Farah Awan

Let’s start off with your childhood, where you grew up, where in Uganda?

Jyotika Bharkhada

So I was born in Uganda in 1961 in a little town called Mbale. We used to live in Soroti but I was born in Mbale where my uncles and my aunties were, so my mum went there for delivery because I was the first child of the family and they always go to their maternal side to have the baby. So yeah and I had a very happy childhood I must say, I had [four] brothers and sisters, so I’ve got [four] brothers and [one] sister, everybody younger than me.

Farah Awan

Did you grow up in Soroti?

Jyotika Bharkhada

So we lived in Soroti for a little while, my grandad and my dad’s brother’s uncles had a tailor shop so they were making suits and hats, like safari suits. So they had a tailor shop but my dad, he was the one who was the most educated in the family, so he then got a job in a bank and he worked a little bit in Soroti in a bank. Then he worked himself up so he became a manager and at that stage they would kind of send you to little towns in Uganda. So he was a bank manager for Standard Bank in Soroti, then in Lira, and then we went to Gulu, that's where we stayed for quite a few years.

Farah Awan

So you travelled around a lot as a child?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah so our holidays [were] to go and visit an aunty or an uncle. We would go altogether in a truck and we would go for a safari, like to a big water hole, have a picnic there and see the animals and then come back or maybe stay the night there. So lots of outdoor activities, being outside it was a very happy relaxed childhood living in an extended family in Soroti, but when we moved to these little towns where my dad was the manager of the bank we used to get a property from the bank where we could stay so then we were just ourselves just our own family me, my brothers and sister, and then my mum and dad. So all the extended family stayed in Soroti, so we ended up in Gulu and I did most of my schooling in Gulu like primary school and everybody knew everybody in the town and my dad, being the manager I think a lot of business people especially Asian businessmen and women they came to the bank and they knew they would get the loan and they would have a good relationship with my dad so he knew practically everybody in the town, like the hardware shop, the card shop, the groceries, they all came in and they had their business done with my dad. So, we were not famous, but he knew quite a lot of people. When we went into the town [there were] people who he would say hello to, and they knew who we were.

Farah Awan

How old were you when you went to Gulu?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I must’ve been about 7 years old, 5-7 I can’t remember exactly but we stayed [a] few years but obviously when I think back that was my most happiest [period of] childhood because we were just so free, climbing on the mango trees, playing outside in the garden. Weekends we were away on trips, lots of fresh food, and obviously we had a nanny, and we had a gentleman called Allison and he used to do all the housework for us, but he was part of the family, and the nanny was there because one of my brothers is disabled. So when he was born he was fine but when he was 10 months old he had a very high fever and he started having fits and within [a] few weeks I think something happened in his brain that he just stayed as a 10 month old baby, so his brain never developed. So my mum obviously needed support looking after him. So then we had a full time nanny and she was just lovely she would do everything with us and look after us, so we had a very close connection with her, and lots of family members coming and visiting and the climate was just so perfect. Everything happened outside, it was warm, we had a bit of [a] rainy season but we knew when the rain was going to come so we were prepared and then all of a sudden we had this expulsion that we had to leave.

Farah Awan

What was school like, do you remember much of your school?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah the primary school that I went was a very big school. So we had about 35 to 40 students in a class and we had rows of desks and we had benches, so we would share, we would sit very close and next to each other because everybody has to fit in the classroom. The standards were very high you had to really be doing your homework and questions were fired at you during the lessons and you go to put your hand up and answer them. So it was really fast-paced and you had to be very on board and do a lot of homework and do it on time. I had in particular a very good relationship with the maths teacher because I think he saw that I was good at maths, and he would kind of give me extra homework. So I formed a really good relationship with him and he would come out at lunchtime and he said “Oh how are you getting on? Would you like me to give you another extra bit of homework?” and so school was good, there were times when you didn't do your homework or you were late you had like a stick on your arm which was routinely [used] over there at that time. But we had swings in the garden so at break time we would take our packed lunch, we didn't have school dinners, but we would take lunch from home so we might have a chapati or mix vegetables rice or like the fried samosas. We would have it in our tin and then we would sit outside with my friends on the grass and just share our lunch and we would always offer things that you brought to your friends and share with them and then we would quickly eat and then we would like to have a turn on the swings so we would be extending the queue.

Farah Awan

Was it children who were also from Asian backgrounds that were at school or was it a mixed school?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I went to [a] mixed normal ordinary school where we had black Africans, Asians, white Europeans. So it wasn’t international school in any way, it was a very mixed school, so I saw a bit of everything when I was there. I guess Gulu was a very small town so they didn't have anything else that we could choose from, so we would have to go to a bigger town to go to an International School or English school, but the education was very good I must say and it was a happy atmosphere.

Farah Awan

Were your parents also born in Uganda?

Jyotika Bharkhada

So my dad was born in Uganda, his dad came to Africa I don't know when but they were invited by the British to work as tailors because they needed a lot of uniforms to be sewn for railway [rail workers], for police. So being tailors they were inviting people from India who were skilled in those areas. So that's why he came by ship to Mombasa from India, from Gujarat. So he’s originally from Gujarat and then from Porbandar they took the boat to Mombasa and then when they came to Mombasa they were given options and he ended up in Uganda, in Soroti. So that’s where he settled down because my grandad had other cousins and brothers who were there already with him. So they had a shop as well and they opened the shop and he was already married when he left India but every time he went back, he was backwards and forwards, and always the children came along, my uncles and aunties, so then he brought them all back to Uganda.

