to get some drinks and my wife was sitting there, there was three or four people sitting, a Muslim family, sitting behind us. She started talking to them and she found out they were from Kenya, no they were from Uganda, and they’d gone to Pakistan and had returned to England, and when they were speaking and reminiscing they were crying because they remembered the good times, and they remembered a childhood that was trouble free, that was not judgmental like what it is today. We’ve become very insular now, very inward looking, and that was the most painful thing, but remembering those times brought tears to her eyes, to those ladies, and we started chatting and speaking like this, it was really interesting.

Alisha Sharma

Absolutely I think a lot of the people I've spoken to share that feeling, as well of just having a carefree childhood and almost wishing that their children or grandchildren had that as well. So that brings me on to the next set of questions then. So just to get the timeline correct, what year did you come to the UK?

Harminder Kalsi

September 1972.

Alisha Sharma

1972. Okay can you tell me a bit about what was the kind of chain of events and what was happening in the lead up to you coming here?

Harminder Kalsi

Well president Obote was president at that time, he’d gone to a Commonwealth summit and left the country, and the first time we knew something was happening was we were walking up to school one morning, beautiful morning, and walked into school. Normally there was an assembly but there wasn't assembly, but people started going into their classes and Old Kampala primary school had three floors, and I was on the top floor, and if you looked out of the window you could see quite far away from the window, and we were sat there and we started chatting with kids and everyone else and no teachers came in. And then we waited half an hour, one hour, and the teachers weren’t coming in and we just started getting a bit funny, “What's going on?”, and you could hear these popping sounds far away and smoke on the horizon, we had no idea, and then the teachers came in and said “Morning students you need to go home now”, had no idea why, but for us it was like “Yeah go home!”, like it's the holiday, go home. So I picked my brother up and we started racing home, and then I noticed Ben our African guy coming running towards school, on the road, and he didn't say much, he said “You guys okay?” I said “yes” and then I said “What's going on?” he said “I don't know I've been asked to bring you back home”. Anyway he took our hands and we walked all the way back home, we ended up home and then this news broke out that the military has started a coup or something, that the military were taking control, “Please don't leave the home” and you could hear all these popping sounds all over the place, I heard popping sounds, but at the time we didn’t know it was gunfire. So we waited at home, mum was really anxious because dad hadn’t arrived and my brother hadn't arrived. So the estate that we were on had a large gate at the front, so that was semi-closed. So Ben was told to go home because we weren't sure what was going on, so we waited waited waited, and then we weren't allowed to go out and dad arrived late in the evening saying that they’d seen lots of military on the roads and he wasn't sure what was going on but it was best to keep safe. So he met with the other elders around the estates, the houses that were near us, and then it quelled down. The following day I think there was an announcement that there had been a coup and that president Amin had come into power, and that was fine, and then things started to return to normal. So that's my first impression in terms of something happening in the country, and then things started to return to normal, basically normal, and then some months later, again this is my dad telling us about this, he said there had been a lot of rushing and going on through the day, and he stopped at the petrol station, parked his car, waited there, while there were other people waiting there as well, and then he saw this young kid Asian kid running in the petrol station around the pumps. He looked lost so my dad picked him up, took him into his arms and waited to see if anyone would turn up, and a Gujarati family turned up and took him and he told them “Look you need to be careful, don't leave the kid alone”. So anyway that was one of the things that dad experienced at that point in time. So we waited in the evening, following day everything was fine, normal, the government settled down. There was all sorts of stuff happening in the background with Amin and various countries, and then eventually he started making these proclamations, he was the president for life he was all of these things, stories started emerging that people were being killed up north, tribal insurrections were being mentioned, but he was killing a lot of people at that time. So he made the announcement that all the Asians need to leave within 90 days.

Alisha Sharma

So where were you hearing this information?

Harminder Kalsi

This is from elders and TV, because we had a television at the time, watching TV on Saturday mornings was a great thing because that was the kids programmes, and we’d hear that in the evenings, because we'd sit down for meals in the evening and then we’d spend time in our house. So the middle room was our lounge and to one side was my mum and dad's room, and next to their room was a bathroom, and then next to the bathroom was a separate toilet, and then in the other room, there was one room where all us had slept,  there was a bunk bed that my younger brother and sister shared, my brother younger than me shared the top bed, and I had a pull out bed which we folded under the bed. So all of us slept there, and next to our bedroom was a kitchen, and then there was a large veranda in the middle. So anyway in the longue we’d sit down and watch TV and we hear about these things going on, and then obviously panic started “What are we going to do?”. So like everyone else dad and my brother ended up, by the British embassy with our passports and various things like that, and the Canadian embassies, and eventually we were given visas for Canada for some reason, because of dad’s occupation and other things like that. My brother was a draughtsman at the time and he was given a visa for the UK. For some reason my dad and brother they decided “Okay look we'll take the visa for England and you go to Canada” so that's what happened, so my elder brother ended up in Canada and we ended up in England.

Alisha Sharma

So it was just a switch of the papers?

Harminder Kalsi

I have no idea how they did that but somehow at the embassies they must have negotiated something or the other, I have no idea how they did that but that's what happened.

