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Leaving Home 3Mr Siddique’s Adventures 5Some History 11Traditional Stories 14Missing Home 22Language 29Interview 34Returning Home 36Puzzle it out 40

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punjab to pollokshields


LEAVING HOMESince the nineteenth century, people from many different countries have been coming to the city of Glasgow, to work and to make their homes. They’ve brought with them skills and traditions and cultures that have enriched the city’s quality of life. Without its citizens whose roots are in Ireland or China, Italy or Poland, India or Pakistan Glasgow would be a duller city. And, of all our different immigrant peoples, none is more interesting than those who came from Punjab.

Punjab is the name for the land around the valley of the river Indus in the North West of the old Indian sub-continent. For thousands of years, it has nurtured important civilisations. Since 1947, it has been a divided territory, the border between India and the newly created Pakistan separating East Punjab on the Indian side from West Punjab on the Pakistani side.

There were a few people from the Indian sub-continent in Britain in the early part of the twentieth century, but it was only from about the 1950s that they arrived in greater numbers. In Glasgow, a high proportion of these travellers were Punjabis. They gravitated towards areas where perhaps a pioneering countryman had gained a foothold, areas like Gorbals, Govanhill or Pollokshields. Nowadays, Pollokshields, in particular, is home to a vibrant Punjabi community.

Why are you leaving?

Discussion – Group

Think about the idea of emigrating, of pulling up your roots and travelling half way across the world. In your group discuss:

(1) Why people might leave their own country and go to live in another one? Why might they have to go? Why might they choose to go? Think of as many reasons as you can, and one person in the group make a list of what you come up with.

(2) Why might Punjabi people have chosen Glasgow, and why a particular area like Pollokshields?

When you have done this, the whole class can hear the suggestions from each group. Then have a look at the quotations from Punjabi migrants and their descendants.

I was about fi ve and a half, six years old when I fi rst came to Glasgow. My dad had come over years before that. He had been called over by his uncles. Mrs Hanif

They would always know somebody from back home who had come before them. Mrs Aslam

Down in Punjab we had to work very hard the whole day on the farm, just to make a living. So Britain was much better for life, to make a life and future. Mohammad Siddique

My father was born in 1909 at the time there was British rule of India. So, he was born British, in part of the world that was regarded as part of Britain. That was why he got a British passport in 1944. Anyway, the British Nationality Act of 1948 granted UK citizenship to people of the old colonies. A. Khan

My father arrived penniless in this country in 1963. He was friendless and alone. He had already survived the long and terrible clashes between Hindu-Muslim during his journey from India to Pakistan after Partition in 1947. He found a home in Glasgow, a city he fell in love with because it was right next to the countryside. When he was secure enough, he revisited Pakistan to marry my mother and bring her back to Glasgow to raise a family. B. Wazir

My grandfather passed away when my dad was only fourteen. So from a very young age, my dad was working. He was about eighteen when he got the opportunity to come here. His mother had worked very hard to get the money so that he could go. Mrs Aslam

My mother’s father arrived in 1949. At home the farms didn’t have technology at that time. All the work was done by hand. Labindar Sekhon

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4 ‘There is nothing here for you,’ my grandfather would tell me. ‘We are farmers, and as the land belonging to me will get passed down from generation to generation, from father to son, eventually, it will get divided up so often, there will be hardly enough left to go round and you can’t grow or build new land.’ With this thought in mind, he worked hard to get my father the visa he required to get him to the U.K. Charan Gill

I came here about forty years ago. Back home was good, but I had to come because my husband was here. Mrs Ahmed

And of course when other people in the village heard that somebody was going, it would be wow! This person’s going away. They’re going to Great Britain and then, when they arrived, they were sort of defl ated because life probably wasn’t as magnifi cent as they had probably imagined it. Zeab Ahmed

I was nineteen and a half when I came here after I got married. Although my mother’s relatives were here, I was very sad. Mrs Iqbal

On 15 August 1947, the day after independence from Britain, the Indian sub-continent was divided into India and Pakistan. In the upheaval, many people on both sides lost homes and jobs or businesses. Who Belongs to Glasgow?

It was the period of post-war labour shortage... and many Asian people were encouraged to come to Britain by the government. Who belongs to Glasgow?

Glasgow Corporation Transport was then desperately short of staff. The wages were quite good for the time but the shifts worked made the job unpopular at a time when there was no shortage of other work in the city, and so the transport department was pleased to welcome the extra labour provided by the immigrants. Who belongs to Glasgow?

During the 60s, medical staff from Pakistan were recruited for the newly formed National Health Service. Over 7,000 Pakistani doctors currently work for the NHS. Offi ce of Statistics

I came here in 1992 when I was twenty one. I had just fi nished my Masters at university in Pakistan and I came here and got married. At that time my husband owned his own restaurant. Shabnam Iqbal

Demobbed soldiers, mostly from Punjab and Gujarat, settled in Britain from the early 1900s. After World War Two, there was a huge demand for unskilled labour, so those who had already obtained a foothold in Britain encouraged their male relatives to come to join them, guaranteeing them work and support. History of Punjab


5MR SIDDIQUE’S ADVENTURESI was born in East Punjab, at the time when the whole country was India and it was part of the British Empire. In 1947, by the struggle of so many of our leaders, we managed to get a separate Pakistan. After the division was made, many Muslims from India migrated to Pakistan and Sikhs and Hindus travelled the other way.

We lived just about one hundred miles to the east of Lahore, so the day after the announcement was made on 14th August 1947, we migrated to Pakistan, on foot. I was eight years old at that time.

We took two days. The fi rst night we stayed in India and the next day we crossed the border into the district of Narowal. Hindus and Sikhs were going in the opposite direction – towards India. People were saying that there was terrible fi ghting between Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims, so we stayed there at a small railway station for twenty days. So many places were dangerous; there was so much looting and murdering going on. But, by the grace of God, we were safe and sound because my father had his four brothers with him and their sons and also their cousins, altogether about sixteen or seventeen men. When they saw this group of strong men, nobody came near us. And then we went about thirty or forty miles in fi fteen days, still meeting folk travelling to India. So we caught a train out of Narowal to Montgomery District, as it used to be called, after Lord Montgomery. Now it’s called Sahiwal. I had an uncle there in Montgomery, so that’s where we settled down.

We were a farmer family and that’s how we lived in Sahiwal. I went to school right up to high school and when I was in the tenth class, my mother died. After that, I was disheartened about school – it was about ten miles from the village – so I left.

At that time it was so easy to come to Britain. A friend just had to send you a plane ticket. It was diffi cult to make a living on the farm, so I made the decision to go to Britain. Once I got the plane ticket, I travelled from Sahiwal by train to Karachi. That took about twenty four hours, and I stayed another couple of nights before I got a KLM fl ight to London.

When I arrived at Kings Cross, it was Christmas Eve. From there I took the train to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and went to my friend’s house.

About two or three months I was there looking for work. But there didn’t seem to be many jobs. Mostly down there, they were doing the door business, you know – you take a case of clothes and sell them round the doors. My friends gave me some lessons in what to say at the doors, so I gave it a try for a short while. Then a friend that was working in Rochdale told me about the cotton and woollen factories, so I went over to Rochdale to see if I could fi nd anything. Again I was about two or three months looking for a job, but eventually I found one in a wee cotton factory.

It was a spinning factory and I was a warehouseman working with the skips of bobbins and yarn that came in and out. The wage was £7 a week. After some time there, I got a job in a bigger factory, a woollen factory, in Rochdale, working with the maintenance engineers. That lasted about a year or so, and then it was, ‘fares please!’ I was a bus conductor on the Rochdale buses. After about a year and a half, I was able to give up the ticket machine. I passed the driver’s test and became a bus driver. That was all the jobs I did between 1960 and 1968. Then I went back home to Pakistan.


