Gurcharan Singh Kaler (a adwaenir hefyd fel Channi) fel y'i ganed yn Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, ym 1943. Fe'i magwyd yng nghymuned Sikhaidd y ddinas, gan dyfu i fyny mewn fflatiau gyferbyn â Gurdwara. Daeth i Gymru i astudio peirianneg sifil yn 1962 a “byth wedi edrych yn ôl”.

Ymsefydlodd yng Nghaerdydd, gan ddod yn chwedl mewn tennis a hoci, gan ennill gemau di-ri yn rhyngwladol a daeth i gael ei adnabod fel ‘Chwaraeon Sikhaidd Cymru’. Ochr yn ochr â’i ddawn chwaraeon rhyngwladol, roedd Gurcharan yn aelod sylfaenol o sefydlu canolbwynt i Sikhiaid ledled Caerdydd a Chymru. Sefydlodd yr ysgol Pwnjabi wythnosol ac mae'n parhau i ddysgu hyd at ei 80au.

Mae'r cyfweliad hwn dros ddau recordiad sain ar wahân.
 

Cyfweliad (rhan 1) gyda Channi Kaler gan Perminder Dhillon a Robin Chaddah-Duke

 

Chunni: My name is Gurcharan Singh Kaler. I was born on 19th of September 1943.

Chunni: I was born in Dar es Salaam on 19th of September, 1943.

Perminder: So, can you tell us how you came be in Cardiff?

Chunni: What happened was I did my high school certificate, which is the equivalent of A-levels in Dar es Salaam and I was one of the three who passed. There were about 15 people who entered for it. Then I at that time, Tanzania, Tanganyika, at that time, not Tanzania, was nearly getting independence. And I even went for interviews.

I got a, scholarship to go for a pilot to become a pilot, and then. When I was, I flew from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam, and when I had the interviews and everything passed, all those health checks and all that. But then the African government decided that they wanted an African origin to go for that scholarship. So they withdrew that.

And then in the meantime, I had applied for various places for... through the Tanganyika Education Department, and I was offered a place in Cardiff. I was offered a place in Cardiff. Never looked back.

Perminder: That’s great. So which part of Tanganyika were you born in?

Chunni: Dar es Salaam, the capital - at that time. Now, I think it's...they call Dodoma the capital. But I think that it’s still Dar es Salaam. It’s still the capital.

Perminder: So it was in the city, not in the rural areas?

Chunni: No, no. In the city.

Perminder: And what are your early memories of -

Chunni: - Great. I absolutely loved it, even now when my dad was still there, I used to go back and...the...Sundays my dad will sit me on the handlebars of the bike, take me to the sea for swimming. And we used to go every Sunday morning – swimming - and then to the Gurdwara, you know, always. And that...I always say to people here now - I say – it's the grounding you give the children that matters.

When I did the coaching here, I used to tell people, you know, the parents would say, oh, they're losing interest in playing squash. And I said, yeah, but if you have given them the right grounding - I used to do the coaching. If given the right grounding, they will be missing from the age of about 15 to 22, 23 till they get a bit settled in life, get married, have children – they'll all come back, and they do.
And that's exactly what happens with the Gurdwaras

Perminder: Going back to Dar es Salaam. Do you remember how your family came to be in Tanganyika in the first place?

Chunni: My father came from India. My mother was born in Nairobi. And, my father, did his metric I think...they used to do it at that time. Then he got a job with the East African Metrological Department because the person who had brought him to Kenya worked there, too. And he spent some time in Mombasa, and places like that.

Then he got transferred to Dar es Salaam and he set up places...these Metrological offices in places like Arusha and things, you know, and then build that new airport. And, that's why he happened to end up in Dar es Salaam I think in 1930 something...1935 or something like that? And ‘43...and then he got married in ‘42 I think in Nairobi. And then I was born in 43.

Perminder: Was there a good Sikh community? Asian community?

Chunni: Oh, yes. It's the same as, you know, when you move to a new country the community tends to stick together.

Robin: Do you remember how many Gurdwaras there was in the Nairobi? Was there a few?

Chunni: I don't know about Nairobi.

Robin: No, not Nairobi - Dar es Salaam?

Chunni: Dar es Salaam - only one.

Robin: Only one.

Chunni:  I got a feeling they built it...we used to... there used to be a Gurdwara....there used to be flats - about ten of them around there. And we used to live in one of those flats. And I always remember the priest there - every night about 7:00, he’ll go into individual houses. And we used to hide under the bed to not go to...to...he’ll cut you out. And my dad and mum wouldn't say a word, you know, that's what they used to do.