Alisha Sharma

Did they say why they preferred the UK over Canada?

Harminder Kalsi

Because we had no idea what Canada was like, and my father’s thinking was because he had an elder son here it'll be easier, so come to England and then can settle down and sort things out. So that's something that happened at that point in time, and then there [were] issues around money because you could only take £50 out, you could only do so many things. So the gold my mum had on her we secreted that away somewhere. There were stories of the military men from the armed forces who were let loose, they could kill anyone, they could do anything that they wanted, could come and stake your house and rob you of anything, and a lot of people suffered like that. Musa was very very helpfully, still came in, he would look after us, he would make sure we were okay and my dad said, next to the house we had a big storeroom with all the plumbing stuff in there and all the various tools and things, my dad said to Musa “Because when we go this is going to be useless you might as well take it and then start your own work”. A lot of Africans that we knew were very tearful about this, very painful for them, very painful for all the people who were there.

Alisha Sharma

So the Africans around you they didn't necessarily agree with what was happening either?

Harminder Kalsi

No they didn't, no.

Alisha Sharma

I guess it was their livelihood [as well].

Harminder Kalsi

It their  livelihood as well, but the other thing was there was no political reason why that should happen. There were all sorts of reasons being given, Amin fell in love with one of Madhvani’s daughters, he said “Marry me” they refused, Madhvani was one of the bigger industrialist families in Uganda, they had sugar mills, they had all sorts of huge business concerns, so there was that story that went around. There were stories that Amin had a dream that the Asians were milking the economy and weren't putting anything back, so there were all sorts of stuff, conjecture, speculation, various things like that. And then businesmen were told to close their businesses and register their keys with the police station. So my dad closed his business, put locks on their, paid a patrolman, Askari as they're known in Swahili, to look after the workshop so it didn't get broken into and things stolen. So that's what happened, dad registered the keys and that's the last we heard of this, but fate has you know different things to go on. And I don't have dates for any of this but of what I remember is we’d sat down had our meal and were watching TV and these three armed force people with, you know like the mac Colombo wears, these guys were wearing macs like that, khaki coloured, carrying machine guns, glasses, black glasses, came into the house, we let them in and they said “We've come for your dad” and my brother said “What's going on” and they said “Don't worry about it we’ve just got some questions to ask, we’ll take him in and then we'll bring him back”. So my brother said “Look I’ll follow you in my car and then when you finish I'll bring him back” they said “Don't worry we'll bring him back”. So they took my dad, and now this is my dad telling us what happened, he said they drove me around all over the place stopping at bars drinking, and then they ended up eventually at Makindye prison which is the notorious prison where people were being killed or tortured or kept. So Makindye became infamous, horrible stuff happened there. So it was raining at the time and my dad had trousers, slippers, and a shirt on, and of course his turban. So it was raining, so what they did was they came through the main gates, went to the barrack area, there was a bar, they stopped outside the bar told him to get out, told him to sit in front of the car on the floor. So obviously not the best situation, my dad sat down and these guys went into the bar, started drinking, and he said one of the guys came back out holding a shot of whiskey, he said “Drink Mr Singh” and my dad said “I don't drink” and he splashed it at my dad. So dad is not the kind of person, I know him, he's very heated you know, he can get angry very quickly, he said “I thought I'd get up and punch this guy because who does he think he is”. Anyway he sat down quietly, didn't react, and then eventually after a little while they took him to the cells and it was still raining, and he was cold, and he lost his slippers somehow while walking down. So he walked in barefoot and he said “Look I haven't any slippers, can I get something?” and they said “Yes there's a cell”. He said when they turned the lights on in the cell there was a heap of slippers, shoes  and all sorts, and he couldn't understand why that was so at the time, but so picked a pair that were his size, put those on. He was led to some cells and they opened the cells and there were other people in there who'd been abducted, who'd been taken. Families had no idea, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, African guys, various people they were all there. There was about 15 of us, they locked the doors, he dried himself as best he could. Mattress they shared, they shared all of that, and they sat there and spoke about what had happened to them. So while he was in prison, the following day we started making inquiries, so my brother and Musa went around hospitals, police stations, checking places various things like that. 2/3 days passed by, we couldn't find him, we had no idea where he'd gone, whether he was alive or not.

Alisha Sharma

Must have felt like a lifetime.

Harminder Kalsi

Next to our house was a Goan family from Goa, Francis was his name, obviously Catholics. They were very kind of supportive “Do you need anything?”, various things like that, and one day mummy Francis said “Come down we’ll pray”. So I went into the house and then we all knelt in front of an image of Mary and they prayed, and I'm not saying it’s a miracle but you know these things happen, and they prayed for my dad's well-being, and strength of family, and love to the family, and we said our amens and crossed ourselves, and I left the house and I came back home. And then a couple of days later somebody that my brother had met said “Go to Makindye, go the prison and check there”. So Musa and my brother went to Makindye, as they were going through the barrack gates someone stopped them, one of the guys coming out whatever rank he was, he said “They won't let you in unless you have food, unless you say you’ve brought some food for prisoners” because you can't just go in. So they came back home mum and my sister then made a whole meal, lots of roti and everything like that, packed it all up, and then Musa and my brother went off to Makindye again and they found my dad. So dad was saying “Thank you” they had meals, they shared everything, and dad said “Look leave the country without me, I don't know whether I'm going to come out or not” and it was really really the worst time we can ever think of, you know dad saying that, and my brother came back and they got some addresses of these people that they’d met there. So my brother went out letting those people know “If you want to go visit, these are the people” and some people had already left.

