26 January 2013
Cranford Park
River Crane
River Crane
Hounslow East – Piccadilly Line – Eastbound platform
Hounslow East – Piccadilly Line
Tracks to.from Hounslow Central
To see more UK Trains, Underground and Buses pictures :
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More UK pictures to follow
Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue
Shyam Bhatia in London
UK-based NRIs are planning a continuing series of protest rallies in solidarity with the family of the Delhi rape victim who died in a Singapore hospital.
Sunday night’s planned demonstration at Hounslow Heath, close to London’s Heathrow airport, was being organised by a former Delhi police inspector, Darshan Singh Grewal, whose family originate from Ludhiana.
Grewal served for 10 years in the Delhi police force before leaving for the UK in 1990. He is currently an elected member of the Hounslow local council. Grewal, who also once represented India in national basketball, said he was saddened and sickened by what had happened in Delhi.
“We will continue the protests, we will continue putting pressure on the Indian government”, he told The Tribune.
Grewal was also a participant in the first NRI rally held last Saturday when demonstrators gathered next to Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Tavistock Square, central London, before marching to the nearby office of the Indian High Commission.
A letter submitted to the High Commission for onward transmission to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh read: “We as concerned citizens of India are deeply saddened by the news of the 23-year-old medical student who was brutally gang raped and assaulted in Delhi last week. Sir, we non-resident Indians staying in the United Kingdom have gathered near Mahatma Gandhi’s statue at Tavistock Square, London, and signed this petition to request of India the following:
1. Introduce strict laws against rapists.
2. Introduce the fast track courts to resolve sexual assault cases.”
A High Commission official who accepted the letter responded by saying: “I also mourn for the demise of the lady and feel the same as everyone in the protest. The letter will be delivered to the PM’s office.” Saturday’s march was organised by the Pravasi Bharat organisation which has campaigned in the past for NRIs to use a postal ballot in future Indian elections.
The head of Pravasi Bharat, 31-year-old IT consultant Nagender Chindam, told The Tribune: “Even though we are staying abroad, it doesn’t mean we are unconcerned. We too want the nation to flourish and be a happy, peaceful place. That’s why we have showed our concern.”
Chindam, originally from Hyderabad, added: “A lot of our volunteers are waiting for a reply to the letter. Otherwise we will plan more protests and next time outside the High Commission office. All we can assure you is that we will not give up.”
In Southall are nine Gurdwaras. In Ealing, east of Southall, is another Gurdwara, Hayes, west of Southall also has a Gurdwara and south of Southall is Hounslow with two Gurdwaras. For me all in walking distance, but I walk a lot and far. But all these Gurdwaras are within easy cycle, bus or train distance from each other.
I used to live in Portland Road, off Osterley Park Road in old Southall, within ten minutes of the Park Avenue and Havelock Southall Singh Sabha Gurdwaras. Park Avenue must be one of the most popular Gurdwaras in the UK, maybe even in Europe. Havelock Road has one of the most impressive and expensive buildings. The two Gurdwaras and the Southall Sikh school are part of one organisation.
In both Singh Sabhas the end of the afternoon early evening programme is roughly as follows : 16.15 till 17.00 kirtan ending with the So Dar of the Rahras; 17.00 till 17.30 Rahras, Ardas, Vák; 17.30 till 18.30 kirtan; 18.30 till 19.30 katha, which sometimes followed by even more kirtan.
From about 17.00 till 18.30 the texts of the shabads and the vák are almost always projected on a screen in the Park Avenue Gurdwara. This makes a big difference, and not just for people like me. Even if you are a fluent Panjabi speaker projection of the text in Gurmukhí and the English translation is helpful.
Since I moved to Southall in 2008 I almost daily attended at least part of this programme and my ability to read and understand the shabads improved greatly.
We visit the Gurdwara to be in sádh sangat and together enjoy the word of God which comes to us via Gurbaní, the shabads from the Guru Granth Sahib and from other sources that are recognised by the Sikh panth.
By listening to and signing along with the shabads we are the Sikhs, the learners that Guru wants us to be. Drinking in the shabads you will get ‘high’ on God, you will feel real joy, without any hangover the next day.
For those in charge of a Gurdwara, whether it is a democratically elected group that makes collective decision and regularly reports to the sangat, or a patriarchal or dictatorial pardhán or sant-baba, this is the most important job : present the Guru’s message to the sangat in a way that it can be digested.
Guru Nanak and Bhai Mardana sat under the village tree and sang the shabads that contained the light of God. In the UK in 2011 it rains too often and it gets too cold for open air kirtan. The size of the sangat makes microphones and speaker-boxes necessary and language drift and non-Panjabi audiences necessitate translations.
But the basic idea remains the same, the love of God, the emotion of God enters us most effectively by doing with Gurbaní what it was written for : sing, sing, sing ! Sing with conviction and emotion and share God’s light with the sádh sangat.
The Nagar Kirtan season is upon us. I was involved as a marshal in both the Hounslow (April 5) and Southall (April 12) Nagar Kirtan, and am booked to take part in the Bristol Nagar Kirtan on the 26th of April.
My best memory of a Nagar Kirtan was when I was honoured by the sangat in Den Haag (Netherlands) to be part of the Panj Piaré. Although it was cold and windy (Den Haag is near the North Sea coast) and we walked barefooted dressed in a short and flimsy chola, it was a magic experience.
We kept doing simran all the way through, and some members of our UK Jatha who were part of the procession got the sangat doing simran too. We stopped at a square near a big masjid for a short demonstration of gatka, and the mainly Moroccan Muslims were very interested.
The Hounslow Nagar Kirtan was well attended, but is never as massive as the Southall one. For most of the route we have to stick to the left side of the road, and for this we use a modern version of the Indian Rope trick : a rope is attached to the right hand side of the back of the palki, and held on a spindle at the end of the procession.
The marshals walk along the rope, trying to keep the sangat inside it, or if they insist on crossing the road to first make sure that it is safe. The main worry are people, including ladies pushing prams, diving under the rope and crossing the road without looking in any direction. Luckily both marshals and police were vigilant and through Vahiguru’s kirpa no accidents happened.
For the Southall Nagar Kirtan I volunteered for a position right behind the palki, trying to keep some distance between it and the sangat. This turned out to be very challenging, especially in Havelock Road and King Street, where the road is narrow and the sangat eager.
Their enthusiasm to be near the palki, near the Guru Granth Sahib, made even fragile old ladies and mother’s with small children take part in the big push, which reminded me of the free for all in Amritsar, when the Guru Granth Sahib is taken from Akal Takhat to Harmandr Sahib.
I appreciate the enthusiasm of the sangat, and I too took part in the pushing and shoving to get my shoulder underneath one of the massive copper bars of the palki in Harmandr Sahib. In Southall sangat should know that the Nagar Kirtan takes hours to get from Havelock Road to Park Avenue via Southall Park, and that everybody has plenty of opportunity to pay their respect to the Guru Granth Sahib.
Are Nagar Kirtans useful ? I have my doubts, but I do enjoy them. I think that sangat should be offered more drinks and less food. Parkore, somose and fruit are fine, but leave serving langar to the Gurdware.