For three years, I was a Punjab farmer again, working with my brother and my cousin. It was good to be home, but then, after that three years, the U.K. drew me back again. I was briefl y back in Rochdale, before I travelled South to join some friends in Maidenhead (near Slough). Once again, I made my living as a bus driver.

After two years behind the wheel, I headed for London. There was quite a big Pakistani community in the Whitechapel area of London, so I moved down there and soon I got a job in Euston station as a sleeping car attendant. The train went from Euston to Glasgow Central and sometimes right up to Inverness. I had a really good time at that job. Once we got to Inverness, we had one night and a full day before the return journey. I enjoyed myself around Inverness, going fi shing with friends.

At that time, I had a few friends in Glasgow who were planning a trip back to Pakistan. When I heard they were going to drive the whole way, I said, ‘I’ll come with you too.’ So, with my friends helping me to keep an eye out for a good deal on the second-hand market, I bought a Landrover, a 1968 model, for £350.

We told a mechanic we knew that we were travelling by road to Pakistan, so he did a good service on it, a very nice job, and gave us some spare parts in case of an emergency.

We travelled to Pakistan between 1975 and 1976. It was a wonderful journey that lasted about four months. First of all, we went down to London, and from there down to Dover and across in the ferry to Belgium. Then we got the Landrover going and drove through Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, Russia, Afghanistan right up to the Khyber Pass and into Pakistan. Home once again.

For the next three years, the Landrover was good for travelling about the country. I went back to visit people in the village we had stopped in when we were crossing from India in 1947.

But after three years I got rid of the Landrover and once more headed back to Britain, this time to Edinburgh, for a very short time. I didn’t settle there. After about fi ve months, I moved to Glasgow, and a friend who was based here helped me get a loan so that I was able to buy a fl at and a shop in Paisley George Street.

So that’s where I started business in 1981, running a grocery shop. It went well enough for me so that I could sell the fl at and buy a semi-detached house in Albert Drive, Pollokshields. It was a nice house, with an apple tree, a pear tree and a plum tree. Once I was established, I went to Pakistan and brought my wife over.

By 1990, we had two children, one in Primary 1 and one in Primary 2, and, in that year, we sold the house, and returned home once again to Pakistan. This could have been the end of my travels. Twelve years went by and my children completed their schooling and then went up to college. It was there that they found out from their teachers that they could go to the U.K. because they were British, and that there would be more opportunities for them there.

So it was my children that pressed me to make the journey back to Britain once again after being away for twelve years. I told them, ‘alright I’ll go fi rst and get settled and you can come after me.’ Once again friends in Glasgow helped me to fi nd my feet. I started working in a friend’s Cash and Carry in Calder Street, Govanhill. They also helped me to get funds because there were restrictions like I couldn’t get a mortgage because I wasn’t on the Voters’ Roll.

After a while I bought a house in Clifford Street and my older boy and girl came over. When my wife and my other kid joined us one year later, we were able to buy a house in Maxwell Road, Pollokshields – and that’s where we are now!

It’s a very nice community. For Pakistani people, everything is there - the mosques, the shops with everything you need, something for everybody.

I’ve enjoyed all my journeys. In fact, I’ve really enjoyed my life.

Will I ever go back to Pakistan again? Yes, when I can save the money. I would like to go and see all my relatives again. But now all my own family is here and they see it as their home. So I’ll have to come back!

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MR SIDDIQUE’S JOURNEYCalculation – Pairs

Mr Siddique and his friends made a really bold and adventurous journey from Glasgow to the Khyber Pass and Pakistan across Europe and the Middle East. They had to watch their costs by picking up a sturdy second-hand car as cheaply as possible. They would also have had to work out how much the trip was going to cost them in petrol.

In your group/pair can you work out (roughly) how much the petrol would cost if they were doing the journey now.

• What will you have to get from a map?

• What do you have to know the price of?

• What do you have to know (or estimate) about a Landrover?

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Maybe I should have stayed at home

Diary – Individual

People arrived in Britain with expectations that they could earn a better living than they had at home in Punjab. But it was often very tough to begin with. Mr Siddique talks about having no job for two or three months and then trying his luck as a door to door salesman. In 1960s Glasgow, it was quite common to see Pakistani men going up and down closes with suitcases full of things like shirts and blouses and socks. It was a hard way to make a living, particularly when you couldn’t speak the language very well. Sometimes they would leave a shirt or whatever ‘on approval,’ meaning they would give you it and you could pay for it next time they were round, or give it back.

Imagine Mr Siddique is keeping a diary to record all his experiences and feelings so that he can perhaps write his life story later on. He would write as if he was thinking aloud or as if he is talking to a friend – like: What a day! Imran! It’s dead easy, he says. Just give a wee knock on the door and say, ‘Good, Morning, Madam, I have some very fi ne things for sale today ...’

Write two entries:

Day 1 – His fi rst day going round the doors with the suitcase.

• What made him make up his mind to try it? • What training did his friends, Imran and

Amjad, give him? • What phrases did they tell him to use at the

doors? • A couple of examples of what actually

happened.

Day 2 – The day he decides to chuck it.

• How was he feeling as he picked up the case in the morning?

• What happened in one of the closes? • What was the last straw?

Be inventive. Make it as real as possible, maybe with bits of the actual conversation at the doors, or details of some of the things he is trying to sell.

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Give us a Job

List, Discuss – Group

Mr Siddique has had a number of different kinds of jobs in his working life. Here are some other mentions of fi rst jobs people did when they arrived from Punjab.

My dad worked as a bus conductor when he fi rst came here. Mrs Hanif

His fi rst job was selling dishcloths and brushes out of a suitcase round the Glasgow schemes. B. Wazir

When we fi rst came my husband worked in a factory and then he got a job on the buses. Mrs Ahmed

My husband owned a restaurant. Shabnam Iqbal

My dad worked on the buses in Huddersfi eld. Then he came to Glasgow and became a qualifi ed butcher. Mrs Aslam

My dad worked in a steel foundry for two years, then as a crane driver. My mum worked in a factory as well. Labindar Sekhon

My father came from Punjab and studied Agriculture in Leeds University. Later on, he came to Scotland and bought a farm on the outskirts of Perth where he bred poultry. He was also building up a business in Glasgow, processing the poultry. Finally, we moved to Glasgow and gave up the breeding end of the business. Khurshid Khan

In your group, make a list of all the jobs mentioned here and in Mr Siddiqie’s story. Then:

1. Put a cross at the jobs you think people coming to Glasgow wouldn’t do now, or would be unlikely to do.

2. Make a note of any jobs not in your list that new-comers to the city in 2010 might quite likely do.

I didn’t know how life would turn out when I fi rst arrived in Glasgow with my mother and three brothers back in October 1963. My father had come over a few years before us and got himself a job driving the buses. Charan Gill

My dad worked going from house to house with a suitcase, also in a factory and as a bus conductor. First he was in Huddersfi eld, then he came up to Glasgow and opened a shop. Shabnam Amin

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Dying Trades

Discussion – Group

Look at this list of jobs and trades and mark the ones you think don’t exist (or are very rare) in Glasgow now. If you can, say why this is. You may need to look at a dictionary for some of them.

chimney sweep

home help

radio engineer

fourteen year-old apprentice baker

hangman

computer programmer

shorthand typist

meter reader

washerwoman

mounted policeman

tawse manufacturer

telegram boy

joiner

cooper

morse-code signaller

manicurist

lamplighter

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SOME HISTORY

The British Raj

Britain and other European countries began trading with the Indian sub-continent in the seventeenth century. Gradually Britain ousted its main rivals (France and Portugal) and, through the British East India Company, took control of the sub-continent’s rich trade in precious minerals, spices, tea and textiles. At that time, the sub-continent was a collection of rival states ruled by powerful princes. British policy was to play one state off against another by forming Indian armies whose soldiers they recruited and trained. By the nineteenth century, Britain was in full control of every aspect of Indian life. As the century went on, resentment increased among the Indian people. They had many reasons to feel this way. For one thing, their own industry was prevented from developing by the needs of Britain. Indian cotton and other raw material was exported to Britain and then India had to import British manufactured goods.