Alisha Sharma

I guess it was fair to assume they might be dead.

Harminder Kalsi

Yes so we did the best we could, my brother went out and told them, and gave them addresses, and phone numbers, and told them where their loved ones were. And then we wouldn't give up, we tried everything, we’d go meet this person, meet that person, some friends of ours who had a garage not far from us they had military contracts, because they brought their cars to them. So we spoke to them they said “Yes there's a Colonel that they have” and I think my brother spoke to them, whether he could do anything. What transpired was, dad was taken to a court in the barracks, there was a judge sitting, there were other people sitting there, and there was an African guy there, and both of them were presented in front of the judge. The story was that the African guy had been sold some machines from our workshop and that was the reason that dad been hauled in, because you couldn't sell any assets. So the guardsman, the Askari, had apparently sold the machines off to this guy. So when this African guy was asked “Do you know Mr Singh?” he said “I've never met him before, I don't know who this guy is” and they asked him what had happened and he said “I was sold these machines by this African guy”. So luckily he was honest, the judge then made a decision “Right Mr Singh, no case to answer, you’re dismissed, go home” he said “You can go now”. So dad started walking out of the courts, out of the courtroom, this building, as he was walking to the outside the guys who originally picked him up in the car came in, so they asked him “Mister where are you going?” he said “I'm going home” they said “You’re not. Come with us”. So again they took him by the bar where there was booze, sat him down, he sat on the steps then and they went in, and by this time the court hearings had come to an end and the judge came out and he said “Mister what are you doing here?” he said “I've been asked by these guys to wait, they’ve asked me to come back”. So the judge went into the bar and dad said there was a lot of shouting and hollering and being told off, that “When I make the judgement you don't overturn it because I'm the Judge here”. So he came out and said “Mr Singh go now”. So my dad started walking out, as luck would have it there was some Captain driving out, he asked my dad “Where are you going?” he said “I'm going to Kampala because my family's over there, I’ve been released” he said “Sit down” he picked him up, brought him home. The relief was just, you know it was just amazing amazing, you know family was just relieved. We then, within a couple of days booked our tickets, left the house as it was, packed what we could carry in about 6 suitcases or 7 suitcases, packed those. My brother then left the house and lived in a hotel for a little while, while his flights were being arranged. We left our two cars out in the yard, with the keys in, the dogs my dad handed over to a friend of his, an Italian friend of his. But what's interesting is while those 90 days were going out the dogs absolutely felt that there was something not right, they would sit, especially Poppy would sit under the table and cry his eyes out.

Alisha Sharma

I can image talking about it brings it all back, do you feel like you can still see yourself there?

Harminder Kalsi

All the time.

Alisha Sharma

What is the feeling that's evoked when you think about those last days?

Harminder Kalsi

Just this sense of great loss, and unconditional love, and people you leave behind. And you come away with nothing, to leave that sense of great happiness and joy. Do you know there's a poetess called Jean “Binta” Breeze from the West Indies, she's passed away, we had a function here and she said something which was “You are tied to the country where your umbilical cord was cut” and that for me is so poignant, because you're not the child that you are, you belong somewhere. And all the happy memories I have are associated with those times, I don't talk about it much.

Alisha Sharma

Is that because it's too painful?

Harminder Kalsi

It’s too painful.

Alisha Sharma

Have you met many people since coming here who have experienced, who are from Uganda as well, you’ve able to relate to?

Harminder Kalsi

Oh yes of course. Everyone you speak to who comes from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, especially those countries, their memories are so ingrained within their soul and what they see now is estrangement, of being outsiders, of being separated. The separation from that environment I think is one of the biggest things that people will speak about whoever comes from those countries.

Alisha Sharma

Yeah I can’t imagine, but I see it in my own grandfather, that sense of loss and what could have been as well, that if things had been different, I see that pain in him. His stories are similar to yours and the sense of joy and happiness he gets when he's reflecting on his childhood there is very similar to yourself.

Harminder Kalsi

So at that time there were lots of people being killed, bodies were being thrown into rivers, and during that time when dad was in prison, and those 90 days, there were politicians, chief justices, people that were educated people that opposed Amin, were killed. I remember walking, there was a big explosion once and we ran out, and my friends and I kind of ran to this place and there was a car with bodies and apparently he was somebody quite high in the government, he’d been killed. They could walk out and ride roughshod over anything, anyone, people were robbed while they were coming out to the airport, it was just a dangerous point, it became very dangerous. But the thing was the local African population didn't do anything like that, it was the army or people in power that did all of this stuff, and dad said that he used to hear voices in the night of people that were being tortured at the prison at that time. He said “I still hear those voices, those screams at night when people were being tortured”. They used all sorts of torture mechanisms in there, and one of the things he said was, to try stop people from escaping they’d cut behind the ankle, this tendon at the back they’d slit that so people couldn’t run, so your one foot wasn't working properly, so you couldn’t run, but then there were other seriously bad stories that were coming out.