Farah Awan

So your grandad came over, he got married in Gujarat, did his wife come with him or did she stay there?

Jyotika Bharkhada

No she came later on with the kids because the thing was, I think they needed to settle first, so the men always went first and then they worked themselves [up], got a house, had a bit of money and then they would kind of call upon their families. So, when they came she brought all the children, so my dad's got three brothers and three sisters and they all came to Soroti, like I said he was the one who was most educated.

Farah Awan

And what about your mum’s side?

Jyotika Bharkhada

My mum was born in India and she had always lived in India but my dad’s family went to visit in India and then they saw my mum, through a family member, and then he said “Yes I want to get married to that girl” and they brought her to Uganda and then they got married in Uganda. So that's how she arrived in Africa but all of us, my brothers and sisters, we are all born in Uganda.

Farah Awan

It sounds like you had a really interesting childhood because you got to meet people from all walks of life, when you're in school, which sounds absolutely fantastic and also you’d have met, like you said, your father had quite a good network as well just like a really well networked family. And so, you said you studied in Gulu and so you were in Gulu when you got the news, what sort of happened then?

Jyotika Bharkhada

It happened in 1972 so I was 11 years old then. I’d just got into the juniors, from primary to juniors, when Idi Amin came to power and when he announced about this expulsion he gave them 90 days, he gave us 90 days. So at the beginning nobody thought it was serious enough, people just went on with their lives thinking that it’s going to pass it won't happen actually, but then after a few weeks and a month then people started panicking, and obviously as my dad was the bank manager there he started seeing that people were fleeing, collecting their belongings they had a lot of cash or they had jewellery, they used to keep a lot of jewellery in the bank boxes in those days and their valuable paperwork. So people started coming in and asking for it and asking for his advice “What do we do?” and he was just so much involved in that that he forgot actually that that he needs to do something about it as well and his brothers and sisters, they all had British subject passports so they started going to England. They started making those arrangements with his dad and he thought that he might be okay, he had a British passport but he had to give it up because he was a bank manager there so he had to get Ugandan citizenship because they said “Otherwise you wouldn't be allowed to do the job”. Although it was a British bank he still had to change his citizenship. So he did that and on the 85^th day, or something like that, he kind of then realised that we needed to do something about it. But on that day I was at school, school was still going on, part of the school was going on, so people were trying to live a normal life as much as they can. So I remember one day I was at school and we were sitting there and then we heard the gunshot and the teacher panicked and he said “I think there's something seriously going on” and there [were] so many gunshots then and then they just announced in all the classrooms “Please go home, the school is now being closed, it’s not safe so can everybody just go home” and there was such a panic, children just started screaming and running, and I was quite scared but that thought that they're going to come into the school with the guns, and these were men in uniform, and they were saying “muendi takko” “all the Asians go away go away” and I just started running back home.

Farah Awan

They came into your school?

Jyotika Bharkhada

They did. So that was my first encounter with what was actually going to happen, or what was happening, and what could kind of happen.

Farah Awan

Did they harm you or did they just shout it? Because I’m sure there were older children at the school.

Jyotika Bharkhada

Everybody just started running away they were firing shorts in the air, so they didn't actually kill any children. They didn’t shoot at any children but they were firing the shots at either the wall or up in the sky but that was really scary enough to kind of set off the panic in the whole school. The teachers had their compound houses so they just went in there and all the children just ran out of the school. So I remember running through the fields, there was a little field that you could cross through if you didn't to walk around the main road to go home or go to school. So I ran through the field and as I was coming into our compound, we had a house and there was a long drive and then at the back of the drive were the stairs to go up, so downstairs was the whole bank and we used to live on the top.

Farah Awan

So you lived above the bank, was it in a town?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah at the end of the town, so the high street, there was a long high street and at the end of the high street was our bank, and on top of the bank we used to live, and I needed to go through the drive around and up the stairs to be safe. And all my brothers and sisters were at home, I was the only person who was out there, and I was crying, I was running, I was panicking, I remember I wet myself because I just couldn't hold back anything, and I could hear the gunshots. I entered the driveway and I just could hear big boots running behind me and big steps and I just curled up and I could hear the shots, I curled up and all the way round like this, I put my head to my chest and started crying and running towards this driveway and I could hear a shot being fired which went straight above me and I could see it in the wall in front of me, where the cars were parked in the drive, and I just turned and I just ran upstairs and at that point my mum was at the door and she was completely shattered and she just thought because she could see from the balcony that they were shooting and I was running.

Farah Awan

Were they shooting at you or just shooting generally?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I think they were shooting to scare us.

Farah Awan

And these are army people?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah these are army people. He could have clearly shot at me because there was nothing in the way, but at that point I thought that somebody up there had looked after me, I could have just died then, I could have been hit by that bullet, that moment has always stayed with me and that's the scariest moment in my life and I've never ever experienced anything worse than that. So yeah I was safe. I went in and my mom was happy that I was safe and we were just all crying and my dad came upstairs from the bank, he shut everything, and he said “We need get out of this place now, it's become so unsafe” and he just didn't know what to do. But then he contacted his bank manager in Kampala, because Kampala had the headquarters, it’s the capital of Uganda. So he said to them, he got a phone call from them they said “Babu close the bank and just get out of Gulu, because we want you to be safe with your family” and at that point we thought “Yes, we have to leave this country, it is time for us to go” which we never ever thought that we would ever do this and it would never ever come to this point.