In 1857, the Indian army rose in revolt against their British masters, only to be crushed in the most brutal manner. After that, Indian was ruled directly from London, and lived under the occupation of the British army. This was the period known as the British Raj (rule).

Partition

In the twentieth century, Indians struggled for many years under the leadership of Mahatma Ghandi and M.A.Jinnah before they gained independence from British rule. In 1947, it came with Partition, a word which simply means ‘division’. Mr Jinnah’s Muslim League had campaigned for a separate state for Muslims.

So the modern countries of India and Pakistan were created, with a division that ran right through the state of Punjab.

Pakistani Punjab is a province whose capital is Lahore, while on the India side Punjab is a state whose capital is Chandigarh. When the two new countries were created in August 1947, thousands of East Punjab Muslims migrated to Pakistan, and similar numbers of West Punjab Hindus and Sikhs migrated to India. There was terrible violence and atrocity on both sides and many people lost their lives.

Another Partition

Find Out – Groups

In 1921, the Partition of Ireland took place. Can you fi nd out how many similarities there were between what happened in Ireland and what happened in India? For instance:

• In what way was Ireland’s relation with Britain similar to India’s?

• When Ireland achieved independence, why did it not remain one country?

• What was divided in a way that was like the fate of Punjab? The part of the U.K. called Northern Ireland is sometimes called Ulster, sometimes ‘the six counties’. If you study the map of Ireland before Partition, you’ll see that there were four ancient Provinces, one of which was called Ulster. But it contained more than six counties. Can you fi nd out where the new border cut through the old province of Ulster and which counties made up the ‘six’?

• As with the division of Punjab, people were divided in a certain way. What was the similarity?

• In what way was what happened between the people on different sides of the Irish border very like what happened after Punjab was split up?

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Choose a Name

Acronyms – Pairs

There are different theories as to how the name Pakistan came about. One is that it is made up ‘pak’ (meaning pure) and ‘stan’ (meaning land) and therefore means ‘land of the pure’. Another story is that it is made up of an acronym from Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Indus-Sindh plus stan for land. Can you see what the word ‘acronym’ means? Other examples are:

• TESOL = Teaching English (to) Speakers (of) Other Languages.

• NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard, describing people who object to industrial developments near where they live.

• SCUBA in ‘scuba diving’ = Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

Suppose the name of your school was formed by an acronym. What could it have been? Try to make one up. If this is too diffi cult, use the shortest of your own names. If you’re very good at acronyms, try to make it a phrase or a sentence rather than just a list. For example:

Khan = Kind-hearted and noble

Smith = Strongest man in the Highlands

Glasgow = Green land and sunshine guaranteed out west.

These are sometimes called Backronyms, because the names weren’t really invented this way. But never mind!

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Sweep of History

Timeline – Pairs or Individual

The Indian Sub-Continent is partitioned into India and Pakistan.

The Golden Age in the Sub-Continent (4th – 6th Century) – great achievements in Science, Engineering and Astronomy.

Pakistan wins the World Cricket Championship.

Ghandi and Jinnah lead campaign for Indian independence.

3000 years BCE: fi rst major civilisation of India in Punjab area.

British Army fi rst enters India. Period of British Raj begins.

1. Try to put these six events or periods in the correct time order.

2. Now design a time line to illustrate the historical sequence. Draw a symbol or a simple illustration for each of the six points. For example:

• A fl ag or a map outline can be used in at least two cases.

• Ghandi was famous for leading a non-violent protest – his fi gure is well known.

• In the Golden Age, the mathematicians invented the decimal system.

• The early civilisation depended on the river Indus and its tributaries.

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TRADITIONAL STORIESEvery region of the world has its own traditional stories, told from generation to generation, and usually existing in different versions in different areas, as local storytellers add their own details or make up a new ending. It’s possible that stories have travelled from one country to another, because when you hear a story from say Iran or Africa or Russia, it often seems to have echoes of stories you’ve heard here in Scotland. Or maybe it’s not that they travel, more that similar ideas occur to storytellers throughout the world. Most stories are eventually written down by storytellers like Hans Christian Andersen or Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

The Demon

Once upon a time there lived a man called Sher Dil. He was a rich man with acres of farmland and so many heads of cattle he did not know what to do with them. So Sher Dil had engaged a hundred servants to work for him. But Sher Dil was at heart a miser. He hated to spend money feeding the servants and paying their wages.

Sher Dil’s wife Gulabo was his exact opposite in temperament. She was patient and good natured and very wise. Whenever Sher Dil grumbled about expenses, she rebuked him saying that the servants worked hard for them throughout the year. Hence there was nothing wrong in paying them their deserved wages. On the contrary Sher Dil should be grateful for all that the great Lord had given them. But her words of wisdom had no effect whatsoever on her ill tempered, miserly husband.

One day Sher Dil sat down to do his accounts and sure enough, he soon started grumbling about the expenses that the servants incurred. He said that he would employ only one person for all the work. However, his wife protested. Sher Dil had the wicked idea of employing a demon instead of several human beings for the work. The more he thought over this idea, the more he liked it. And Sher Dil made up his mind to visit a sadhu who granted boons to people and put an end to their troubles.

It took Sher Dil two days to reach the sadhu’s hut, situated in the middle of a forest. The sadhu sat deep in meditation. At long last he opened his eyes and asked Sher Dil what he had come for. Sher Dil bowed his head and expressed his desire. The sadhu granted his wish. He picked up a stick, closed his eyes and murmured something. Then he drove the stick into the ground. Next minute a thin stream of smoke began to emerge from the top end of the stick. Slowly the stream increased in volume till it became a small cloud, rumbling like

thunder. And out of the cloud stepped a huge, blue-coloured demon as tall as a pipal tree. He looked so fi erce that Sher Dil felt like running away. But somehow he stood his ground. The demon roared and asked why he had been summoned. When the sadhu explained the cause the demon roared again and enquired whether Sher Dil knew the terms of his employment. He must be kept busy throughout the day and night. The moment he fi nds no work he will eat up Sher Dil.

Sher Dil burst out laughing and said there was so much of work that he wouldn’t have a minute to spare. Then he instructed the demon to take him home. The words were hardly out of his mouth when the demon snatched him up, tucked him behind one ear and went fl ying across the sky. Afraid of rolling off, Sher Dil clutched the demon’s ear with both hands and peeped over it. The earth appeared like a tiny multicoloured ball. Sher Dil closed his eyes for fear. Then suddenly the demon began to descend like an egg thrown up in the air. He touched down at Sher Dil’s own doorstep. Sher Dil scrambled off and ran to see his wife. Bursting with excitement he showed his wife what he had found.

Before his wife could say anything in reply, Sher Dil had sacked all his servants and sent off the demon to plough the land. Then he yawned, stretched himself and lay down on his bed for a nice little nap. Sher Dil was in the middle of a rosy dream when someone grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him hard. As he opened his eyes he saw the demon towering over him. He was asking for more work. Sher Dil could not believe his ears. So many acres of land, ploughed up in less than a quarter of an hour! He climbed to his roof and looked around to be sure the land had been ploughed as far as the eye could see. Then he ordered the demon to get some manure and mix it with the soil, sow the seed and water the fi elds.

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The demon disappeared and Sher Dil went back to sleep again. But he had barely snored a couple of times when someone shook him again, harder than before and again asked for work. By this time Sher Dil was quite irritated and told him to raise a fence all around his land. The demon left but Sher Dil did not go back to sleep again. From his kitchen window he watched the demon fetch a pile of wood and some tools. His hands fl ew as one stick after another was cut and shaped and driven into the ground. Before Sher Dil had fi nished his evening cup of tea the demon was back again.

