US ROTARIANS VISIT GURU NANAK GURDWARA

A group of Rotarians from South Carolina, USA, are on an exchange visit to the East Midlands. At lunchtime today, they're visiting the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Holy Bones. Mrs Surinder Sandhu has asked me to come to the gurdwara and be part of the small group receiving the visitors there.

The Guru Nanak Sikh Museum, which occupies the first floor of the building, was the first Sikh Museum in Europe. It opened in 1992 and its tenth anniversary was marked by a visit from the Queen – her first visit to any gurdwara on British soil. The museum recounts the narrative of Sikh history and the most important and influential figures in that narrative, mostly through paintings and photographs. So many people in these pictures, all of them important to the people here – and I know nothing about them. Humbling, really, to recognise such a big blank in my own knowledge; rather the way I felt when I saw the Fluying Sikhs documentary.

Also on display are models of The Golden Temple at Amritsar, Nankana Sahib (birthplace of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism) and five other distinguished Sikh shrines in different parts of India, known as Takhats (Seaats of Authority). The photographic gallery displays photographs dating from as early as the 1840s of those people who took part in the struggles faced by the Sikh Nation and also commemorates the role played by Sikh servicemen in both World Wars and in the struggle for India's freedom. A selection of Panjabi handcraft (Phulkaris), ancient Sikh coins, hand-written manuscripts and more are also on show.

Surinder has asked for me to provide copies of the leaflets on the Sikhs which have been produced by Leicester Council of Faiths. I also bring along the banner from our (newish) exhibition, which I get to put up in the gurdwara (and leave on show over the weekend).

I'm honoured to be asked to be present for this visit, although the visitors don't get to stay very long and don't have the chance for much interaction. We receive langar together; a table is set out for our American friends, who dine together, separate from their hosts, most of whom sit on the floor to eat. I'm not very good at sitting on the floor, so I take the chance to push in (politely) and chat with a few of our guests over the vegetarian meal. I discover that they represent six Rotary Clubs from different districts around the state of South Carolina. I ask if they're aware of a Sikh community in their own neck of the woods. They rell me that there's a gurdwara or Sikh centre in the state capital, Columbia (later, I google this and find a very interesting link, that I've included below – as well as the picture above, reproduced from the website of the the Pluralism Project at Harvard University).

I get the feeling that our visitors today are rather disoriented. On tours like this, a lot gets crammed in, but the few I speak to – it really seems like their heads are spinning! Or maybe that's just Leicester ...

Today, for the first time, I get to meet a couple who are frequently namechecked at places I go to or events I attend. Freda Hussain, MBE, former High Sheriff of Leicestershire and retired Principal of Moat Community College in Leicester, is here. The itinerary for this group of visitors has been organised by her husband, Asaf Hussain, Chair of the Scoeity for Interculutural Understanding in Leicester. He's calling this programme a "safari". I don't know how our paths haven't crossed before, but I'm glad to meet them both here today.

Find out more about Sikhs in South Carolina (and in the US in general).

FLYING SIKHS

To Phoenix Square this afternoon to see "Flying Sikhs", a history of Sikh fighter pilots, presented in association with the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail. To say that I learned things from this film that I hadn't known before would be stating the obvious - after all, what's a documentary for? I would rather say that I learned stuff that has never formed part of anything that could be described as common knowledge for people of my background. I consider myself well-educated, well-read and well-informed - definitely more so than yer average punter. So naturally I'm surprised and annoyed when I realise such things as this are missing from my knowledge set. I feel like I should know about something as important as this - and so should everyone else for that matter. Though I'm not much of a one for quoting Churchill, I do like this: "We owe our lives to those who wear the turban."

