Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
Pool of Life
The Autobiography of a Punjabi Agony Aunt
In the series
The Sussex Library of Asian & Asian American Studies
Kailash Puri, ‘Asian agony aunt’, media personality, award-winning author of many Punjabi novels, and co-author of The Myth of UK Integration.
Eleanor Nesbitt is Professor Emeritus in Religions and Education at the University of Warwick and a founding member of Punjab Research Group. Her many publications include Sikhism:
A Very Short Introduction and Intercultural Education: Ethnographic and Religious Approaches.
Arranged
marriage, racism, cookery and yoga… meet Kailash as she recounts
her childhood in
a vanished India, her early marriage and her adjustments to the
challenges of life in three continents. An unwanted daughter, Kailash
goes on to be a poet, novelist and magazine editor. The first Punjabi
to write a column on sexual problems, the first Asian food consultant
to Marks and Spencer – Kailash speaks with wisdom and humour.
Meet the Punjabi agony aunt and her postbag.
Eleanor Nesbitt’s introduction contextualises the life of Kailash Puri, Punjabi author and agony aunt, providing the story of the book itself and connecting the narrative to the history of the Punjabi diaspora and themes in Sikh Studies. She suggests that representation of the stereotypical South Asian woman as victim needs to give way to a nuanced recognition of agency, multiple voices and a differentiated experience.
The narrative presents sixty years of Kailash’s life. Her memories of childhood in West Punjab evoke rural customs and religious practices consistent with recent scholarship on ‘Punjabi religion’ rather than with the currently dominant Sikh discourse of a religion sharply distinguished from Hindu society. Her marriage, as a shy 15-year-old, with no knowledge of English, to a scientist, Gopal Puri, brought ever-widening horizons as husband and wife moved from India to London, and later to West Africa, before returning to the UK in 1966. This life experience, and Gopal’s constant encouragement, brought confidence to write and publish numerous stories and articles.
Kailash writes of the contrasting experiences of life as an Indian
in the UK of the 1940s and the 1960s. She points up differences between her own
outlook and the life-world of the post-war community of Sikhs from East Punjab
now living in the West. In their distress and dilemmas many people consulted
Kailash for assistance, and the descriptive narrative of her responses and advice
and increasingly public profile provides insight into Sikhs’ experience in their
adopted country. In later years, as grandparents and established citizens of
Liverpool, Kailash and Gopal revisited their ancestral home, now in Pakistan
– a reflective and moving experience. The book includes a glossary of Punjabi
words and suggestions for further reading.
Paperback ISBN: | 978-1-84519-602-8 |
Paperback Price: | £19.95 / $29.95 |
Release Date: | October 2013 |
Page Extent / Format: | 192 pp. / 229 x 152 mm |
Illustrated: | No |
Acknowledgments
Preface by Series Editor Mina Roces
Glossary
Introduction
Chapter
1 Childhood
Chapter 2 Tradition
Chapter 3 Rawalpindi and Lahore
Chapter 4 Marriage
Chapter 5 London
Chapter 6 India again
Chapter 7 West Africa
Chapter 8 Slough and Southall
Chapter 9 Liverpool
Chapter 10 Writing and public speaking
Chapter 11 “A shoulder to cry on”
Chapter 12 Pakistan
Afterword
Suggested further reading
References
Index
This
groundbreaking volume by Kailash Puri and Eleanor Nesbitt
is one of the first to offer a Sikh woman’s reflections on
historically significant events, religious life and cultural
experiences faced by her community, both within Indian and
British contexts. This narrative offers a fascinating and
thought-provoking glimpse into the long, diverse and well-lived
life of a Sikh woman, a perspective sorely lacking given
that much of Sikh history and experience has accumulated
through male lenses. In her later role of an ‘agony aunt’,
Kailash Puri was attuned to the deepest hurts and peak moments
of members of the South Asian community, but primarily those
of South Asian women, through the narratives shared with
her and the advice which she in turn offered. Professor Nesbitt’s
and Kailash Puri’s careful examination of the ‘meanings’
associated with those narratives offers invaluable insight
into the varied practices, attitudes and challenges that
continue to face the Sikh community in the twenty-first century.