Sher Dil sent him off to empty out their pond and fi ll it with fresh water from the river. Night was falling when the demon returned to say that the work had been done. In despair Sher Dil asked him to rest but the demon laughed, a horrible, croaky laugh saying that he never rested. Sher Dil picked up courage enough to say that he wanted to rest till the next morning. In the meantime he asked the demon to guard the fi elds so no wild animal could get in and trample down the seed.

The demon went away but Sher Dil could not sleep a wink. Just before dawn he woke up his wife and in a tearful state shared his problem. Gulabo comforted him and asked him to leave everything to her discretion. As soon as the sun peeped over the horizon, the demon began to hammer at the door. ‘Work,’ he yelled. Gulabo opened the door a crack and peeped out. Then she came out of the door. She asked the demon to straighten the tail of a stray dog that often came there looking for food.

The demon bent down, caught the dog’s tail by the tip and gave it a good jerk. The tail straightened out. But the moment he let go, it curled up again. The demon caught the tail a second time and stroked it for a good fi ve minutes. But the moment he let go, the tail curled up again. With a frown on his face the demon caught the tail for the third time, rolled it up the other way and held it in

position for some time. As soon as he let the tail go it curled up again, back to its original shape.

All this time the dog had been watching patiently as the demon fi ddled around with its tail. But suddenly it lost its patience. With a bound it was up and barking at the demon. Round and round they went, the demon dodging and ducking and diving at the tail and the dog snapping and snarling and threatening to bite. This went on for hours. In the end the demon got fed up of trying to catch the dog. He admitted to himself that he couldn’t do the assigned work. But he was thoroughly ashamed of himself at the same time. He had no courage to face the family. So off he went to hide in the forest that he came from.

With the demon gone, Sher Dil and his wife began to live in peace once again. Sher Dil took back all his servants and gave them a solid feed to start with. And never, never again did he complain about the amount that he had to spend on their food and wages.

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TRADITIONAL STORIESThe Bear’s Bad Bargain

ONCE upon a time, a very old woodman lived with his very old wife in a tiny hut close to the orchard of a rich man, – so close that the boughs of a pear-tree hung right over the cottage yard. Now it was agreed between the rich man and the woodman, that if any of the fruit fell into the yard, the old couple were to be allowed to eat it; so you may imagine with what hungry eyes they watched the pears ripening, and prayed for a storm of wind, or a fl ock of fl ying foxes, or anything which would cause the fruit to fall. But nothing came, and the old wife, who was a grumbling, scolding old thing, declared they would infallibly become beggars. So she took to giving her husband nothing but dry bread to eat, and insisted on his working harder than ever, till the poor old soul got quite thin; and all because the pears would not fall down! At last, the woodman turned round and declared he would not work any more unless his wife gave him khichrî to his dinner; so with a very bad grace the old woman took some rice and pulse, some butter and spices, and began to cook a savoury khichrî. What an appetising smell it had, to be sure! The woodman was for gobbling it up as soon as ever it was ready. ‘No, no,’ cried the greedy old wife, ‘not till you have brought me in another load of wood; and mind it is a good one. You must work for your dinner.’

So the old man set off to the forest and began to hack and to hew with such a will that he soon had quite a large bundle, and with every faggot he cut he seemed to smell the savoury khichrî and think of the feast that was coming.

Just then a bear came swinging by, with its great black nose tilted in the air, and its little keen eyes peering about; for bears, though good enough fellows on the whole, are just dreadfully inquisitive.

‘Peace be with you, friend!’ said the bear, ‘and what may you be going to do with that remarkably large bundle of wood?’

‘It is for my wife,’ returned the woodman. ‘The fact is,’ he added confi dentially, smacking his lips, ‘she has made such a khichrî for dinner! and if I bring in a good bundle of wood she is pretty sure to give me a plentiful portion. Oh, my dear fellow, you should just smell that khichrî! ’

At this the bear’s mouth began to water, for, like all bears, he was a dreadful glutton.

‘Do you think your wife would give me some too, if I brought her a bundle of wood?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Perhaps; if it was a very big load,’ answered the woodman craftily.

‘Would – would four hundredweight be enough?’ asked the bear.

‘I’m afraid not’ returned the woodman, shaking his head; ‘you see khichrî is an expensive dish to make, – there is rice in it, and plenty of butter; and pulse, and –’

‘Would – would eight hundredweight do?’

‘Say half a ton, and it’s a bargain!’ quoth the woodman.

‘Half a ton is a large quantity!’ sighed the bear.

‘There is saffron in the khichrî,’ remarked the woodman casually.

The bear licked his lips, and his little eyes twinkled with greed and delight.

‘Well, it’s a bargain! Go home sharp and tell your wife to keep the khichrî hot; I’ll be with you in a trice.’

Away went the woodman in great glee to tell his wife how the bear had agreed to bring half a ton of wood in return for a share of the khichrî.

16


Now the wife could not help admitting that her husband had made a good bargain, but being by nature a grumbler, she was determined not to be pleased, so she began to scold the old man for not having settled exactly the share the bear was to have; ‘For,’ said she, ‘he will gobble up the potful before we have fi nished our fi rst helping.’

On this the woodman became quite pale. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘we had better begin now, and have a fair start.’ So without more ado they squatted down on the fl oor, with the brass pot full of khichrî between them, and began to eat as fast as they could.

‘Remember to leave some for the bear, wife,’ said the woodman, speaking with his mouth crammed full.

‘Certainly, certainly,’ she replied, helping herself to another handful.

‘My dear,’ cried the old woman in her turn, with her mouth so full that she could hardly speak, ‘remember the poor bear!’

‘Certainly, certainly, my love!’ returned the old man, taking another mouthful.

So it went on, till there was not a single grain left in the pot.

‘What’s to be done now?’ said the woodman; ‘it is all your fault, wife, for eating so much.’

‘My fault!’ retorted his wife scornfully, ‘why, you ate twice as much as I did!’

‘No, I didn’t!’

‘Yes, you did! – men always eat more than women.’

‘No, they don’t!’

‘Yes, they do!’

‘Well, it’s no use quarrelling about it now,’ said the woodman, ‘the khichrî’s gone, and the bear will be furious.’

‘That wouldn’t matter much if we could get the wood,’ said the greedy old woman. ‘I’ll tell you what we must do,–we must lock up everything there is to eat in the house, leave the khichrî pot by the fi re, and hide in the garret. When the bear comes he will think we have gone out and left his dinner for him. Then he will throw down his bundle and come in. Of course he will rampage a little when he fi nds the pot is empty, but he can’t do much mischief, and I don’t think he will take the trouble of carrying the wood away.’

So they made haste to lock up all the food and hid themselves in the garret.

Meanwhile the bear had been toiling and moiling away at his bundle of wood, which took him much longer to collect than he expected; however, at last he arrived quite exhausted at the woodcutter’s cottage. Seeing the brass khichrî pot by the fi re, he threw down his load and went in. And then – mercy! wasn’t he angry when he found nothing in it – not even a grain of rice, nor a tiny wee bit of pulse, but only a smell that was so very nice that he actually cried with rage and disappointment. He fl ew into the most dreadful temper, but though he turned the house topsy-turvy, he could not fi nd a morsel of food. Finally, he declared he would take the wood away again, but, as the crafty old woman had imagined, when he came to the task, he did not care, even for the sake of revenge, to carry so heavy a burden.

‘I won’t go away empty-handed,’ said he to himself, seizing the khichrî pot; ‘if I can’t get the taste I’ll have the smell!’

Now, as he left the cottage, he caught sight of the beautiful golden pears hanging over into the yard. His mouth began to water at once, for he was desperately hungry, and the pears were the fi rst

of the season; in a trice he was on the wall, up the tree, and, gathering the biggest and ripest one he could fi nd, was just putting it into his mouth, when a thought struck him.

‘If I take these pears home I shall be able to sell them for ever so much to the other bears, and then with the money I shall be able to buy some khichrî. Ha, ha! I shall have the best of the bargain after all!’