Farah Awan

How old was your dad at that stage or how old were your parents?

Jyotika Bharkhada

They were quite young they must have been in the 30s, they were very young.

Farah Awan

And up to that point what were your dreams and aspirations, where did you think you'd be growing up?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I’d always wanted to become a doctor or a teacher, but then obviously things do change, but because I was so good at school I thought “Oh yeah I can be a doctor”. So, my aspirations were quite high, but it was the lifestyle, we have never experienced that lifestyle anywhere else.

Farah Awan

So, what happened then? So, your dad made that phone call they said “You've got to leave”, you’re in Gulu so then what happened?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Then we just started packing. My mum packed a few bits and then my dad said “No we're not taking any of our belongings. I need to take what's in the bank safe” and my mum said “No but we can't” and he said, so in the safe of the bank there were big rifles and guns and there was lots of jewellery that other people had put in the boxes, and my dad said “It’s my responsibility to take this safely and give it to the managers in Kampala” and my mum just had to give in and so we couldn't take much. So they had lots of photographs that we left behind, we had lots of other belongings that we couldn't take. My mum just took a little bit of her valuable stuff, which was gold, and one bag of clothes, and then lots of blankets and things. But my dad took everything that was in that safe, he placed it all at the bottom of the car, and then he ripped up the seat and he put everything under there, everything from the banks safe, and then he put the blankets on it and then he put the car seats back. We had a big Volvo, he put all the seats back on there, and he said to my mum “Nobody gets up from here now. You just sit tight. If anybody asks you to get up don’t get up, don’t let them see what’s underneath the seats” and then we left in the evening. We packed quite late at night and then we thought we’d leave in the evening to not be around during the day, so we won’t be stopped on the way to Kampala. So we left quite late in the evening at 8:00 o'clock and then my dad drove all the way to Kampala, and that journey was quite scary as well because we were stopped at quite a few road crossings, and you could see these military people with their guns looking into the car windows and they’re asking my dad “Who's in the car? What have you got there? We want to check it” but we pretended we were sleeping. And my dad just had the seat next to him he would just lift that one to show them “Look” and obviously my brother who was disabled, I think it helped when he said “Look my son is disabled, I don't want to move him, he's sleeping” and when they saw him they would kind of let us go. So, we were saved by situations like that, and finally early morning we arrived in Kampala. So he drove straight to the Standard Bank compound [with] the car and he went inside and he went to see the manager and he said “Look I brought everything from the bank, all the papers, all the guns, whatever is in the safe, all the gold it’s here. My family is here with me, you guys need to help me now, I just don't know what to do” and I think that was on the 88^th day and by that time it had gone really really bad, lots of people were killed in villages, the riots had started everywhere, [the] British Embassy had closed their doors, they didn’t want to take anymore.

Farah Awan

What do you mean by riots?

Jyotika Bharkhada

African tribes, because the Asians were leaving and the houses were there, they were going in and taking their belongings, so they were tribal riots between…

Farah Awan

To try and get what was left over? [remaining belongings]

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah that’s right they wanted to get into the houses. So that was going on at the same time and it was quite scary, and my dad said to his boss “I just don't know what to do. You need to help me now. All my life I’ve devoted to the British bank, what can you do for me?” and at that point they said that they couldn't do anything for my dad, they said “I’m really sorry it’s just too late now”. Because he was a Ugandan citizen the British Consulate wouldn’t take him, they said “You’re not British anymore” and my mum had an Indian passport so she was Indian, so they said “We can do one thing, I think that you should take that on board” and he advised my dad, he said “Send your wife and your children to India. They will be safe and obviously you can stay here, and we’ll see what we can do for you, but this is the safest thing to do now”.

Farah Awan

Was the Bank manager also Indian?

Jyotika Bharkhada

So no he was white European, he was British. So my dad took that advice, they’d paid for our fare. So they got us the tickets, and mum and us five siblings we were going the same evening travelling to India, and the plan was that my dad would stay there. So when we left we didn't know where he was going to be, whether he was going to be safe or not. We got the ticket to go to Mumbai and from Mumbai to Gujarat where my grandma lives and we had seen her [a] couple of times.

Farah Awan

You’d flow to India before?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah, we’d flown there, we’d been on holiday, so we’d seen [there] but she's not that well off. So she just had one small room and a kitchen in a very small house. So we were going to go and live with her obviously she would keep us, but it was going to be a very different life for us as well.

Farah Awan

Because your youngest siblings must have been quite young as well at that age if you were only 11?

Jyotika Bharkhada

So youngest one was three years old.

Farah Awan

Your mum had to travel with five children?

Jyotika Bharkhada

With no money and not knowing what will happen to my dad.