Dr. Doris Jakobsh, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Pool
of Life gives us a wonderful opportunity to meet the
pioneer Punjabi feminist Kailash
Puri. Starting from her childhood in the Punjabi village
of Kallar to her standing by the sea in Liverpool, Kailash
Puri’s memoir offers a spectacular view of South Asian
history. Her individual biography intersects evocatively
and movingly with the shifting realities of Partition,
transnationalism, diaspora, race, gender, sexuality,
and religion. What remains constant is Kailash’s courage
and determination. As early as the 1940’s the Sikh feminist
began to address issues of marriage, sex, and relationships
in magazines (both in the UK and India) that no Punjabi
had dared to discuss. In collaboration with the eminent
scholar Eleanor Nesbitt, Kailash authentically voices
her past, and so she inspires us to make sense of our
future. Indeed Pool of Life is a vital contribution to
autobiography and multicultural literature.
Nikky-Guninder
Kaur Singh, Chair and Crawford Family Professor, Dept.
of Religious Studies, Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA
Here is a richly lived world of
a Punjabi Sikh woman – a daughter, wife, mother, story-teller,
journalist and straight-shooting marital guide for a deeply
appreciative audience of South Asian women in Great Britain.
It is told in a wonderfully inviting way with honesty, without
pretension, and yet with colour, feeling and pace. And it
reflects the wisdom of a woman who naturally engaged with
the people around her whatever the context: in village life
and the academic world, in pre-and post-partition India, in
Great Britain, Nigeria and Ghana, always with an observant
eye and a sympathetic ear. It is a book from which one can
learn intellectually and emotionally about culture, life and
change.
Hugh Johnston, Professor Emeritus in History, Simon Fraser University, British
Columbia, Canada
This account reaches to the heart
of Punjabi life in a way that is honest and interesting. I
wish Kailash and Eleanor every success with its publication
and am grateful for the lifestyle that Kailash has been willing
to share with her readers. Her autobiography has been enhanced
by Eleanor’s brief sketch of Sikh experience in the UK during
the past thirty years.
W. Owen Cole
It has been a sheer pleasure to read
the autobiography of Kailash Puri, written largely in Punjabi
and rendered into very readable English by Professor Emeritus
Eleanor Nesbitt. We learn that Kailash was born in Arya Mohalla,
Rawalpindi, just next to Gordon College. Being the fifth daughter
in a family of Khatri Sikhs who longed for a son, her parents
ironically named her Veerawali (sister of brothers)! She adopted
her penname, Kailash, later in life when she began writing.
The Puris, like millions of other refugees, had to run for
their lives at the time of partition in 1947 and to begin
life again from scratch in India. It so happens that one of
my current students at the Lahore University of Management
Sciences (LUMS) Nimra Zulfiqar’s family shifted to Arya Mohalla
from Ludhiana and Jullundur in 1947. So, the partition saga
continues to bring forth strange coincidences, connections
and associations.
... Although born in Rawalpindi, Kailash always felt that her
roots were in the ancestral village of Kallar (now called
Kallar Syedan) some 25 miles from the city. I visited Kallar
in December 2004 for fieldwork on my Punjab book. In 1947,
it escaped largely unscathed raids by Muslim mobs because
the Sikhs and Hindus could find refuge in the large fortress-like
building of the direct descendants of Guru Nanak, the Babas
or Bedis. However, the Sikh and Hindu inhabitants of the nearby
village of Thamali were almost wiped out.
... Chapters one to five tell the story of the first phase of
her life. Her father, Sohan Singh Puri, was a businessman.
He built a home in Lahore as well and so the family stayed
in both Rawalpindi and in Dharampura, Lahore. Like Parkash
Tandon’s Punjabi Century, the portrayal of the social and
cultural life of the old Punjab is done with great skill and
absolute honesty. Although a believing Sikh, she deftly lays
bare the dead weight of traditional life permeated by superstitions.
A Puri boy, Gopal, a talented scientist, saw her, found her
pretty and wanted to marry her. It was a proposal that contravened
the rules of consanguinity applicable to Hindu and Sikh marriage
because Kailash and Gopal belonged to the same ‘Puri Gotra’
(clan) within the Khatri caste. Intrigues and jealousies came
into play and typically a villain reminiscent of Kado Langa
of Heer fame, a close relative, Sunder Singh, tried his best
to subvert the match but Gopal’s resolve prevailed and her
parents agreed to the marriage.