So saying, he began to gather the ripe pears as fast as he could and put them into the khichrî pot, but whenever he came to an unripe one he would shake his head and say, ‘No one would buy that, yet it is a pity to waste it.’ So he would pop it into his mouth and eat it, making wry faces if it was very sour.

Now all this time the woodman’s wife had been watching the bear through a crevice, and holding her breath for fear of discovery; but, at last, what with being asthmatic, and having a cold in her head, she could hold it no longer, and just as the khichrî pot was quite full of golden ripe pears,out she came with the most tremendous sneeze you ever heard–’A-h-che-u! ‘

The bear, thinking someone had fi red a gun at him, dropped the khichrî pot into the cottage yard, and fl ed into the forest as fast as his legs would carry him.

So the woodman and his wife got the khichrî, the wood, and the coveted pears, but the poor bear got nothing but a very bad stomach-ache from eating unripe fruit.

From Tales of the Punjab by Flora Annie Steel (1847 – 1929)

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Pass the Story on

Storytelling – Groups

1. Half of the groups read The Demon, and the other half The Bear’s Bad Bargain.

2. In each group everybody tries to fi x the main points of the story in their minds. Run through it together until you know it quite well.

3. Divide the story up into equal chunks, so that each group member can get to know a bit very well.

4. Now the group tells the story to the rest of the class, each person telling their own part and then passing the story on. You don’t have to remember the exact words; in fact, it’s fi ne to use your own words. Try to keep the thread of the story going. If you forget what happens next, other group members (or people from another group) can prompt you.

New Ending

Storytelling – Groups

1. Each group makes up a new ending for their story. In The Bear’s Bad Bargain, the new ending should come after the man and woman have eaten all the khirchi; in The Demon, after ‘As soon as the sun had peeped over the horizon, the demon hammered on the door’. Be inventive. Think up a few details; don’t just end the story right away.

2. The class should now vote on what they thought was the best ending for each of the stories – the original or any of the new ones!

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Bringing Stories to Life

Improvised Acting – Groups

• Each group acts out the story they have read. Improvising means you get to know what happens in the story and then you act it out without learning lines.

• There can be four parts in each story. There are three characters and the storyteller. First of all decide who will take each part.

• Work out what bits the storyteller says before the characters come on and start the acting bits (‘the scenes’). Keep the storytelling bits short. A lot of things can be acted out even if nothing is being said. Maybe the storyteller just tells us that a long time has passed or where the scene is happening.

• Try doing the story in the group fi rst and then, any group that is confi dent can act it out for the class. Have fun with it. Use your own words. If you improvise, the story might develop in a different way from what you were planning.

Promises

Writing a Story – Individual

Make up your own story in which a promise is made, and then a diffi culty arises when one character expects the promise to be kept and the character who made the promise has a problem. In writing your story, try to hear your own everyday way of speaking, as if you’re with a friend. Try to get that into the story. It’s also good to have some characters speaking as well as the narrating (storytelling) bits. Good stories have confl ict in them; that usually means that one character wants to do something and another wants something completely different. Once you have written your story, read it to the group. If you are confi dent enough, you can read to the whole class.

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Bogeymen

Discussion – Group, Class

In folklore or folktales from almost anywhere in the world, one of the most common ideas is that demons or ghosts will get you if you do something bad. Two people in Pollokshields remember examples from Punjab. Both see the stories as examples of parents trying to warn children not to do something.

In your group, discuss anything you remember being told about bogeymen or witches when you were young. And consider whether you think it is a good method of getting children not to do something.

One of the most common fairy tales that the older generation used to tell the children was about spirits in the trees. They would tell them that they were never allowed to go under a tree and peepee there. When the children would ask why, they would say because there’s a ghost in that tree and it will go inside you and possess you. That was where the spirits lived they would say. Would you like it if someone came and did that outside your house? The children always believed them, and that’s how they learnt never to peepee under a tree. Mrs Aslam

20 In summer time, in school holidays we went to my grandfather’s village. They had fi elds there, full of things like mango trees. We always wanted to go up there and pick the mangoes. But in summer it was very, very hot and my grandfather and aunts would say, ‘no, no! Don’t go up there at this time because there are witches there!’ After twelve and through the afternoon, it was so very, very hot out in the fi elds and that was why they told us witches would catch us if we went out there. Mrs Iqbal


21


MISSING HOMEThe experience of moving to another country is different for different people. For some, it might be an exciting adventure, for others something they do to make life easier. For many, there is little choice. At some time or other, most people have a longing for the home they left behind. If the feeling is very strong and the person becomes sad, we usually call the feeling ‘homesickness.’

In the beginning, I got homesick because there was not much of an Asian community here, and not too many Asian houses. It was only Scottish people here. The Asian people who were here were quite far away. Mrs Ahmed (1)

They had to travel quite far to fi nd the vegetables they used to eat at home. There weren’t many shops here either. So it was quite hard in the beginning to adjust. Mrs Ahmed (1)

Where they lived it was an open space, and they were also living in an extended family, and so there would be people coming and going all the time. And then, when you came here you were living up a close. In your own house, within in your own four walls. So there was a feeling of being alone. And they didn’t have that in Punjab. Zeab Ahmed

I miss my brothers and sisters and my parents. Mrs Aziz

My father-in-law was here, and my husband was born here. My father-in-law was very sick at that time because he had asthma. There was no treatment, so the doctor advised him to go back home because of the sunshine. So he went home and he never came back here. He threw away his passport. He was so fed up. Honestly! He told us he never saw sunshine here and the days were always so dark days. Mrs Iqbal

I think the main thing was the rain! Even these days, when rain comes, I feel horrible. Honestly! Sunshine is really good. Mrs Iqbal

There was fi rst of all a language barrier. I didn’t know English at all, so it was really hard for me. Socialising wasn’t possible. It was really hard to explain things. If I went out, I found it really hard to explain to the shopkeeper what I was looking for – why I was in the shop basically. Mrs Ahmed (2)

The kind of vegetables you were used to, you didn’t get here at the time. They just weren’t available. When I arrived at fi rst, I lived in Govanhill. There were one or two Asian shops in the Gorbals. So it’s quite a distance away. People didn’t have cars, so you would have to go on the bus. It was mostly the men folk who would go to get the groceries – halal meat, that wasn’t readily available at the time, and things like coriander you couldn’t get, so that was hard. Mrs Ahmed (1)

Staying indoors was the most diffi cult thing for me. I would describe it as a jail. Because over there, there was more open spaces and you were free to do things. It was more or less like you were in a jail. Mrs Aziz

It takes a long time to get used to the new environment. And you don’t know whether you’re coming or going, because language-wise you’re not a hundred percent sure, because obviously your fi rst language back home is Urdu or Punjabi. Shabnam Iqbal

But in our home, we were always asking in our minds – why are we alone. Our husbands are at work all day, and we are sitting at home alone, doing nothing and going nowhere. Mrs Iqbal

Yes, living in a fl at was the most diffi cult thing. Because in Pakistan, we are used to living in open places. In a big courtyard. The one thing I thought when I came here – I don’t know why it got fi xed in my mind – but when I looked at these fl ats, I thought these fl ats are going to collapse on me one day. Honestly! My fl at was in Leven Street – three streets from here. Mrs Iqbal

My dad used to come home and do the cooking because my mum couldn’t adjust to the gas. She just couldn’t switch it on! Mrs Hanif

For a good few years, my mum was like, ‘Oh we don’t like it here! We want to go back home’! I vaguely remember my dad would take us down south to where my mother’s brothers lived and we would stay with them for a few weeks and then we’d come back. We’d be stuck in the house practically, most of the time. Mrs Hanif

22


Punjabi Food

Practical – Whole Class, Groups

Writing – Individual or Groups

Some of the people mention how diffi cult it was to get the foods they were used to when they fi rst came to Glasgow, coriander seed for instance. Other spices used in Punjabi cooking are: fenugreek, turmeric (haldi), ginger (ahdrak), cumin seed, chilli pepper. Special vegetables would be okra (lady’s fi nger or bhindi), aubergine and some of the gourds such as apple gourd (tinda). They would also use garlic and onion.