You know, ‘khi karya tu? Chal ya se!’ (what are you doing, get out from there)

And that's my  grounding to the Sikhism sort of thing. But I never forgot that.

Perminder: So, you came in ‘62 to Cardiff, to study - and you asked your friends about snow?

Chunni: Yeah. I mean I said does it snow here? They said no, not here. And the first year was the worst – ‘63 - I got photographs, I think somewhere. Absolute snow everywhere. That was quite a snow period.

Perminder: And the snow lasted for a few months?

Chunni: Yeah, about three months, I think.
You know used to snowballs and everything because I stayed in the University hall, so that was not a problem because it's centrally heated and all that sort of thing. I mean, it's only when the two weeks when they used to shut the place I had to go and live in a flat or something. Actually, I made some friends and things and they used to invite me to their house.

I stayed in Carmarthen for a week, stayed in Mumbles for a week because they will say, oh, what are you doing, Chunni? And I'll say, oh, you know, we can't afford, I can't afford to go home just for a few weeks and then, they say ‘oh come and stay with us for a week’. I used to enjoy that. I really loved it.

Perminder: So when you came to study, were there many other Asian boys or Sikh boys around?

Chunni: I can remember about five, six I think that's about it. In the university itself, there's only myself with the turban especially. And there was quite a few Indians, but they were doing mining. They had come from Bihar and places like that. The mining engineering thing, but not Sikhs.

Perminder: And how did you feel being the only person with the top knob?

Chunni: Great, because straightaway the first thing I did was I went to a sports shop and bought a hockey stick. And once you got into sports side, no problem at all. I really enjoyed the life. University life was good. Before that I had won the Tanzanian Junior championship in tennis 1960 and ‘61 before coming here. So, I played tennis also for the university, I played hockey for the university and badminton - three games.

So, once you get into sports and you make friends and especially team sports, you know - you got no problems.

Perminder: So like many people who say they faced quite a lot of racism and things in the 60s -

Chunni: - Put it this way, I can't think of I can't think of any.

Perminder: Well, what was your experience?

Chunni: Marvelous. Nobody ever...I remember one game playing in North Wales. We were playing a cup game. And there a couple of guys understudying and they shouted some racist stuff and everything but the captain of our team and the other thing straightaway stopped the game and said, you know...what are you going on about? Sort of thing. And they just...everybody kept quiet. But I... I personally, I must say, you read about it, I had more heard more about it after, Osama bin laden came on the thing...because then...when I was...when I used to walk on the street, some youngsters who had no idea about even the difference between Muslims and Sikhs and they would shout ‘oh Osama! Oh go home’ and that sort of thing.

But that's, you know, that's ignorance. But otherwise my 50, 60 years here, I personally do not have any incidents at all that I would say, oh well that was a racist thing.

I was thinking of going back to Tanzania. And that's when - not the Uganda thing - that's when the Kenya thing happened. I remember a lot of people came from Kenya in ‘67, ‘68. My father said, you know, you don’t know how things are going to go here with Africanization and everything – stay on there so you can find a job. So, I did. And after that I had no reason to... and I absolutely loved Wales. And everything here is great.

I went home 1970 and my father said...I said, yeah, I'm ready for marriage and all that, you know? And, so, we met and they said, you got a choice, you know, the usual thing. So it was what I call a semi-arranged thing. I could say ‘no’, she could say ‘no’. But we decided to get married and we met in Dar e Salaam because she came there or something.

And just one evening and I even said, can her take it out? Ohh everybody looked like that, you know?  Because I was used to this country and then the actual marriage took place in Tabora.

She had been...she did her nursing in Nottingham, so she had been here. So, she had some idea of the things. But slowly and once she started making friends, started working in the hospital and all that sort of thing. And, then she... you wouldn't believe it. After a while, I wanted to move back to Cardiff from here. They didn't  want to move. She didn't want to move, my children didn't want to move. They said, we got all our friends here, school here. She used to do the nursing in the miner's hospital.

This Gurudwara, we started in 1976 by hiring a school hall. And then we bought this building - the one we are in now in ‘79. And November 4th, I remember, is the day we moved in there and did all the changes and everything right from the start.

Perminder:  So, how many people were in the group that originally set up the Gurdwara?

Chunni: Originally, I would say about 3 or 4 of them. And two of them still – no - one of them doesn't come because he had cancer I think - Simitar – you know Simitar? Yeah? And the other one Santokh. And the third one Gurcharan Sagoo.

Perminder: So, they were, four men and some women as well?

Chunni: Yeah, you can't have a good Gurdwara  without the women, can you? But what they used to do was when we were in the school hall there was this guy who was made president of the Gurdwara. He used to do the - prepare the langar in his garage; he had a garage at home. And used to bring it in. And we obviously used to clean it completely for the school to use the next day.