Alisha Sharma

It must have been really scary.

Harminder Kalsi

It was scary. So we got all our stuff, went to the airport, luckily we weren't harassed as some people were. Got all our things in and we could only take £50 and we secreted some money, but not a lot of money because you couldn't take anything, bank account was seized, everything was closed. So we ended up at the airport and lo and behold there's the army and president Amin arriving with a parade and he was accepting somebody. We got into the plane, my dad and mum say that they felt relief and tension leave them when the plane left the ground, up until that point there was this sense of dread “Even now they will stop us, even now they will stop us, even now they will stop us” because he made proclamations that if people stayed they would be put in camps. So a lot of people left, many many people left, one Sikh family I know the father and the elder son stayed behind and they were fine, they were okay, they had their own businesses, they carried on as normal, did what they whatever they did, and the mum and the other brothers and sisters lived in Leamington Spa. So they obviously kept in touch with family in Uganda and gave us updates in terms of what was happening.

Alisha Sharma

But in terms of family then, everybody in your family, everyone left?

Harminder Kalsi

Everyone left, my brother then ended up in Toronto.

Alisha Sharma

Is he still in Canada?

Harminder Kalsi

He's been living there ever since. He lived in England for a short period, he came to England for a short period, lived here for a number of years, worked at the local post office, Birmingham post office, and then got married here because my bhabi, my sister-in-law, was from Jinja which is just outside Kampala and they’d been spoken for, my parents had made arrangements and said “They will get married” but Amin came in and everything kind of came to a stop and eventually the families ended up in Birmingham, got married in Birmingham, and they both moved out to Canada then, and he’s lived there ever since.

Alisha Sharma

Bit lost for words at the moment but yeah I think that must have been really scary.

Harminder Kalsi

It was, it was. You know when you think about your dad's actually saying “Leave I don't know whether I'm going to live or die”.

Alisha Sharma

When your parents are scared, as a child seeing that…

Harminder Kalsi

Of course it was sad saying goodbye to people, Pradip my friend, his family left, we left, others who were around us they left. I think we ended up in Stansted Airport and then from there we were taken to a military camp, I can't remember the name of that that camp but they gave us these barracks that we lived in, so it was sparsely furnished but it was really nice and warm, this was in the middle of September and it was getting cold.

Alisha Sharma

Okay so you came in the middle of September 1972 you came of the plane and were taken to army barracks and were looked after. So this brings us to the second-half of the interview actually coming to the UK and what that experience was like, so tell me a bit more about that, did they look after you?

Harminder Kalsi

I mean what was interesting was we spoke all these languages and when they spoke to us it was like we were idiots “Do you know where you're from?” “Do you know this is what you've got to do?” come on that's how we were spoken to like we had no idea but everyone spoke English, my dad spoke English, I spoke English, all the kids spoke English, so it was like “What are you on about?” don't take us for idiots. Anyway we didn't say anything at the time we were too young, ended up in barracks, they provided us really well, we were well looked after we had beds, hot barracks, meals to eat, there was a big dining area and you could eat anything you wanted, everything was really well provided for but it was really cold ,was grey, it was dark, it was cold.

Alisha Sharma

Had you come prepared for the cold?

Harminder Kalsi

No! So they had another building where they had clothes donated so we had to go in there, pick clothes for our sizes, and we kind of put clothes on and as we walking through one day some news people came in they took video and spoke to us, took some shots, and then they went off. But then eventually what happened was my parents, my mother's sister lived in Hayes, so my dad for some reason decided “Look let's get out of camp because we're not sure what’s going to happen” but they did help a lot of families, they got houses, they were given travel, and all sorts of other support to settle down, which was brilliant. Which is not what happens now, your apparently deported to Rwanda, which is a country next to Uganda, which I just can't get over that.

Alisha Sharma

Full circle.

Harminder Kalsi

So we picked up everything, packed ourselves, gave them our forwarding address, and we ended up at my Masi’s house in Hayes. So we lived there for little while, then my dad got in touch with my brother who was in Birmingham. We made a trip out to Birmingham and lived with him in King’s Norton for a short period of time, and then eventually got a council house in Handsworth,  from there we moved to Green Lane in Small Heath. A family had rooms empty, we lived there for a while and then we moved to Aston, Fentham Road, we lived there with Mr Taru and his family and they had all the upstairs empty, so we had all the upstairs and the family lived downstairs. He was a great wrestling fan on Saturdays or Sundays he would sit there and shout, they had wrestling matches in the 70s on TV. They had a bathroom upstairs, but the toilet was outside so you had to go to the toilet outside which was really freaky for us because we had everything inside the house, and the weather wasn’t very nice, it was cold, and had newspaper as toilet paper, we washed our backs with that stuff and I’m thinking “What is this country like! We have more stuff then these guys do” it was backwards we thought “My god what are these people doing”. Anyway we lived there for a little while and then we got a council house in Handsworth, Wilton Road, and my father got employment as a supervisor with Wilmot Breeden, they used to make car bumpers and things for Leyland and various other companies. So because he could read and write and was well educated he was a supervisor, he became a supervisor straight away. So he worked there for quite a long time, my sister went to work for Raleigh bike company.