In some areas of the city, these ingredients are now easily obtainable, and even the supermarkets stock a range of spices nowadays.

• Get volunteers from the class to bring in samples of the spices. They’ll keep for a long time, so you can wait till the collection is ready.

• If you can get a mortar and pestle, you’ll be able to crush some of the seeds.

• Each group should have a selection of the spices. As a group, you have to write down a description of each spice:

- what it looks like (colour, shape, size, texture).

- what it smells like.

- what it feels like (this might include weight in the case of ginger, whether hard or soft in the case of the seeds, what it sounds like (this would be the seeds as you pour them on to a plate, or as you chew).

• what it tastes like (after crushing in the case of the seeds, and peeling in case of the ginger).

- It might be best to avoid the chilli powder, because it is very hot and if you get it on to your fi ngers and then into an eye, it will sting. If you use it, be very careful.

- With the turmeric and ginger, taste tiny amounts. Be careful not to get any turmeric on to your clothes, because it can leave a yellow stain. If the class has a discussion beforehand about how to avoid these problems, you can decide the best way to organise the project, perhaps what you’re going to taste the spices with and so on.

• Your word description can use adjectives, or comparisons (‘it felt like...’), or any words or phrases that help you to convey the sensations.

• Write down all the phrases and sentences used

in the group. Then, a selection of these phrases can be displayed on the wall underneath samples of the seeds – maybe in small sachets or stuck on to the sheet.

23


Punjabi Vegetables

Still Life – Individual

• For this assignment, you need to get a hold of some Punjabi vegetables and arrange them on a bowl and place them in the room so that, if possible they are well lit by natural light.

• It would be best if you could get a selection that would provide different colours, shapes and surfaces, perhaps okra, aubergine and some gourds or mango.

• Now try to do your own artwork to capture your sense of the vegetables. Maybe you could use paint, or crayons. It would be good if you could mix colours to try to get as close as possible to how you see them. Can you do anything to convey the way the light touches them?

• Perhaps you could make a photograph. Then you would need to decide how to get the best effect by thinking about the angle you take the picture from, how close you want to be, and anything else you want to include in the frame of the picture (hands? nothing? classroom surroundings?)

24


25It’s alright for men

Debate – Groups, Whole Class

Some people talking about problems they faced when they fi rst came to Glasgow from Punjab, suggest the experience was different for men and women.

• In groups, think about the typical way the immigration was arranged: men arriving fi rst, fi nding a job and so on, women staying at home looking after the children.

• Now, try to prepare an argument saying that men got the better deal or women got the better deal. You have to think of as many points as you can – relating to before they arrived, after they arrived, and so on.

• Then the class has a debate on: ‘Coming to this country was easier for men’. You have to speak in favour of it or against it.

• The class should appoint a chair person (or would the teacher do?) who controls the debate by making sure the same number of people speak on each side of the argument, and by making sure there are no interruptions when somebody is speaking.

• You can decide to have groups with all boys and all girls. Or you can have mixed groups, and decide that some have to prepare an argument for the motion and the others have to prepare an argument against – no matter what their own opinion is! This can be a good exercise for making you look at all the different points.

• When the group is preparing their case, they can think also about the roles that men and women have in this country even if they are not immigrants.

• At the end of the debate, a vote is called to decide which side has won the argument. You should vote for the side you think made the best points, even if you don’t agree. How likely is that?!


Hills of Home

Poem (or thoughts) – Individual

Imagine you have recently arrived from Punjab and you are walking down a street in Glasgow in 1960. You remember walking in the village in Punjab a few months ago and it seems so different.

Try to write down all you can observe at the present moment:

• It’s raining.

• There are four storey tenements on either side of the road.

• You’re walking on a tarmac pavement.

• You’re alone.

• What else do you see? Shops? What are they selling? What aren’t they selling? What do the words in the windows mean?

• People standing at corners. What are they doing?

• What can you hear? People talking? What language are they using? On the roads ? In the distance?

• What can you smell?

Now try to recapture the day you remember in Punjab:

• It’s sunny,– you can see a lot of sky.

• What other farm sights are there?

• What is in the distance?

• What’s near you ? Trees? Flowers (Roses, Jasmine)?

• Who is with you? What are they saying?

• What else can you hear? Birds? Insects? Farmyard sounds?

• What can you smell? Flowers? Farmyard smells? Smoke from the wood burning under the stove?

You can write this as if you are thinking aloud, just like a stream of thought. You could try it as a poem, which would mean using lines that are not too long and cutting out some of the small words you would use if you were writing full sentences, e.g.

I’m walking along a road that’s hard and black and my feet splash into cold pools of water from the heavy rain. Might become:

Walking on a black, hard road, my feet splashing into cold rain pools.

26 Punjab:

What can you hear? People talking? What language are they using? On the roads ? In the


How are you getting on?

E-mail – Individual

Back in the sixties, people communicated by regular letters. If it was an emergency, they sent a telegram. But you can try this assignment as if you were using e-mail. This time, instead of thinking about the situation of people from Punjab forty or fi fty years ago, imagine you and your family have just emigrated to America or Australia or moved over to Spain for the good life in the sun.

You are e-mailing your friend back home about how you are getting on. Now imagine it really hasn’t gone very well. There are big problems with the house ‘including where it is’ you haven’t made any friends, you can’t understand what people are saying and they can’t understand you, people aren’t very friendly, your mother and father don’t seem to know what to do or where to go, the sun is too hot, there are bugs, at night you hear noises you don’t like, at school, they seem further ahead than you. And anything else you can imagine! You are really missing your friends, the old main street, the cafe, playing football or hockey or going to the swimming baths on a Saturday, even your old teacher and the cool, Glasgow rain.

Now write your e-mail. But, you don’t want to admit all this to your friend after your big send off. So turn it all around, and give him/her all the details as if everything is great. And ask him/ her if he is still going to that same old cafe and if the weather is still as miserable as ever, and so on. Maybe writing the e-mail will help you to cheer up!

27


28

Gurmukhi scriptShahmuki script


LANGUAGEThe main language spoken in both East and West Punjab is Punjabi. In West Punjab, some people also speak Urdu, a language closely related to Punjabi. But Punjabi is the language you would mostly hear spoken among Asian people in Pollokshields.

When Punjabi is written down, it looks strange to people whose language is English, because whereas English uses the Roman alphabet, Punjabi is written mostly in Shahmuki script (West Punjab) or Gurmukhi script (East Punjab).

The same is true of Urdu. When the Roman alphabet is used to write these languages, different writers might use slightly different spellings for the same words.

Listen to the audio clip. The two speakers are both fl uent in Punjabi. But, because their Punjabi dialects are a bit different, they can most easily communicate in Urdu.

In your groups, try to learn some of these Urdu phrases by saying them over and testing each other. When you think everybody has mastered a few phrases, you can have an inter-group competition. Just for fun! Remember, the only way to learn to speak a language is to try it without worrying about getting it wrong.

NOTE: There is an audio clip accessable viathe one place website. 29

What’s Your Name?

Learn some Urdu – Groups

Hello Assalam-o-Alaikum Goodbye Khuda hafi z What’s your name? Aap ka nam kiya hai? My name is Hu mera nam /mera nam How are you? Kiya hal hai? I’m fi ne, thankyou Teek a shukria / Aap kesay hai Do you speak Punjabi? Aap Panjabi bool sakte hain? Yes, a little Jee, thori si One ik Two doe Three teen Four chaar Five panch Six chay Seven suth Eight utt Nine noh Ten dass


I Don’t Understand

Sign Language – Groups

Some of the people in Pollokshields, thinking back to their fi rst days in Glasgow, recalled how diffi cult it was to buy things from the shops because they spoke no English. In your group fi rst of all, see how far you can get with sign language. As the people said, it is before the days of the supermarket, so you have to communicate with the shopkeeper.

