Meri Zindagi

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Exhibition celebrates 400 years of local Asian history

The exhibition, Meri Zindagi (My Life), celebrating the South Asian presence in Ealing and Hounslow is now open to the public at Gunnersbury Park Museum on Popes Lane.

The exhibition, on show until 31 March 2006, celebrates the lives and experiences of people in the South Asian Community (including people who originate from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal) who now live in the boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow.

There has been a South Asian presence in the UK for more than 400 years, as individual servants, lascars (seamen), scholars or tradesmen visited and then settled here. This slow trickle of immigration intensified after the Second World War. In the 1950s and 1960s Britain solved a severe labour shortage by encouraging people, such as war veterans, from the former colonies to seek employment in the UK. Many South Asians came over at this time and they found work in factories, post offices, laundries and public transport. Doctors and teachers were issued with government vouchers enabling them to work here.

In less than 60 years, these migrants have formed a vibrant and dynamic community within the boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow and have made major contributions to the local culture and economy. How did they achieve this? What are their experiences of life in West London?

This exhibition presents the stories of individuals from this community under the following themes: Past Lives, Different Paths, Arrival and Experiences, Adapting and Building a Community, Blood and Honour: Organisations for Change.

Through personal interviews we hear about people’s past lives and some of the complex and arduous journeys they took before finally settling in the UK. We learn what life was like for new arrivals, how they adapted and forged a community, created places of worship and formed important organisations to represent themselves within Ealing and Hounslow. From stories that are very moving, we find that the path to integration has often been difficult, but the final picture is of a community that has made a major contribution to life in the UK.

All these lives have been recorded in interviews and photographs by CIP’s Community Outreach Officer, Hema Raull, and her team of volunteers. With the aid of the Heritage Lottery Fund, she has spent the last year collecting interviews and objects for this exhibition and for a permanent South Asian archive in the museum.

The exhibition will include: video and sound recordings in English and Punjabi, featuring interviews with local South Asians from all walks of life from war veterans to a TV stunt man; original photographs, including some showing the establishment of the first Hindu temples in Southall; original documents, including a first hand account of events at partition in 1947; costumes from the first Bhangra Dancers Group in Southall; traditional puppets used by puppeteer and storyteller, Rani Singh; photographs by Dennis Morris and Parminder Sekhon; original banners from the Southall Monitoring Group; and the latest contribution to local culture, Desi Monopoly, the game designed by local entrepreneur Ben Ahluwalia featuring Hounslow High Street and The Broadway, Southall.

August 11th, 2005