Farah Awan

Did they not give you any money to travel when you went from the bank?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I think she had like £1000 or something like to get to the places, and travel, and remember when people were leaving, they were not able to take anything. At the airport they were stripped of everything, so the watches, the chains, the earrings, or whatever you were wearing, you were trying to put it on and when you go to the other side you were thinking that you could sell your watch and get some money. They were not allowed to take anything. So we had a couple of bags of clothes, obviously those were children’s clothes, my mum had a few saris and we left, and I remember crying, my mum crying, and it was an awful awful time but she knew that we would be safe there, she was taking us somewhere safe and my dad stayed on. And that same evening he said that he then went back to the bank manager and said “What should I do now?” and then he was advised to kind of rip off his Ugandan citizenship and go and see somebody at United Nations office as a refugee. So he went there and he stood in the queue to become a refugee and obviously when his turn came they accepted him as a refugee and the next day I think the whole lot who were left, I think it was on the 90^th day, the last flight that took off from Kampala with refugees, with United [Nations] refugees, they went to Italy, Rome. So they arranged all this and they were all Asians who were just left behind who couldn't go to any other country, so they became United Nations refugees and they went into the camp in Rome where they stayed for a couple of months and then they were distributed in Europe. So my dad then ended up going to Malta because they had a big army barracks in Malta which they converted into the refugee camp. So United Nations sent their people there and then they put all the refugees there and they started the process of resettlement from there. So he ended up there, so for two months, nearly two months, we didn't know what was going on with him because in those days you didn’t have mobile phone communication so it was just through letters…

Farah Awan

That you found out that he was in Rome and then Malta?

Jyotika Bharkhada

So, he wrote a letter to my mum and then he said, “This is what's happened to me…”. So for a couple of months we didn't know what was going on, whether he was safe or where he was, and I could hear my mum crying at night. Because I was the oldest, I could understand what was going on, whereas the other siblings were younger. So, I could hear her crying at night thinking about what was going to happen. The lifestyle we had in Africa was so comfortable, and then coming to India, although the climate was lovely and warm, but we didn't have any money, we didn't have anywhere proper to stay. Food and everything were different, no family, uncertainty about everything, yeah it was a very difficult time.

Farah Awan

Your life must have changed as well because I'm assuming you’d have had a lot more responsibility, perhaps than your siblings, or did you have someone to help you?

Jyotika Bharkhada

No we didn’t. My grandma, she was quite old, and she used to work for another household and then earn some money and then she used to live on [that]. So by having us all there it was a burden for her as well. So my mum had a few gold bits that she had with her, she started selling one item at a time and then getting some money so she could feed us. Obviously, I had to take a bit more responsibility with my disabled brother. So I used to look after him a lot, like I became mummy for him. He had to wear nappies, we had to feed him, we had to bathe him. My mum had other responsibilities, so she would go to offices to ask for some help, they used to do ration cards for people who were very poor in India at that time. So she would then go and apply for them and then she would bring the vouchers home and then she would ask me to go and stand in the queue. So, I remember standing in the queue with the vouchers and then they would give us a bag of rice or flour and I used to bring them home.

Farah Awan

What about the language?

Jyotika Bharkhada

We were speaking Gujarati at home so we had the language, but I couldn't read or write Gujarati because I never learned that and we learnt English in Uganda, and we had a bit of Swahili as well because we were speaking Swahili. so up until then the language wasn’t a barrier or problem but it became [one] when things turned around when we came to Norway.

Farah Awan

So, then what happened, how did you get to Norway? Your dads gone from Rome to Malta. You guys are in India, it’s been two months at that stage, so after what period did you got to Norway?

Jyotika Bharkhada

We stayed in India for nearly 14 to 16 months, my dad was in Malta. So then what the United Nations did they made profiles of each [of the] families who were there and then they would have the countries, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, they would all come to their offices, to the barracks, and they would select the families that they would like to take to their country and resettle them over there. So my dad had made this profile and Norway chose him as a family and they said that “We would like to settle this family”. So there were four or five families that were chosen from that group, and my dad, he was very honest, and he said “I would like to go to a country where they can help my son because my son is disabled and I want him to have a good life”. I know Britain, everybody wanted to come because of the language and you had a lot of family members here, but he knew he didn't have the choice and he thought Norway is closest to Britain and when I want to go and visit my dad and my brothers and my sisters I will be able to do that because Norway was so close, and also Norway said that “We have excellent facilities for children with special needs” so my dad said “I'm happy to go with you”. So he was chosen as a family and then he came in 1973. So when he came, I have got some pictures of him when he first arrived in Bergen, he loved to play tennis he loved his tennis in Soroti, in Gulu he used to play tennis in his free time, so his racket went with him everywhere it went to Rome, Italy and then it arrived in Norway in Bergen.

Farah Awan

And this is a photo of your dad meeting somebody in Norway? (See Photo 3)

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah his name was Mr.Olsen. So, he arrived on the 8^th of August in 1973, I think there is another picture here of him when he was first doing his paperwork in Norway. It’s quite a story for him as well.

Farah Awan

How did he spend the time in the camps in Malta?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Quite interesting that you ask that question, because being a banker and being able to do all the admin work, he used to do a lot of typing. He used to help families to do their application form. So, everybody would say “Oh go to Babu, go to Babu, he’ll do this for you”. So then he would fill in all the forms, he would write the letters, whatever they needed to do, because everybody had to make their own application, and he was brilliant at it, and obviously he made lots of friends there as well. So he used his skills wherever he went.

Farah Awan

That’s good so he kept himself occupied. So where abouts in Norway did he enter?

Jyotika Bharkhada

He went to Bergen. So, three or four families were going to be resettled in Bergen. So he arrived there and they were greeted [by] the official people there and they were allocated one person to a family and that person would look after and resettle them, so to meet them at the airport, to take them everywhere, and then they were staying in a hotel for like three or four months and then they would do all the paperwork and then bring their families. So, we didn't come to Norway until December 1974.

Farah Awan

So about two years after since you left Uganda, so what were your thoughts? When you found out that you were going to Norway, what were your thoughts at that point when your mom told you?

