Hello everyone, I wrote this Eulogy for Mummy Ji, or simply ‘Mum’ as we call her – Hardial Kaur Chuhan

Mum was born on June 4th in 1933 as Hardial Kaur Sandhu. Her family village was Bariwala, near the city of Muktsar close to the Pakistan border, about 90 miles south from Amritsar in Punjab, India. Her mother Basant Kaur was married to Amar Singh Sandhu, a civil servant who would occasionally be transferred to a different city. In 1933, when Mum was born, they were living in Patiala, a nice city further away from Pakistan, and so Mum was actually born in Patiala hospital. She was the youngest of three children the eldest was her brother Kulwant, followed by her sister Gurdial.

Mum’s father was very keen to have all his children educated and Mum went to school from a young age. In cities it was becoming increasingly common for girls to become educated, and during holidays Mum would happily stay with her uncle in Bariwala where she became used to village life.

Two major difficulties happened during her teenage years, one was that she became seriously ill with pleurisy resulting from a lung infection. The other was the horrific partition of India as a result of the way independence from British rule took place. Being so close to the border, many years later she still could not talk about much of what she witnessed.

From Patiala, Mum went to Faridkot (a town near Muktsar) to study for her BT – Batchelor of Teaching – degree. Her brother-in-law Gurnek Singh asked a friend of his Kapoor Singh if there might be a suitor for Mum. Kapoor Singh suggested his cousin Maluk Singh Chuhan who had completed his LLB – Batchelor of Law and Literature – in Delhi and was just completing his barrister’s pupillage in a town called Bhatinda, close to Faridkot and Muktsar. Little did they know that Maluk Singh was already a student friend of Mum’s brother Kulwant, and Mum married Dad on 6th December 1953.

Then, living in Bhatinda, Mum gained work as a teacher and in 1955 her first daughter was born. In 1958 her second daughter was born and finally her son – me, born in 1960. Mum also gradually became a deputy head and finally a head teacher at a government High School for girls. She worked hard and was loved by both staff and students.

In the 1960’s the UK were recruiting workers from the commonwealth to meet their severe labour shortages, and many people from Punjab were coming here. In 1964 Dad decided to also take a chance and brought mum and us three kids with him.

We originally settled in High Wycombe. Mum and Dad’s Indian qualifications were not accepted in those days but my father managed to find reasonable work in the Post Office. Mum first worked in a factory for a while, then my father supported her while she went to Oxford to train again as a teacher, this time choosing special education as her focus.

Mum began to develop her career as a teacher in the late 1960’s. Our family faced a major trauma when Mum and Dad had a head on collision while driving where they both went through the windscreen, but thankfully they both survived. My father then also wanted to re-qualify to become a barrister again, and in 1971 we moved to Slade Green, near Dartford on the border of Greater London and Kent.  It was closer to the London Law colleges.

From 1971, Mum worked as a teacher and main breadwinner to support my father, first to study Law for four years, and then to undertake a pupillage for two years. The second year of this pupillage was an additional year because my father was taken ill with a rare form of TB during the first year. Mum also mostly did the looking after of us and the house. I remember the difficulties of those years, especially in a place like Slade Green, and I am in great admiration of Mum’s determination to manage it all and get through it. On top of all that she continued to help Dad into the world of gaining clients to get his work going.

Among her teaching jobs she worked for a long time during the 70’s and 80’s commuting to the London Borough of Barking. In 1978 Mum and Dad moved to Sudbury Hill and then finally to Ruislip in 1981. All their children gradually became married roughly over this period and a little beyond. Mum and Dad were now stable and they finally got to visit India a few times and also the USA. Mum’s final teaching role was at Mandeville School in Northolt where she worked for many years ans also incorporated a rich array of multicultural curricula into her work.

Mum and Dad also did an exchange with a family in France, Monsiuer and Madame Viautour. We three children had been allowed to do holiday exchanges with their children and niece during the 60’s and 70’s. As Asian parents they always seemed to be strongly liberal in their views.

Mum loved sari prints, watching films, she loved flowers and gardens, dancing and music. I probably get a lot of my creative streak from her. My very earliest memory is simply seeing the sky and hearing a beautiful voice singing, which I guess was Mum. As I became interested in playing music she was encouraging and I found her liking many of the groups I listened to especially Santana.

She knew how to talk and kept conversation and life going in the house and with a wide set of friends. She was assertive and determined and her voice has taken me through many phases in my life, helping me to push myself. Last year when my own son died, Naseeb, she did her best to support and give me and Balwant words that might be of support and help us keep going. I am going to miss her warmth, her thoughts, her sharp insights, her love, her determination to keep going and pushing, and of course her voice. She has been a constant soundtrack in my life that will continue to guide me as the years move on.

There have been so many songs she has loved to play, sing and get lost in over the years. In keeping with her really vibrant spirit there is one that we will play you now from the mid-80’s, which is one of many that she had a strong phase of playing and singing over and over again. It’s called Laung Da Lishkara from what was then a landmark Punjabi film.

You can watch it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qudbvolJSjg .