So, we did that from ‘76 to ‘79 about 3 years. And then ‘79, we moved to this place.

Perminder: So this was, a chapel that you bought?

Chunni: Yes, I think these guys were always looking for somewhere to move to and everything. And, these three were the main movers, I think. And, one of them is...funnily Simitar is a civil engineer, or he was a bridge engineer with Glamorgan County Council and Gurcharan Sagoo was a civil engineer. And he always used to...he's into buying and selling property and same with Santokh he owns a few properties in Cardiff. I spend my time playing sports and they were looking for something and this thing came on the market and so they made an offer.

And, at that time, we thought, oh, we'll have to get a loan from the bank. No. They went around collecting money, raised the money in no time. I think it was only about £15,000 or something like that on. And then we had to take out...oh we worked like anything... we had to take all the pews out. You know the... you know where you got that...in the Langar Hall they got that little wall round the thing. That's where they used to have a, what do you call it, baptism pool. So, you went down the steps and it used to be full of water. So, we had to fill that up, break it up and everything. And that's where we used to have our stage.

At one time, there's no first floor - at that time - it was just that. And we used to have our Diwan ...one...the main thing...at downstairs and then clear it and take Baba upstairs and then use the same place for langar and then clean it up sort of thing. So, we did that for a few years till the beginning of the 2000 something they decided to put in that first floor and put the first floor in - that improved things quite a lot. And then 2012, we did the extensions and things, you know, and we bought that garage next door. It was a garage at that time and did the extensions and did all that. And because I was working with the civil engineering firm, we, employed a local architect, local quantity surveyor.

Everything I said, we don't want this thing ‘‘ahh ke vo kardegah’ (oh he’ll do it, they’ll do it) I said no we’ve got to do things properly and that's - even then - we didn't have to get much loan. We raised the money.

I started the school - Punjabi school - because we were just sitting, having a drink at somebody’s party and they said, oh, you know, children growing up and no Punjabi, no – and I said ‘all right, I’ll start it’...tomorrow! And first day 30 people. And I was the only one. I said, no problem. And then slowly I started recruiting staff...people ‘tu ne Punjabi hon diya?’ ‘do you know, a little bit of Punjabi?’ Oh, I do know much, but not for teaching.

I said no, just what is possible. Because, that’s what the starting is. I said, remember that if you don't...Actually, then I started...also after the Punjabi, I started the from half nine, half ten to half 11. I started Tharma class, half 11 – half 12 I started Punjabi class. Now the reason I started Tharma class – I was watching Sikh channel or something. There's this guy interviewing people outside the Harmandir Sahib (The Golden Temple) some people going in there and he's asking them, do you know what day it is today? And half of them didn't know they were just going there. Do you know the names of the ten gurus they didn't know? I said they all go on about ‘my child can do this, my child can do this’, but they don't know the basics. So, I went to this class. I said, I said, do you know who the founder of the Sikh religion is?

Hardly any...nobody could tell me...the children, you know.  Do, you know the founder of Christianity. Then everybody knew that ‘Jesus Christ’. What about Islam? They didn't know that much. I said, right, then I talked to a couple of the people I knew...who knew. I said, I want you to come and do the Tharma class, but don't start on the Bani or this Tukh or that Tukh.

Got to have the basics. Who are our gurus, how many there were? Who is the founder? And if there's Gurpurab we used to have a special day. We don't have a class, we just used to do a special day just about that. Why we are celebrating this or and I used to say – Guru Arjan Dev Ji we don’t celebrate, it's like memoriam sort of thing. You know? And so slowly and slowly it built up from there. And so the Tharma class is still going half ten to half 11, and the Punjabi class half 11 to half 12.

I  said I don't want any Granthi or anything because he did come a couple of times a Granthi. But he's way, he's way above me - forget about the children, I said, that's not the...what we want to tell the children. They won’t even remember a single thing out of that.

Yeah, but the simple things about how many gurus we have, who is the founder of the religion? And if we are celebrating a Gurpurab why we are celebrating that? That sort of thing we wanted. And that's what they bring. And she she's quite good with the children.

 

Cyfweliad (rhan 2) gyda Channi Kaler gan Perminder Dhillon a Robin Chaddah-Duke

 

hanni: First thing when I came here, I went...there was this sports shop, opposite the capital cinema. And I sort of went in there and bought a hockey stick. And when they had the trials... so I went for the trials, on a Wednesday, they used to have trials Wednesday, and Saturday was used for the matches.