Jyotika Bharkhada

When we were told that he was in Norway, and we were soon to follow him it was quite scary. I mean it was exciting as well, but it was quite scary because it was so different. We hadn’t heard a lot about Norway, it seemed very very far away like at the end of the world, but he wrote letters to my mum saying a lot of positive things.

Farah Awan

What was he doing there?

Jyotika Bharkhada

First of all he was learning the language. So every evening they had a class that they had to attend and then they would do the class and the next morning they would be taken to a shop and they would use their words that they’d learnt, use the language whatever they’d learnt, to converse with the shopkeepers and then they were taken to different places in the town to show them that “This is where you buy your bread, this is the supermarket, this is what happens”. They had even a bit of free time as well together with other families, and one thing he wrote in the letter to my mum was to say that “Itt is very very cold and it snows here” and I remember when my mum said “It snows” I had seen snow in the mountains in Africa when we used to go on safari, I knew Mount Kilimanjaro had snow on it I’d seen it from far away, but I’d never ever had touched it, never knew how cold it was going to be, so I was kind of intrigued and I wanted to know “Oh my god we’re going to Norway to see the snow how wonderful”. So I was looking forward to that and we landed in December in Bergen and it was snowing on that day. I remember having my flip flops coming down from the flight, on the stairs, and my feet had no socks, just flip flops, and my feet when blue. So, it was cold, it was quite shocking, it was a different world for us. Completely different world.

Farah Awan

That was one of the first things you noticed the snow, then you noticed “Oh my god I’m so cold” gosh and then was your father there to greet you?

Jyotika Bharkhada

He was, with this gentleman as well, and I remember walking down the steps from the aeroplane and I just ran towards him. He was running towards us he had a nice long jacket and he looked quite well, that's the first thing I remember, and he gave us a very very big hug and we were all crying again, it was just too many tears, and he just [rushed] us into the terminal. He said “We need to get inside, inside everybody” because we were out there in the open on the ground and I remember then he [rushed] us in but because he wanted to greet my mum out there on her own, without us, and it was lovely to see them together…. always good to keep a tissue nearby.

Farah Awan

I’m weeping now, because you’re older then because you’re like 13 at that stage?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah I can still remember both of them greeting and hugging, they never wanted to be separated again. But we were then taken care of there were two people who were there, so there was a lady officer and there was this gentleman Mr.Olsen there, and they took us inside a warm room and then they had brought blankets for us and a few jackets and socks. So we put them on and we sat there and then they just took us to the hotel from there, so we stayed in the hotel for nearly three months.

Farah Awan

What was that like were there other refugees there, what about the language? What about your education, were you going to school? As well when you were in Gujarat?

Jyotika Bharkhada

We didn’t go to school at all when we were in India because my mum couldn't afford to pay the fees and obviously as she was doing other work, I was doing a lot of cooking and looking after my brothers and sisters. So school was an no-no in India but I did miss it because I felt that my aspiring ambition was now running away from me, I would never be able to study again. It was hard to think like that but then the priority was to be safe at every stage we thought. And when we came to Norway and we were in the hotel, with quite a funny incident in Norway, at breakfast we would get up and this lady would leave a big jug of milk and a big block of cheese and butter and we would pounce on it as we had never ever seen that before, you know because we had so little food in India. We would drink a whole big glass of nice cold milk kind of splash a lot of butter on our bread it was just like eating healthy stuff and apples, we hadn't eaten apples for nearly two years. We would have a whole apple each and I would kind of tease my brothers and I said “Look a whole one, I got a green one you got a…” so we had a really really good time and they really looked after us and I felt that in Norway they had a plan for how to settle the refugees. They had a really good plan, what to do, how to do it, so we were allocated a person called Sigrid and she is a big part of my life, she was a big part of my life sadly she's left but she, Sigrid Signa, would come to us and teach us Norwegian. She would be with us all the time, with my mum and us when my dad was learning other skills, and she would come with us to the supermarket, she would take us to the schools, she would introduce us in the schools, and she would literally be with us four/five hours a day and show us everything. And the main thing was to learn the language and it was really really difficult because Norwegian is a completely different language, I think it’s a bit like German, but we knew we had to learn to speak it.

Farah Awan

What were the people like and the culture, things like clothes?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Norwegian people were really really gentle. They were so nice in the shops when they took us to buy clothes they would make us select, they would say that “You need to buy warm socks and coats”, so the ladies would come and try it on us and then they would touch our skin to see whether we were actually brown. They’d never ever seen [a brown person] and they would speak to us in English, because all the Norwegians speak English as well, they would say “Oh this is such a beautiful colour, you’re so pretty” and they would touch our hair because we had long black hair, they had never ever seen anybody with dark skin and black hair and dark eyes, but they were very gentle, very welcoming, very kind of soft and touchy.

Farah Awan

And speaking English. You’ve gone from speaking Gujarati all the time now to speaking English again and learning new language.