Alisha Sharma

Do you feel that they faced much discrimination trying to get into [employment]?

Harminder Kalsi

I don’t have any stories from them but I have stories about me facing stuff like that.

Alisha Sharma

So how old would you have been then?

Harminder Kalsi

I would have been, around 1972, must have been around 12/13, so I have vivid memories.

Alisha Sharma

So you were having to come into the school system?

Harminder Kalsi

Yeah so we went to the Stewart Centre which is in Spring Hill, which was a reception area for people who are coming from abroad. So a lot of us Ugandans from Uganda ended up there, so my sister-in-law's family was there, brothers and sisters were there, we were there and we started getting acquainted. We made loads of friends and then there was a new school called Ladywood comprehensive which was not far so we ended up there, so all of us were educated there, it’s been demolished since, but that was were we went and whilst in school everyone did really well, all the children. We were educated well in Uganda, spoke English, so we could speak English, we could write stuff, and at that time while we were doing all of this stuff there was a school magazine, I can't remember the name, we were asked to write an article for that and I wrote something where I was given best writer or something, I was nominated as the best writer for that because I wrote the story about us going to school on the day of the coup. So I remember the first words it started as ‘It started as any other day it was sunny and we walked to school’ and then I relayed the story what happened up until the time we went home when the coup had taken place. So I wrote that, I remember vividly writing that and I remember the first words as well, and the teachers were great we got on really well with the teachers, and the school was great, we didn't experience anything harsh within the school, except the careers teachers. Once we got to the point of O-Levels and A-Levels we were deciding on what careers to go about and the career teacher was saying “You’re aspiring too far”. So people were saying “We want to go to university, we want to do this, we want to do engineering, we want to do that” “You’re aspiring too high, best place for you would be a factory”. So this is what some of my friends were being told, I was being told, and that’s the kind of institutional racism that existed at that point in time, because people saw the Black & Asian communities as workers who could not succeed in life and couldn't apply themselves academically. So that's one of the things that we had, the other thing that we had was sometimes when you were walking in the evenings you'd see a bottle being chucked or you’d have stones thrown at you by other kids and older people, and one particular incident I remember very clearly is, on the bus I was coming from an evening event and these guys got on drunk they sat, you know at the back you've got the big seat at the back of the bus and then you've got sides facing each other, so I sat on one side and these guys sat on the back seat and I’m minding my own business, but this is when I was about 14 years old and at that time I hadn’t internalised this whole racist thing, it was very new to me, so I had no way of knowing how to react or anything like that. So he started kind of mumbling under his breath, one of the guys who was drunk started mumbling, and then he started saying “You shouldn't be here, you should be in your own country” and then he spat at me and said “If you don't get out I'm going to box your head in” and I wasn't sure how to react to this at that point in time, I felt really kind of you know, extremely vulnerable, these are older people than me, I’ve never experienced anything like that. So I just got up and walked to the front and then by the time the bus stopped I’d reached my point and I never spoke about this to anyone, and then another time I remember sitting upstairs, where you come up the steps I was two seats behind on the right hand side, and at the front there were these two Asian guys on the left hand side, two white kids maybe 5/6 years old and their mothers at the back and they were giggling about and laughing, the kids were not paying any notice, and then all of a sudden the mothers called them over, whispered something into their ears, and the kids turned around and said to the guys at the front “You f*ing pakis go home”. These are young kids being taught what to say and how to react to people who are different.

Alisha Sharma

And you witnessed this?

Harminder Kalsi

I'm witnessing all of this.

Alisha Sharma

This was in the 70s?