• Remember you don’t know the English word for what you want, so you can’t say ‘rhymes with’ or act out a bit of the word as you would in charades.

• Just try to communicate what it looks like (size, shape, colour) and what you do with it. So you should work out a series of actions, things you point at and so on before you start. If they can’t get it, you could perhaps change the rules and nod when they make a good guess – even though you’re not supposed to understand the language!

• Don’t make it too easy or too diffi cult. These might work well: a red pen, mushrooms, washing machine powder. Would something like decaffeinated teabags be too diffi cult? Think of your own examples.

• When everybody has tried one or two, choose which you think was the best one and try it with the rest of the class.

30


I Don’t Understand – Again

Cartoon Strip – Individual or Pairs

Suppose you’re one of the farming people who left home to come to Britain. On the plane, you meet someone who speaks English but no Punjabi, whereas you speak Punjabi but no English. You understand that he/she wants to know why you are leaving Punjab to go to Britain. This time you try to communicate by drawings.

• Make a cartoon strip. Draw the frames – four, fi ve or six boxes.

• Do very simple drawings (like matchstick fi gures) and signs to communicate:

- work on the farm was very hard

- you couldn’t make enough money to go round

- you’re going to Britain to fi nd a job

- you’ll save some money

- when you’ve got enough, your family will join you.

• If you are very good at this, you might be able to communicate that you are going to Glasgow because you have friends there!

31


Do you speak English?

Debate – Groups, Whole Class

It would be a better world if there was only one language and everybody spoke it.

You can organise this debate by asking who agrees with this statement (the motion), and who doesn’t. If you’ve got a good number on both sides, that’s fi ne. If not, you could say let’s divide the class into two – one half must be for the motion and the other half against. That way you get practice at looking at the other side of an argument.

• Form groups where everybody is on the same side of the argument.

• Brainstorm. That means the group sits round and says any point that comes to mind.

• Somebody in the group makes a note of the points as they come up. Just use a word or a phrase to remind you what it was.

• The group picks the best points and puts them in order so that they have a speech ready for the debate.

• Then conduct the debate with the whole class participating and speakers from each side taking turn about.

• Some clues:

• it’s very hard to learn a foreign language

• some people in other countries can speak three or four

• you can communicate far better in a language you know well

• it’s fun trying another language

• different languages cause misunderstandings

• it would be boring if there was only one language

• we could learn other things if we didn’t have to spend time on languages

• different languages are different ways of looking at the world

• some people can’t pronounce strange foreign sounds

• it would never last – people in different places like to make up their own way of saying things

• it would save so much time in international meetings

• Whatever points you make, it’s good to give examples – maybe some words you know in another language, words you perhaps like the sound of, or fi nd hard to say.

32


Welcome to Glasgow

Design, Language Investigation – Individual, Whole Class

There are many different languages spoken in the City of Glasgow. This project is about creating a poster that says Welcome to Glasgow in as many of these languages as possible.

• Individually, sketch an idea for the design of the poster, including spaces to add the words Welcome to Glasgow in all the different languages.

• You might draw something in the middle that stands for Glasgow. It could simply be the word ‘Glasgow’ in a decorative way. Or maybe, the city’s coat of arms – the tree, the bell, the bird and the fi sh. Or maybe your drawing could suggest ‘Welcome’ rather than ‘Glasgow’. Or maybe, your own original idea!

• The class votes on which design they like best and then transfers it (or asks the designer to copy it) to the centre of a large sheet of paper which can be put on the classroom wall.

• The spaces are fi lled when somebody hears of another Glasgow language and fi nds out how they say Welcome to Glasgow. The phrase can, for instance, be written on a speech bubble and stuck on to the sheet.

• This project can go on throughout the term. There are many new languages in the city, African ones like Lingala or Tigrinya, for example. You can write to bodies like the Scottish Refugee Council for information and contacts who could give you translations.

• Here are two to begin with: Punjabi – Khush amdeed Glasgow Scottish Gaelic – Fàilte gu Ghlaschu

Family of Languages

Find Out More – Pairs, Group

Punjabi, English and Scottish Gaelic are all members of a very large family of languages called Indo-European. Find out the names of the three different branches of Indo-European that lead to Punjabi, English and Scottish Gaelic, respectively. Also can you fi nd other languages that are close cousins to these languages?

33


INTERVIEWCan you tell us about?

Interview – Class, Group, Pairs

Arrange for someone who came from Punjab and who is willing to be interviewed by the class to come along at an arranged time. Decide what you want to fi nd out from the interviewee. It could be some of the things you’ve already read about:

What are their memories of life in Punjab?

Why did they come to Britain?

Why did they come to Glasgow?

What were their experiences like in the early days?

What jobs did they do?

If go back to Pakistan, how do they feel?

How much of a problem was the language?

• You have to let the person know beforehand what you are going to ask them about, and whether you are going to record it.

• If the interviewee is going to address the whole class or pairs or groups could prepare questions on particular areas, e.g. memories of Punjab, kinds of jobs done, fi rst experiences in Glasgow.

• It is a good idea to ask questions that begin: ‘Can you tell us what you remember about...?’ These are called open-ended questions, because they let the interviewee give answers that are not just yes or no or a fact. You would have to ask some closed questions like, ‘When did you leave Pakistan?’

• On work, you might start with a question like, ‘Can you tell us the kinds of jobs you did?’ Then, perhaps, ‘can you tell us what work you liked best and why that was?’ or ‘Do you have any particular memories of working as ...?’

• As you become more skilled at conducting interviews, you will be able to ask more follow-on questions. These are questions that come up naturally as you respond to something the interviewee has said.

• During the interview take notes even if you are doing a recording.

• Make sure you don’t run over the time the interviewee has available.

• If you want to take a photograph, ask permission.

• Somebody should be given the responsibility of thanking the interviewee for coming.

34


Magazine Article

Writing – Pairs, Individual

After the interview, look at your notes or listen to the recording. Use these as the basis for writing a magazine article about who the person was, what he/she was asked about, what they said and how the class responded.

• Write in a friendly tone of voice rather than a formal one.

• Your article will be a mixture of you reporting what was said and some actual quotes. Something like: Mr M. A. talked about the fi rst job he did when he came to the city, a door-to-door salesman lugging a suitcase around the streets of Drumchapel. ‘It wasn’t easy,’ he said, smiling. ‘I never knew there were so many Alsatian dogs in the world!’

• The fi nished articles can be for wall display, or school magazine.

• Remember, if you were going to publish them elsewhere, you would need to get the interviewee’s permission beforehand.

35


RETURNING HOMEA few people who came to Glasgow from Punjab returned home and stayed in Pakistan or India. Some made frequent visits back home, but always returned to where they could fi nd work that would help them to support their family. Eventually, with a growing family in the city, the fi rst generation of immigrants often decided to stay. After all, their children were growing up, speaking with Glasgow accents, regarding Glasgow as their home.

The experience of Punjabi families is very like that of Donegal Irish folk who came to Glasgow in the late nineteenth century and the fi rst half of the twentieth. Many worked as seasonal harvesters on the big farms of South Scotland and then returned home to Ireland at the end of the season. Gradually they came over and did other jobs and, like their Punjabi counterparts, became more and more likely to settle in Glasgow if they were married and had children.

Children and grandchildren of the fi rst settlers may return to their ancestral home more and more infrequently. They have fewer and fewer relatives there and much more of an extended family here in Glasgow.

Mrs Iqbal talks of her father-in-law going home to Punjab because it was too dark and sunless here. Mr Siddique went back for long spells to Pakistan, and even now still wants to visit.