Jyotika Bharkhada

We were picking up language very very quickly because it also happened practically as well. We were taken everywhere and very soon we were put in the schools, they found this nice school for us, and then we stayed in the town, in Bergen. They got us an apartment and I think the first couple of years they paid the rent, they got us clothes and then they were retraining my dad. So as a bank manager he obviously wanted to work in a bank there but because he couldn't speak the language, he couldn't get the job. So he was trying very very hard to learn the language as soon as possible, but obviously we couldn’t survive with the money that we were given and he felt really embarrassed and he said “No I'm going to find myself a job” and he got himself a job in a factory, because he could only speak limited [Norwegian], in a steel industry steel factory because obviously he couldn't work anywhere else, in a shop or office. So, he found himself a job in a factory where he didn't have to speak but he could do the job in the steel industry, where they were making steel plates which they use for Coca-Cola tins and things. So they were making large steel plates and he went for an interview there and they offered him a job, although he couldn't speak [Norwegian], but they said that they’d still offer him a job but he had to do night shifts. So my mum was devastated she said “You've never ever worked at night, how are we going to live? We have to stay on our own at night, it’s a very hard job it’s a physically hard job” and my dad said “No I’m not going to rely on the state to support me I'm going to work and I'm going to get myself a job and I'm going to give it a go and I'm going to try” and he did and he was very happy, he was very content, and the money he got we were able to get a few more bits for our home and get a car. We could buy a car and then he took driving lessons and then obviously we got a car and then we could kind of travel, we could do our shopping in the car. So, we were bettering ourselves as time was going on but he just wanted to work in the bank again, he said “That is what I'm skilled in and I want to go back” and he never stopped trying and because of his ambitions there was an article, there was a local newspaper who was so intrigued by his commitment to become a banker again. This says that “17 years practise as a bank manager but he's not going to give up, he still wants to work in Bergen bank”. (See Photo 4)

Farah Awan

Seems like a really determined man, so they’ve done a whole feature on him?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah and they did a little feature on us, that’s me there, that's my mum.  (See Photo 5)

Farah Awan

So that’s your mum, that’s you, that’s two of your siblings?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah two of them are missing and then two of them are there, and they did a little article on how we do our prayers. So they wanted to know a little bit about the culture as well and how we were settling in Norway, and how our life had turned around from being a refugee to becoming a citizen.

Farah Awan

So, you’ve got everything set out for your prayers on the sofa. So that must have been different again, going from [having] a specific area to adapting another area for prayer. And that's your sister and brother? (See Photo 2)

Jyotika Bharkhada

That's my youngest brother, that’s my sister.

Farah Awan

How did you find with the different culture keeping your faith? It must’ve have been really different, were you the only Hindu family at that stage or did you have a network?

Jyotika Bharkhada

There were a couple of Hindu families there, but it was hard to keep in touch and to keep the culture going because it was a new environment, it was completely new. We didn't have any temples, we didn't have any worship place that we could come together, so we would meet in each other's home and then we could kind of share our food or do the prayers, or if there was a religious day we would come together and share the meal and talk and do it [on] a small scale.

Farah Awan

So you made your own community and were these Indian families or were they Ugandan families?

Jyotika Bharkhada

They were more Ugandan families because there was a mixed culture, so they were not all Gujaratis. So we had Sikh, we had a couple of Bengali families, there were more Sikh families, couple of Gujaratis and we had a couple of Vahora muslims, they speak Gujarati but they are a slightly different culture. So we used to all come together like maybe once a month and then share concerns.

Farah Awan

This was not your prayer group this was something else?

Jyotika Bharkhada

No this was like a social event so we could keep in touch with our own culture and food and if my dad knew anything then he would share that piece of information with others or vice versa which was very very useful for everybody and that kept us going. But we got involved with the local community as well, here's the picture of my brother, I think he was in a play to become a Father Christmas, so he’s made himself a mask and we never knew what Father Christmas was because we'd never celebrated Christmas in Africa, but Christmas in Norway was a big thing and here they are doing the nativity play. (See Photo 1)

Farah Awan

Was it easier for them to amalgamate into Norwegian culture or did you all find it easier? Or was it hard because you’ve gone from [being] someone whose had such a carefree time, then you’ve taken on a lot of responsibility. So what was it like when you went back to school, did you still have that level of responsibility, were you able to harness those ambitions?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I think was easier for my brothers and sisters because they were younger, they could be moulded into [it] and they loved the Norwegian culture. They were in it actually, being part of the Christmas play and making all these puppets in school.

Farah Awan

They were less aware of the disruption that had happened, how was it for you?

Jyotika Bharkhada

For me it was a little bit different because I still had the responsibility of looking after my brothers and sisters and I could see my parents struggling with the money and the lifestyle, and remember it was a whole new different word for us, so the language was new, the culture was completely different, the climate was hard, and we didn't have much money. We didn't have that comfortable live, we had to do everything ourselves, we didn't have anybody who could do anything for us. And obviously my mum, when my mum saw my dad was working so hard and doing the night shift, she thought that “I should go to work as well” and women in Africa, I mean in Asian culture in Uganda women never worked, they were leisurely at home looking after the children and cooking.

Farah Awan

Because in those countries you have to do everything from scratch as well you can’t go to a shop and buy a bag of flour, so I think housework was a lot more time consuming.

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah but I think women never needed to work over there as well because it was a bit like men were earning enough, or they had the businesses, so they had the leisurely life. But when we were struggling, she saw all the Norwegian people go out to work and she said “I’ll join them”. So she started learning the language and she picked it up quite quickly and she said to Signa “Help me to find work, I want to work as well” and then she got an interview and she was working in a factory where they were making fishing nets. So she was sewing the nets, so the trawlers would go out to fish and they would come back and the nets would be broken or torn, so they would come to this factory straight away that late afternoon and the factory workers had to sew all this holes in the net and then they would take it back again. So she did that job and she loved it, she made a lot of friends and she picked up her Norwegian really quickly.

Farah Awan

A little bit of independence from her time outside the house, learning the language. So then she’s changed so what’s happening to you at that stage?