The following paragraph is taken from promotional material for this film:

"Flying Sikhs" provides an intimate portrait of Sikh pilots who valiantly contributed to British success in both World Wars. The history of the Sikhs who flew in the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Air Force and the Indian Air Force has been forgotten, yet their bravery was recognised widely both within the armed services and the public during the dark days of the Blitz and the Japanese invasion of South East Asia. Included are interviews with the last remaining Sikh pilots from WWII. Flying Sikhs was written and directed by Navdeep Singh Kandola, an award-winning filmmaker specialising in ecology, ethnicity and Punjabi culture in a career spanning over twenty years. It is produced by the Sikh Art and Film Foundation.

On a personal note, something unexpected happens this afternoon which I find strange and pleasing in equal parts). As I enter the Phoenix, I see Rakesh Parmar (Head of Marketing here) chatting with three young Sikh women in the cafe. I go to get a drink from the bar then join them. But as I pass their little group, I hear one of the women saying something that sounds unsettlingly familiar. Hang on a minute, she's quoting directly from my blog! That made me pull up short, as you can imagine, faithful reader. On the entry for the Cultural eXchanges Launch Event (Fri 26 Feb), I noted that Rakesh had talked with me about "some interesting and unusual challenges he's faced when promoting this film within Leicester's Sikh community." These were the words that I heard this young woman use; so I had to ask her where she'd found that quote. She told me she'd googled for any reference to this film and had been led to the page with those words. I, of course, couldn't help but announce, "Well, that's my blog!" then pulled it up on my iPhone to prove it. You never know who's reading this ... I'm glad to see it's not Mr Nobody!

When I enter Screen 2, where the film is showing, I see Noel Singh (Policy Officer with Leicestershire County Council) and go sit with him. I got to know Noel during the run-up to National Inter Faith Week and have been glad to stay in contact with him since. After the film, Noel describes it as a sobering experience; that he'd heard many of these stories from older family members down through the years, and this was the first occasion on which he'd seen dosumentary evidence of people and deeds who had assumed legendary or even mythic status.

After the screening of  "Flying Sikhs" is over, another, shorter film, "The Prisoner's Song", is shown. Described as "A gripping story of sacrifice, suffering, and ongoing injustice, it tells how, in 1916, German scientists made an 80-second audio recording of a Sikh soldier captured at the Battle of Flanders during WWI and held at the Half Moon POW camp. The starving soldier, Mal Singh, yearns to return to his home in the Punjab, the "land of butter and milk." Retired Indian Col. Perminder Singh Randhawa reflects on Mal Singh's fate, and locates his descendants still living in the ancestral village, hoping to receive his long-forgotten pension. The thing that stuck in my mind most about this genuinely touching film was the description of how the original recording of Mal Singh was made, when he spoke into a cone that transmitted the vibrations of his voice, via a needle, onto an acetate disc. Then we saw Col. Perminder Singh Randhawa listening to the recording on an iPod Nano!

Cultural eXchanges festival launch event

At the Leicester Creative Business Depot, Rutland Street, early evening for the Cultural eXchanges festival launch event, hosted by Dean of Humanities at DMU, Prof. Heidi Macpherson and Festival Patron Lars Tharp (that's him addressing attendees in the photo above).

Of the festival events, I have tickets for Alexei Sayle (Monday afternoon), Ken Loach (Thursday evening) and Prof. John Williams' "Football Nation" (Friday afternoon). I was told I'm lucky to have got places for the first two of these, as both of them sold out quickly.

Interesting chats with Tony Graves (Festival Director); Kathleen Bell (Programme Leader for Creative Writing at DMU) who was also promoting "States of Independence" an independent publishers' day at the university on Saturday 20 March; and Rakesh Parmer (Head of Marketing at Phoenix Square Digital Film and Media Centre and follower of this blog). Phoenix Square is showing "Flying Sikhs" next Sunday - a short documenatary which provides an intimate portrait of the Sikh pilots who valiantly contributed to British success in both world wars. He talked with me about some interesting and unusual challenges he's faced when promoting this film within Leicester's Sikh community.

Find out more about Cultural eXchanges 2010:
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/cultural-exchanges/

Find out more about Lars Tharp:
http://www.tharp.co.uk/