Harminder Kalsi

This is in the 70s and then afterwards I started to kind of become more involved in community projects and various things like that. I gave my time to the Asian resource centre, which is on the Lozells Road, got involved with that, became more political, became more politicised, began to understand all of these things and I understand now how that works, and why that works, and how we kind of perpetuate that, and how we start all of those things. Just as an aside one of the stories, another one of these stories, was, this was in the 90s, I have a friend who used to run a ice cream van in Merseyside, we’d gone up to visit and he said “Look I'm going on my round, do you want to come in?” so my Mrs. stayed with his Mrs. I got on his van and we went around, went to this estate on Merseyside there's one entrance and there's a square, houses, in the middle there's a garden, there’s just grass so you can drive around this estate and then come out through that one entrance, and he stood the van down and there’s little kids running towards him, obviously he knows the families and he's been there for a long time. He said to me “Ask the kid Alfie how you roll a spliff?” I said “No I’m not going to ask that! Who do you think I am?” he said “No ask him, ask him” I didn't ask him anything so the kid comes round, stands in front of the van where the ice cream is vended, and my friend said “Alfie how do you roll a spliff?” and this little 5 year old kid actually started motioning how you rolled spliffs, and the dad walks down towards the van and obviously they get into a banter, having a chat and stuff like that, and Alfie goes “Give me an ice cream!” and my friend says to him “No bugger off I'm not giving any kids any ice cream today” “Give me an ice cream!” so the dad goes “Isn't he giving you an ice cream? Kick his van in” so the kids start to kick his van. So what I'm trying to say is we teach people how to react, so if you’re teaching your child, if you don't get something kick somebody in, if you don't like somebody say racist things to them, be nasty towards them, this is how we perpetuate nasty stuff in the world. So those are kind of the experiences we've had with things, amongst our friends there wasn't any issue, all the white students we had they were great, we started playing hockey, we used to go around playing hockey with other school teams, that was great fun. Friends and us used to go around joking around with teachers and stuff.

Alisha Sharma

So did you manage to reconnect with the people you knew from Uganda?

Harminder Kalsi

Some, but some people we became friends with when we were at school, because they’d arrived from the same country. So we all spoke Swahili, Hindi, Gujarati, something or the other, and we all kind of gelled together really well. My friend Pradip, our next door neighbour from Uganda, I didn’t know this, had moved to Leicester and somehow or the other, he worked in a bank, I think he used the bank database to find a Kalsi in Birmingham. So he found my brother's phone and address, so he rang my brother and said “Are you Kalsi from Kampala?” he said “Yes” then Pradip spouted out a number of names, my name my dad's name, then my brother got to know, yes it's the same Pradip. So my brother rang me and he said “Come on Friday night I have a big surprise for you, I have a guest coming, I want you to meet him”. So we ended up at my brother's house in the evening 6:00 o'clock, late evening the bell rings, and lo and behold.

Alisha Sharma

It’s your friend! That’s so nice, I'm so glad, you seemed really close as children.

Harminder Kalsi

It was, it was just brilliant. So we met him, we met his family.

Alisha Sharma

How did that feel?

Harminder Kalsi

Oh if I talk about I’m going to start crying, but it was just marvellous.

Alisha Sharma

Had you felt lonely?

Harminder Kalsi

No not really, not lonely in the sense, it was just this yearning, this emptiness, this yearning. You know there's a space within your soul, your heart, which connects to something, I hear this when I speak to people about Partition because they remember those times and they remember the troubles, and the pain, and the joys that they had before Partition and it is so strong, it's such an emotional driver in life, in terms of what good you can do in the world, and the loss is so great that they push it down, they'd rather not talk about it because it's like emptying your soul, it's overwhelming.

Alisha Sharma

It’s trauma.

Harminder Kalsi

It's just traumatic for them to remember those things, when I think about back home, Uganda, it’s just too traumatic, it's so painful. So I never felt alone in the sense that I didn't have friends, I've got friends here, I'm married, I live here, I've got my children here, but there are connections with people that you have that are linked from back home. My friend I met in Uni, Zahid, he’s a Muslim guy, and I'd already been there a year and he arrived the second year I was there and he passed me by and I passed him by and all he said was ‘Kidda Singh’ and those are the two first words we spoke, and we've been friends ever since. This is since 1982, so we've been friends ever since. So I met his parents, his uncle was, I think worked for the Indian consulate in Uganda, so I didn’t meet his uncle but I met his mum and dad, I met his brothers, we were great friends, used to go to their house in Birmingham all the time until mum passed away and he now lives in Portsmouth.

Alisha Sharma

It sounds like there's an unspoken sense of camaraderie that comes when two people say “I'm from Kampala, I’m from Uganda” I’ve felt it a lot recently too.

Harminder Kalsi

Oh God oh yeah when you speak and say “I’m from Uganda” it just like this whole ocean of relief and joy just fills your heart it’s like you’d say in Swahili, Wanainchi, he’s my brother, he’s my citizen, he’s my family.

Alisha Sharma

That’s so nice and are you still in touch with Pradip?

Harminder Kalsi

Oh yeah still in touch in with Pradip, still in touch with Zahid, and my friends from school, I have a number of friends I meet up with.

Alisha Sharma

Do you talk about Uganda together?