For others, Punjab is somewhere they take the children for a holiday.

Holiday in Punjab

Labindar Sekon is a teacher in Pollokshields. Her grandfather came over from Punjab in 1949. Her father arrived in 1966 and worked as a factory worker and a crane driver and managed to save enough money to allow him to open a restaurant and to send money back to relatives.

When Labindar and her husband returned to East Punjab for a holiday in spring 2010, they enjoyed discovering the marvellous heritage of art and architecture, and also the modern tourist attractions. There is even a museum where the old country ways are shown by means of models, just as you would fi nd in heritage museums here in Scotland.

36

The museum at Ph agwara. Doli bride being carried to her in-laws

Corn grinding. The clay model is

the one in the middle!

The entrance hall of the Golden

Temple, Amritsar


37

Bhangra dancers

Holiday Lunch

Enjoying local tourist transport

Sitting by Amrit Sarovar (the Pool of Nectar) with the Golden Temple in the background


The Year 2110

Reporting – Pairs, Group

Imagine you are your great grandson/daughter and you have been living in the colony of Mars for most of your life. Things have got very modern out there in that time. In 2110, you take the children back to the city of your ancestors – Glasgow. To your surprise, things haven’t stood still in Glasgow either. In fact, it’s all changed and modernised in much the same as the settlement on Mars. The only place you can see examples of the old days are in the museum, depicted by models.

• In your group, make up examples of these exhibits – in the home, on the streets, at work, or in places of leisure. Think of present day things that might no longer exist in 2110. Think what will have replaced them.

• Then make up a museum commentary explaining what the exhibits are doing.

• One person has to be the guide (or the person who did the recording for the museum head phones). The others have to be the statues, frozen in particular activities.

• The guide should give the commentaries made up in the group. For example, one statue might be at the wheel of a car. The commentator might say:

38 ‘Here we see someone in a means of conveyance that was called a car. These used to be driven around the towns or countryside on roads made from a substance called tar. Direction of travel was changed by turning the wheel you can see in the model’s hands. The car was powered by a liquid called petrol which was extracted from the earth. The car was a very slow, dirty and dangerous means of transport, whereas nowadays we have ...’


I’m going home

Improvised Play – Groups

In an improvised play, you just start with the basic situation, the confl ict between the characters – and then you let your own words carry the action along.

Try this situation. A family have lived in Glasgow for ten years. Then, one day the mother announces that she is going home because she is fed up with life here in the city. Father is against this. He is much happier here. They have a big argument.

They have a son and a daughter, who were both born here. They enter in the middle of the quarrel. What do they think? Both could take one side, or one could agree with mother, the other with father. They could devise a plan to try to make their mother stay.

Try to make up a few scenes. You decide roughly what is going to happen in the scene and then you act it out. Maybe it will go in a slightly different direction to what you intended.

Maybe we gradually come to realise what it is that is bothering mother. Maybe she stays, maybe she goes despite everything they say.

How does it end? Do you decide before the play starts? Or do you let it develop as the characters come up with different things to say?

39


PUZZLE IT OUTOld Spoke Hills

Jumbled Words – Pairs, Group

To make this more diffi cult, the jumbled words are not opposite their defi nitions!

or heal language you can hear in Glasgow

hana Fasting non-violent leader in Indian independence campaign

old Spoke hills big city in East Punjab

snub court cod big city in West Punjab

baji nup spice used in Punjabi cooking

hading what happened to old Punjab in 1947

sundi Glasgow District many Punjabi people settled in

I or dancer a job a lot of Punjabi men did in 1950s and 60s

riot paint big river running through Punjab

is arm art a country next to Pakistan

40


City of Turmeric?

Quiz – Pairs, Group

1 Many Punjabi people came to Glasgow because:

(a) there was a labour shortage

(b) the weather is so good

(c) they wanted to live in a close

(d) they heard it would be easy to get into the Scottish cricket team

2 Back in Punjab a lot of people had been:

(a) fi shermen

(b) miners

(c) farmers

(d) musicians

3 The Punjabi language (compared to English) is:

(a) written with a different hand

(b) not a written language

(c) written backwards

(d) written in a different alphabet

4 Punjabi and English are both members of a family called:

(a) Indo-American

(b) Asian- Atlantic

(c) Indian English

(d) Indo-European

5 The Golden Age of the Indus valley meant:

(a) there was a boom in gold mining

(b) a time of great learning and discovery

(c) when a big proportion of the people had been married for sixty years

(d) a period of success in the Olympics

6 Turmeric is

(a) a city in Punjab

(b) an old method of farming

(c) a powder used in curries

(d) a famous cricketer

7 Okra is also called

(a) lady’s fi nger

(b) lady’s nose

(c) OK coral

(d) Green bean

8 Which of these countries is west of Punjab?

(a) China

(b) Turkey

(c) Korea

(d) Thailand

9 Another language spoken in West Punjab is:

(a) French

(b) Turkish

(c) Portuguese

(d) Urdu

10 Another big group of migrants to Glasgow were from:

(a) Mexico

(b) Sweden

(c) Italy

(d) Japan

41


Pakistan’s Climate

Cloze – Pairs

Fill in the blanks with suitable words

.................... climate varies according to how high above .................... level you are.

April to September is the .................... pleasant period in the mountains, although

in the low-lying .................... of the Indus Valley it is a .................... of oppressive heat

with midday temperatures above 40 .................... Celsius (100 degrees F).

December to February is the .................... period, as lowland temperatures drop

to .................... 10 and 25 degrees Celsius (50 – 77 degrees F) and the air

temperature .................... the mountains falls below freezing. Monsoons reach the

southern .................... of the country in late summer.

42


True or False

Guess or Recall – Pairs

1 The Golden Temple is in Amritsar

2 Bhangra is a dish made with onions

3 A fl ight from Glasgow to Lahore takes 2 hours

4 Teen is Punjabi for three

5 Punjabi has the highest numbers of speakers of any language in the world

6 The Muslim place of worship is called a manse

7 In Glasgow, most people of Punjabi origin live south of the Clyde

8 Cumin seeds are round

9 Punjab has no sea coasts

10 The most popular sport in Pakistan is cricket

43

truefalse


44 ANSWERS PAGE

Old Spoke HillsLahoreAfghanistanPollokshieldsBus ConductorPunjabiGhandiIndusCorianderPartitionAmritsar

City of Turmeric1 (a)2 (c)3 (d)4 (d)5 (b)6 (c)7 (a)8 (b)9 (d)10 (c)

Pakistan’s Climate

Possible answers:

1 Punjab’s, Pakistan’s, The

2 sea

3 most

4 plain, area, region, parts, etc.

5 time, season

6 degrees

7 coolest, mildest, coldest

8 between

9 in, on

10 part, area, region, half, etc.

True or False1 T2 F3 F4 T5 F6 F7 T8 F9 T10 T


45ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank the following:

Staff and parents of Glendale Primary, Pollokshields Primary, St Albert’s Primary and residents of Pollokshields for all the help they gave us with this project. In particular:

Mrs Ahmed (1), Mrs Ahmed (2), Mrs Zeab Ahmed, Mrs Shabnam Amin, Mrs S. Aslam, Mrs Aziz, Mrs Jackie Boyle, Mrs Rona Boyle, Mrs Joan Dominy, Mrs Katherine Donahue, Mrs G. Hanif, Mrs Balgees Ul-Hassan, Mrs Iqbal, Mrs Shabnam Iqbal, Mrs Elizabeth Laird, Mrs Eleanor MacAveety, Mrs Labindar Sekhon, Mrs Lesley Sutherland, Mr Khurshid Khan, Mr Mohammad Siddique.

Charan Gill and Black and White Publishing for permission to quote from Tikka Look at Me Now, CharanGill, the Autobiography

Mary Edward and Luath Press for permission to quote from Who belongs to Glasgow?

This publication has been researched and written by Liam Stewart and designed by scottimage.com

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