Jyotika Bharkhada

So, when she went out work then there was more responsibility on me. So I had to drop my brothers and sisters to school, especially the youngest one he used to go to nursery, which is called Barnehage there. So I used to drop him to nursey in the morning and then when I was back I used to go pick him up and then make dinner, make the chapatis.

Farah Awan

What about school though?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I used to study in the evenings.

Farah Awan

Did you go to school?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I went to school; I loved school there. I loved to go and they quickly picked up that I was good at maths and I did my O-Levels there, very good results, and I went to study A-Levels there as well. So I did Maths A-Level, Chemistry, and Norwegian, and the funny thing was that in Norway you have to learn two types of Norwegian, one is called Norwegian and the other one is Nynorsk, which is a dialect of the language, and you had to give exams in both subjects and you would not believe [it] but in my class I was the one who got the highest mark in Nynorsk. And my teacher would just not believe it, she said, “Being a foreigner and you have scored the highest mark in Nynorsk” and she was so pleased that she put me forward to the assembly and it just kind of made me feel proud of myself after all this.

Farah Awan

You should be, but also, you’ve been [there] only three or four years and your getting top marks. So how did you feel, what did you decide to do then? So, the world’s your oyster, you’ve got you’re A-Levels.

Jyotika Bharkhada

I was very ambitious I wanted still to become a doctor. I did my A-Levels, 3 A-Levels, and I think I was about 20 years old after my A-Levels, I came to England.

Farah Awan

What made you come to England? So, before we get here during this time you said you’d built up this wonderful Norwegian community, had you visited England, or did you keep in touch with all your family?  Because all your father’s siblings were here. So how did you keep in touch with them, did they come and visit or did you just talk over the phone?

Jyotika Bharkhada

We talked a bit over the phone, but we used to come and visit to my uncles and aunties.

Farah Awan

You used to come to England?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah we used to come to England and obviously when there was a wedding in the family or there was occasion in the family we used to come. So we used to take turns to come, mum would come with a few of us, two siblings, or my dad would come with a few of us. So we used to come and keep in touch with them and we enjoyed our time over here in the summer holidays in August. We [would] spend a couple of weeks with our family and then we would go back and they would come and visit us in Norway as well, and they loved the country, they said “This is such a peaceful nice country and it's so open, lots of greenery, lots of mountains, fresh air”

Farah Awan

Similar to your childhood but colder.

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah, lots of healthy food. There was one thing that we missed a lot in Norway, it was our Indian food, you couldn't get the Indian vegetables and we were vegetarian before but when we went to Norway and we couldn't get the Indian vegetables my dad started making chicken and he said to us “Because it’s so cold in this country you have to eat fish and chicken now” and we had to eat it. So that was hard, that change was really hard. My mum never ate anything she refused, she blankly refused, she said to my dad “I’ll live on tea and chapati with just yoghurt and rice but I cannot eat [meat]” but then we started getting a few more vegetables like cauliflower and carrots and potatoes and remember this is in the 70s and the 80s and Norway wasn’t that developed at that time, it was quite remote over there. So, when we used to come to England, we used to love our vegetables and curries.

Farah Awan

All the Indian food and you’d have all the Indian shops I imagine at that stage.

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah, things had started opening up a bit more here as well at that time in the 80s you used to have the Thai shops in those days, and you had the local grocers and I think there were Indian restaurants by that time.

Farah Awan

Is that why, what made you come at the age of 20 after finishing your A-Levels, what made you come to the UK?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I just met my husband here.

Farah Awan

You’d met him on one of your holidays?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah I met him on one of my holidays and I was staying with my uncle and he came with his sister, and they saw me, and they asked my uncle and he said “Oh this is my brother’s daughter she's just come from Norway, she’s finished her A-Levels and she's going back because she wants to study” and the next day I had a proposal from them, they were saying, because not completely arranged marriage but an introduced marriage, and my uncles said “Oh she's going back”. I was going back the next day and when I came back the following year they waited for me, he waited for me, and my uncle said, “Oh she’s here now” and we went out a couple of times and we just clicked, and yeah same year we got married.

Farah Awan

When you were 20?

Jyotika Bharkhada

21. So my ambition of becoming a doctor then went out the window but I was quite happy, I was very happy that I met somebody that I could share all my life with and being the eldest in the family I felt like I had to set an example, I had that pressure.

Farah Awan

Of getting married young? Or was it the case you had to show that you've moved on from like all those difficult times or was it that it was just traditionally done for a young lady in your family to get married when they were like 19 or 20?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I think it was just showing that I'm doing the things in the right way, like education, I thought to myself if I wanted to, I could educate myself a bit later on and when I met him, he said “Oh I'm all for studies, you study if you want to” that’s what his comment was at that time. So I thought “Okay I can still go to school even if I’m married, but I do like him and I think I want to share my life with him, and I want to be with him”. So that's brought me to England, I did ask him “Would you like to move to Norway?” and he said “No”, he had been there a couple of times but he said he would find it really really difficult to learn the language and without the language I don't think there is any progression job wise, I mean in any country you go to you have to learn the language, you have to be part of the community, you have to integrate.