Harminder Kalsi

All the time, all the time. Now I work as a care manager and I have two sites that I manage and I've got older people who are originally come from Africa, Kenya, Uganda, and places like that. So I’ve got older generation people in their 60s/80s/90s who have come from Uganda and have now settled in my care, and with a number of people I still speak Swahili, we still reminisce about Uganda, we still talk about all the fruit and running around, and the play that we used to have. And it's just one of those things that just instantly attracts you to that person, and there is so much to talk about as well. I used to work in Gloucester, with Gloucester social services, and during lunch I'd walk out and buy a pasty, there was a pasty shop on the side, buy a pasty for lunch and sit down, and eat outside when the weather was nice. And I was standing there one time ready to open my little pasty and I heard a voice behind me “Hello. Do you know Amin?” I thought “What?” and I turned around and there’s an Asian guy, Gujarati guy, slightly unkempt, overweight, loose trousers, wearing slippers, and I turn around and he says “Do you know Amin?”, totally out of the blue. A few days earlier I’d picked up the Metro, because I used to take the train to Gloucester, and I'd read, there was a small little article which said Amin was unwell in Jeddah, this is 3/4 days before this event, and it just struck me and I said “Yes” he said “Are you from Uganda?” I said “Yes” he said “Amin did us a bad thing, came to this country, my family got destroyed, I can't live with my family, I've been ill” I'm like this I'm like that and I said “Look at least you've got friends around, there’s families here, if you need any help let me know” and we sat there chatting and all he could say was, every time he went back to this whole thing “Can’t see my family anymore, can't see my family anymore” and I thought how sad that lives were destroyed because of this man, and it was just so traumatic seeing this person who probably had lots of stuff back home, and had a family that he had, unfortunately whatever the circumstances he is separated now, he doesn't live with his family, he's just living, existing. Anyway we had that conversation, I went back to work, and then a couple of weeks later I read that Amin had passed away in Jeddah. Guess what, I'm sitting on my bench this time and the guy comes and says the same thing “Do you know Amin?”, I don't know whether he remembered me or not but he possibly could have, I said “Yes I know Amin, is it Idi Amin you're talking about?” he said “Yes, bad guy” I said “You don't need to worry about him because he passed away a couple of days ago in Jeddah” “Not nice, he destroyed my family”. I never saw that guy again.

Alisha Sharma

How did you feel when Idi Amin passed away?

Harminder Kalsi

Nothing really. But let me show you something, I'll show you something, I think today is like a great moment because I can now get rid of it. I made portraits of Amin in school here when we arrived in this country, I liked Art and we were asked to create portraits, and collages, and it still sits here with me, all this time. I have no idea why I did this all we had was a prompt create portraits. (See Photos 5&6)

Alisha Sharma

First of all you’re very talented, you’re very good, but I think it says a lot about what you were processing at that time. Even this one reminds of the video of him saying the 90 days and what would happen if they didn’t leave within 90 days, that’s what I see when I look at that. Do you feel for your younger self when you look at these?

Harminder Kalsi

Interesting question…

Alisha Sharma

I feel for the younger version of you looking at these.

Harminder Kalsi

Because the trauma was so deep. And nowadays if you have any trauma you get psychological help, and people do artwork, and they speak about it. We never got to speak about it. We never got a moment where we could process what had happened, so at some point something must have clicked where it was me processing whatever it was, in whatever form, and I created these.

Alisha Sharma

I thinks that’s it, you didn't get an outlet. Do you think you've made peace with what's happened?

Harminder Kalsi

I am. I want to go back, I want to go and visit, I want to go back and see my old haunts, I want to go and see if people are still there.

Alisha Sharma

I think you should.

Harminder Kalsi

But my wife won't let me. She doesn't think I should go.

Alisha Sharma

I think it would be a nice way to bring closure.

Harminder Kalsi

Now having been through this and I think I've got to the stage where I'm old enough to kind of process this, and I know what's happened, I’m a little more astute, I think I'm at peace with myself now.

Alisha Sharma

That's good, I'm glad to hear that.

Harminder Kalsi

This doesn’t haunt me, it never has, but at that point it must have touched a raw nerve.

Alisha Sharma

I think you should go back.

Harminder Kalsi

I want to, I want to. I was speaking to my son and I was saying “If ever it happens, when my passing, I'd like my ashes to go back to the river Nile”.

Alisha Sharma

I like the sound of that.

Harminder Kalsi

We used to go on safari in Uganda we’d visit Murchison Falls, and Queen Elizabeth National Park, and sleep out in the Peugeot with its tarpaulin overcover.

Alisha Sharma

How do you feel you've got to a state of peace within yourself?

Harminder Kalsi

I think as you get older you have to come to terms with certain things. You can either let things fester and take over your life, or you can let go of them, and then move on. Because I had a happy childhood here as well, my teens were very good, I had good outlets, my hobbies meeting new people, making new friends, all of that is a kind of supportive mechanism, it kind of supports you emotionally, psychologically, it kind of drives you forward and drives your ambition, aspiration, those move you on. If you continue delve in the past it just takes you into a deeper and deeper kind of spiral, I think. Having worked in care in all sorts of situations, I've worked within mental health services as well, and I know how things can overwhelm you, how trauma can affect you, and how that can exaggerate existing psychological issues. So I've just learned over years to manage that and I'm a half glass full person now, and that's how I have been, and I'd rather see the goodness in people rather than the nastiness in people, and if they've done something nasty it’s their problem.

Alisha Sharma

So following from that then how do you think you're experiences living in Uganda, but also what happened for you to come here, have shaped the way that you raised your children? Have you taken aspects of your childhood growing up and tried to allow them some of that, or the language, or what lessons have you passed down?