... Gopal Singh Puri secured a scholarship to do a second PhD
in London in 1945 (presumably after the war). Kailash joined
him later. They lived on a tight budget in a small room in
very austere conditions but the English landlord and landlady
proved to be extremely kind and considerate. Also, the shopkeepers
and other English people they met were courteous and sympathetic.
Their first child, Shaminder, was born in London in October
1947. Later, two girls Kiren (1950) and Risham (1956) were
also born.
... The Puris returned to India in 1948. Kailash’s parents had
settled in Dehra Dun, where after some struggle Gopal found
a job as forest ecologist and technical secretary to the Indian
Council of Ecological Research at Dehra Dun. Intrigues and
plots hatched by jealous colleagues and superiors made life
difficult. When an opportunity arose, Gopal accepted a posting
in Pune, Maharashtra. Here Kailash began her writing career
— first as a columnist on cookery. Encouraged by Gurbaksh
Singh, the editor of Preetlari (once a favourite of pre-partition
Punjab leftists), she launched the first Punjabi language
magazine for women.
... The family went to Africa in 1961 where Gopal taught at Nigerian
and Ghanian universities. The author once again impresses
the reader with vivid and frank depictions of political, social
and cultural life in West Africa. The presentations are done
with sympathy and genuine curiosity to learn and understand.
We learn that African women are quite enterprising and even
those from the elite try to make an income by selling petty
goods.
... The last part of the book tells the story of the Puris arriving
in the UK around 1966. An uphill task of finding work in a
very different UK begins. By that time, thousands of people
from the Indian subcontinent, mostly Punjabi Sikhs, Muslims
and Hindus, were already there. The culture clashes and shocks
experienced by the host society and the immigrants had replaced
the friendly attitude that Kailash experienced on her first
stay in that country. Even with all his outstanding qualifications,
Gopal had great difficulty in finding a job. Kailesh also
had to struggle hard but got a break in Southall but then
the family moved to Liverpool where they have been settled
since.
... However, all along, even in the most adverse circumstances,
she continued writing and expanding the ambit of her expertise
from cookery to family affairs, sexual relations and other
related problems. She calls herself an ‘agony aunt’ and that
is a very appropriate description. People consulted her on
all the typical problems that ensue once the cultural framework
of the home country is no longer applicable and traditional
life can no longer be reproduced as before. That she achieved
such authority and status without any formal university education
speaks a lot for her native intelligence and ability to learn
and develop.
... The most touching chapter is the one on Kailash and Gopal’s
visit to Pakistan. It confirms an urge all Punjabis uprooted
from their roots have felt — to revisit, at least once, their
roots. Finally, in 1983, an old world, long abandoned but
never forgotten came back to life. The home at Dharampura
was in ruins but both in Arya Mohalla and especially in Kallar
the old buildings were still there and of course they met
people who remembered their families. They were offered hospitality
by those who lived in their old homes.
... Kailash Puri’s autobiography is a must read for those trying
to make sense of physical migrations and concomitant social
and intellectual transformations that have wrought the lives
of Punjabis from the 1940s onwards.”
Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, Visiting
Professor, LUMS, Pakistan; Professor Emeritus of Political
Science, Stockholm University; and Honorary Senior Fellow,
Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.
His book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed,
(Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012), won the Best Non-Fiction
Book Prize at the 2013 Karachi Literature Festival and the
2013 UBL-Jang Groups Best Non-Fiction Book Prize at Lahore.
His latest book is Pakistan: The Garrison State, Origins,
Evolution, Consequences (1947–2011), Oxford, 2013.
From The Daily Times, Pakistan (and also — 14/5/14
— on www.sikhchic.com)
Reviewed in the Journal of Contemporary
Religion by Elisabeth Arweck, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK; © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
This is an unusual and important book.
... the life story of Kailash Puri (b. 1926) touches on many
important themes for the study of South Asian beliefs, both
within India and in diasporic communities. ... Through Kailash’s
eyes the reader can understand from a new position changing
British attitudes to immigrants, changing gender roles, women
in the workplace, and other topics relevant to twentieth-century
social and cultural history. Her experiences will complicate
any simplistic assumptions about gender relations, women’s
empowerment and self-expression, and attitudes towards immigrants.
Reviewed in Religions of South Asia: https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/ROSA/article/view/24268/25782
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