Farah Awan

Otherwise, it’s difficult. And when you came here, because we are sort of coming now to the point where you resettled and before we finish off, did you still keep in touch with the people you met growing up in Norway or did you lose touch with them? What happened to the families that used to meet, the community people?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah most of the people who moved to Bergen as refugees they've all stayed there, nobody's ever moved away because they've just settled there so well, and they’ve been looked after so well, and they've just been so content, and they’ve loved being there. Their children have obviously grown up, they’ve got grandchildren now, some of the children have moved to the bigger cities like Oslo. They’ve got good jobs, some of the children have I think moved to America, but most of the families have stayed there. My mum and dad are there, my two brothers are there, my brother who is special needs has got a lovely lovely place where they look after him and he's like 52 now but he's so happy there. y second brother he became a geologist, and he works on an oil rig for an oil company, so he’s got a good job.

Farah Awan

And then your [dad]?

Jyotika Bharkhada

My dad eventually became a banker.

Farah Awan

This is what I wanted to know!

Jyotika Bharkhada

He eventually got a job and he worked for a Norwegian bank, Den norske Bank, and he was a banker until he retired. So he worked for quite a few years there, it must have been like 16 years.

Farah Awan

How old was he when he retired?

Jyotika Bharkhada

He was 68, I think.

Farah Awan

So how long ago was that?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I can’t remember now, so he's 85 now.

Farah Awan

And him and your mum?

Jyotika Bharkhada

My mom is retired now as well.

Farah Awan

What did she go into in the end?

Jyotika Bharkhada

She did her job in the factory and then when she could speak proper Norwegian she went for an interview, and she worked for their Royal Mail. So it was kind of sorting out the post office, she used to do afternoon shifts sorting out all the post, because she could then read proper Norwegian and write and speak as well.

Farah Awan

So, they’re fully integrated there. So that’s your parents, and [your youngest] brother?

Jyotika Bharkhada

He came to study in England, and he settled in England here and he’s become a banker here.

Farah Awan

Wow following in your father’s footsteps. So, you’re the oldest, there’s your brother who’s a geologist, then came your sister?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Yeah, she got married and she moved to England as well, so she lives in Chelmsford now with her family, and my 4th brother is obviously in a special needs home, and my youngest brother who became a banker after my dad, has moved to England. My oldest brother he lives in Norway with his wife and my mum and dad, and my mum and dad actually live on an island called Sotra. They’ve got nice big house, seven-bedroom house, so we all go on holiday many times a year everybody’s there. I've got three daughters, their families, my granddaughter, they all go and visit them all the time. So we kept in touch with the family, all my friends, I have got one very special friend who I did my A-Level studies with, her name Anne, she married a Cypriot guy and she moved to Cyprus. We did our studies together and when my daughters got married she came to the weddings, and when her children got married we went to see her in Cyprus and we are very very close friends. She speaks Norwegian, she speaks Cypriot, I speak English, Norwegian so when we all together we have a really good time. Our dear friend Signa who looked after us all these years from when we first arrived in Bergen we kept really close contact with her and sadly she passed away at the age of 90 a few years ago, she had a beautiful family and a lovely lovely home on the island called Stord and she used to take us there every year and she made us so proud. She would introduce us to her family and she would visit us once or twice a year in Bergen, she's been to my home here in England, she came to my wedding, she saw me off on my wedding day, I was so emotional that she's taken that time and she always said to me that “I'm just so proud to see you settle and become such a beautiful person”. She said she was “So fortunate to be working with us as a family” she was a very good dear friend of us, we keep in touch with her family and last year, I wasn't there, but all the families, the Ugandan families had a gathering and Mr.Olsen, he arranged to have a gathering celebrating 50^th years of Ugandans refugees, and they all had a really nice get together.

Farah Awan

So your parents have still kept their Ugandan links, any Ugandan in-laws? Your husbands from Kenyan so there’s that African connection.

Jyotika Bharkhada

I have got the African connection. So I think I’ve got a picture of them they’re all together obviously they’re all old in Bergen but he was there [Mr.Olsen], he’s been that glue, and they had a nice meal together and they thought about all the families, they spoke about all the past times and the present and how the families have moved on, and how Norway has supported all the refugees who settled there.

Farah Awan

It sounds like your journey, over 10 years, your life totally changed. You went from being an 11 year old girl with no cares in the world to being somebody with so much responsibility and then going to a new country, learning a new language, and having the extra responsibility, getting married.

Jyotika Bharkhada

I sometimes think “What would have become of me if I’d stayed in Uganda? What would life have been or who I would have been?” I wonder that sometimes, but I think whatever happened, happened for the best.

Farah Awan

And I always think we are where we are meant to be at each and every moment in our lives. And just before we finish off recording, Jyotika and I started off our conversation about being content, so are you content?

Jyotika Bharkhada

I'm very content. All along I think I had a happy journey, and a rough journey, I had a turmoil in my life but the journey that's been through all my life has been a very learning journey for me. I've learned a lot, like you say, you become the person who you are after going through these things, all these experiences and yeah, I'm very content and I'm very happy now and I'm very proud to be who I am as well. Born in Uganda, I’m proud to be a Ugandan, born in Uganda but being Indian of origin and holding [a] Norwegian passport living in [the] UK, being very international.

Farah Awan

Jyotika before we finish is there anything else you’d like to share for those who are listening today?

Jyotika Bharkhada

Just thank you for listening to my story and being part of my journey, thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk it's been great. Like I said to you before I haven't spoken this much, in this length before, I had a few conversations with the families at times about Uganda, about Norway settlement, but never talked in a conversation like this in a way that my journey has taken me through.

Farah Awan

I feel very special. We're going to get a tissue box out again. Just before we finish recording I just want thank you so much Jyotika for her time and thank you so much for listening.