Harminder Kalsi

We’re a Punjabi speaking family, obviously we speak in Punjabi, we teach our children in Punjabi, and then certain phrases that we use are obviously Swahili, so they have come into play. So they understand if I say machunga, it's an orange, if I say so sufuria, it's a pan, those sorts of things. So that language mix is always there in the background, so that happens in terms of bringing people up. I think as parents you try and do the best you can. I don't think I can say to people “Well I tried to bring my child up like my childhood was” because it's not going to be like that, it can never be like that, I have to work with my kids in the way that they are here today, provide for them here today, and look at changes in them and support them in the choices that they make. So my daughter is now working with the DWP, she’s settled, she's educated, she's doing well. My son he started off wanting to become a pilot, very good at maths, but because we have colour blindness in our family and when they did the test he couldn't see subtle difference  and he was very depressed at the time, anyway worked through all of that, he now works with Deutsche Bank, he’s a processing manager. So he works with people around the globe processing their stuff, so he's doing really well, and now they're older, he is married, she is married, and I’ve got three grandkids from my daughter. I think you have to, we can't bring the past, we can't bring it back, we learn lessons, and you try and teach them, and I've always said “Look don't let people suppress you, oppress you, speak to you in this way, always find a way around it” “You're going to experience racism, it's here today, it used to be very overt”, I remember in the 70s when we had the NF (National Front) in Birmingham and all those, we used to go around you know friends and people who were more awakened politically, and oppose those people in town. So we were part of that rally, the anti-Nazi movement. So we did all that, so I became more politically inclined, and the SUS laws in Britain at the time in the 70s, you know stop and search laws, so we spoke out against all of that because having worked within the community centres, supporting people who didn't have the knowhow, didn't speak English, we gave them tools, we gave them support to be able to do that.

Alisha Sharma

So that brings me to my last question then, which is what advice or knowledge would you impart onto younger generations, like myself that have heritage and routes stemming from Africa, Uganda, are there any parting words or anything you’d like to say about how we should approach our heritage, or go about our life as we go on this journey, now in this country?

Harminder Kalsi

It's an interesting question because I don't think, my belief is it's like a culture and tradition thing, do you keep to the culture that your parents brought in, or do you change with the times? This is constantly flowing, it's like a river, my dad took a culture which was 1940s/50s from India, transported it to Africa, lived by those cultural values and didn't change. Certain aspects didn't change, the core values of being a good human remained with him, but the culture in India moved on. So my dad lived in a vacuum, holding on to the cultural values of the 50s and 60s. Those were somehow driven into us. I hold certain principles as sacred ,which is about not hurting people, not being abusive, respect your elders, know your religion know your traditions, but I haven't let that colour my thinking in any way so that I don't move with the times. I’ll share a story with you, we were at a wedding, one of our uncles’, and the ladies were sitting there in my uncle's house and we were just sitting around and we were talking about the culture and stuff and somebody said to my aunt “It must have been really lovely in those olden times?” and she said “What olden times, what are you stupid?” that kind of really hit me “What is she on about?” she said “We had to wear these big ‘gagre’ these big skirt thing, tops, and we had to have our heads covered all the time” she said “One day when I was walking out of the house and my platted hair kind of was exposed I had a shout from the back of the house “Where do you think you're going naked!” so how do you think that was living in those days? I wouldn't want to live in those days!” So there are different values and norms that existed, and even then there were contentious values and principles that we still held onto, but didn't take into account what the person felt. We weren't allowed to express ourselves, we weren't allowed to express or speak negatively about something within our own culture. I've never done that, I've had a very open mind. I'd question anything, I question my religion, I question my parents, if somebody says “This is how we used to…” my question is “Why do we do it in a certain way?” you know we have certain traditions lag (honour)  this that and the other, I question it. And that's how we need to bring our children up, I've never told my children “Do this, do that” what I will say to them is “Be nice to people, be respectful” but you have to move with the times. We've never known computers, when I was born no computers, none of that stuff, now look at it, everybody's onto those things, you live by them. So things change culturally, things change, you have to allow young people to explore, to challenge, and strike out boundaries, otherwise we’re stuck in that same old tradition. But your memories are always going to be alive, Uganda, Kenya are going to be alive with me till the day I die, but those are mine. And there was a question on radio not too long ago, this was a few months ago, there was a question on one of the radios, these chat show businesses, the question was “Do you think that the olden times were precious as opposed to today?” and I was thinking “What a stupid question to ask” because for me those precious times there’re mine at that point in time, anyone who's young now will say their time now is precious, so it's not within my timescales, it’s within their timescales. So we can't have preciousness in both areas, for them it's something else, for me it’s something else, it's very subjective. I mean I like old traditional songs, and you know 80s/90s, and I did my degree in design and I'd wrote my thesis on Indian cinema, so I like music from that era, ask nowadays it isn’t that anymore. It’s hip-hop and mixtures it's all of those people, the new generation, so they are singing all of those things, Brown Munde, all of this kind of stuff so that for them is going to be the umbrella that they're going to live in, and that’s going to be their precious times.

Alisha Sharma

Thank you I think if more people held your point of view on that the world might be a different place. But that's a really interesting taken and it's nice to hear that people from an [older] generation do think like that.