And of course, I was in the team then and, never looked back from that point of view. Then in the summer, there was no hockey. So, I started playing tennis. So, I represented...I had a blue, they used to give blues in hockey and in tennis because I used to go to St. David’s, Lampeter, Swansea University, Aberystwyth University play tennis matches against them hockey matches and Bangor University. Bangor University used to go on a Friday stay the night, play the matches on Saturday, come back on the Sunday. And the student's union to pay for everything. The travel, the staying there, the meals, everything. And, I remember going to Newcastle University as UW champions in hockey and played Newcastle in a semi-final and we lost badly. So that was the hockey side and then the tennis. Squash I started one side when I semi-retired from hockey because then I had more time and I wanted to find something to be fit. And I was the first of the amateur coaches trained in Sophia gardens. And there were only three of them I think, at that time.

So then afterwards I started doing coaching around South Wales. Merthyr Tydfil, Bridgend, Hawthorns, Cardiff School all boys, Sophia Gardens, Caerphilly. Caerphilly we started the club in 1976. I was the founder member simply because we came back. We had gone to see the Olympics in Montreal and when we travelled like that, I always took the family with me.

I mean even the photographs there with the Barbados one, you will see my wife there, my two children there because it became part of a holiday. They enjoyed there themselves. I just played hockey and then came and went with them wherever they wanted to go. But the squash...I used to do coaching here also to the juniors and seniors.

And when I came back, there was a pamphlet through the door saying that we got a Rhymney Valley tournament for squash. So, I entered it. And I won it for the first three years. Rhymney Valley Open or something like that. And my name was on the board actually, it's peeling off now...in the sports centre there.

And then we formed a club and well...that night we sitting in the bar, they asked me how do we proceed now we want to form a club? I said, well, the only way is to have these...they used to have divisions, you know, you play, you know, a group of five, you play each other and the top two go up, top bottom, go down and things like moving up and down. And you wouldn't believe it, there was a five year...five year waiting list at that time for membership. And so that's how we started this one. And then Sophia Gardens - same thing happened there. I was a captain and chairman there. I used to do... I did a few marking and refereeing for the Welsh Squash Federation. At the end, they wanted me to become manager of the under 18 side, you know...the teams going everywhere. Except, I got married and landed my civil engineering job. So, I had to give up everything. I was chairman of Cardiff Hockey Club Athletic Club at that time. So, I gave that up and when they offered me this, managership, I said, no, I got to find my niche in life now.

So, then I took on a business and that's where I started doing more of the accountancy side. But I never gave up my sports till I had the bypass. Even then, I played some hockey till one day I came back home...because it's a winter game here. And I was really suffering and my wife and my son said, no, we’re going to hide your hockey sticks and everything, you're not playing anymore.

I got about ten hockey sticks there, and when we used to have a picnic at the station picnic, I used to take all the hockey sticks. And everybody used to love playing cricket, hockey, thre everything. So, sport side, I still go and watch the odd Cardiff’s team game, but not as much now as I used to.

Perminder: And when you were coaching, when you were doing coaching, how did the youngsters receive you?

Channi: Great, great. Absolutely marvellous. Even now, if they see me walking down the street they’ll say ‘Hello Channi, how you doing’ and all that sort of thing, you know? And, of course, I could not walk down Caerphilly main street without somebody shouting ‘Hello Channi, how are  you’ or that sort of thing, because the parents bring them and I'll do the coaching. And when they grew up, they're great.

And that's where I was...is the story I was telling somebody. There's Bryn Williams who played for Great Britain in hockey. Now, what I noticed in the changing room was his son would talk to him in Welsh, because they wanted to speak Welsh, he turned around and talked to me in English. And I always used to say to people, you know, this is what you want with the children - they speak to you in Punjabi, but they speak to anybody else who is there in English.

That's what that's what he used to do it, remember? And they're quite a few of my friends who brought up their children speaking...sent the specially to Welsh schools because they wanted Welsh not to die. They themselves couldn't speak that much Welsh. But they send them too...exactly...that's where I got the idea of starting the Punjabi school really.

I said, you know, you've got to do something for the children otherwise, you lost them. I said, even your Gurudwaras will be empty.

Perminder: What legacy would you like to leave behind for the younger generation?

Chunni: I don't want to leave any legacy. It's up to the younger generation to find themselves. I mean, like when we came, we wanted to know something. We went around – Samithir and talking to everybody. We did our thing. Now it's their time to do it. The young generation now have got to find their own feet. They got to really, find out what is wrong with whatever society. And they go to find how they can improve that society. And the reason why I'm still involved with the Gurdwara...because my friends still say, why are you are you helping them doing this, doing that? I said, you can do better from the inside than on the outside.