Growing Up
While I have lived outside of India for over forty years, Punjab is at the heart of my poetry. I write and sing about things that matter to me like human rights, the environment, Sikh philosophy and poems which motivate people to think and create change for a better tomorrow.
I was born in District Lahore in what is now Pakistan. At the age of 7, during partition in 1947, my family and I joined other countless families who left everything behind and walked across the new dividing line at Wagah Border overnight into India. We came across the border to village Bhakna, District Amritsar where our family stayed with a close relative, Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna, who became one of the biggest influences in my life. He was a well known freedom fighter and founder of the Gadar Party. I grew up in Bhakna where I attended Janta High School - the first co-educational school in the area -also founded by Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna. I heard the true stories of the heroic freedom struggle and the sacrifices made by the Gadar Party straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I also learned about their disappointments and betrayal by our own government after Independence.
Before children started spending their free time watching cable television and playing videogames, there was magic. And for me that magic was poetry. Babaji's wife was my grandfather's sister and we affectionately called her "Wade Bhuaji." In the evenings, along with Babaji and Wade Bhuaji, all of my cousins, brothers, sisters and on many occasions, children from the neighboring villages who also attended the co-educational Janta High school would join us in the open-air courtyard at our house. We would take turns passing around the progressive magazines like Preet Larhi which still retains as much integrity today as it did
back then. It published finely polished prose and poetry about social issues which most magazines are still afraid to touch today like poverty, corruption, inequality, injustice and sexual discrimination.
Wooden cots with mosquito nets were laid out, side by side in the open courtyard and we would take turns singing poems from magazines. Creating tunes on the spot was something that came very easily to me and I would always try to convey the emotion poets such as Amrita Pritam, Professor Mohan Singh, Bhai Vir Singh and Puran Singh amongst many others put into the poems I was singing. Someone once said, "We are born as poets from a wound that is inflicted upon us by other poets' poetry." And at some point I had that wound.
I wrote my very first poem ‘Rooh Mere Punjab Di’ for the maiden Rose Festival celebrated in Chandigarh in April, 1968 and won special appreciation from Dr. M.S. Randhawa, the then Chief Commissioner of Chandigarh. The poem personified Chandigarh envisioned in human form by Lee Corbusier, as a wonder girl who at the age of sixteen was blossoming into a young woman. The poem describes her unparalleled breathtaking beauty, vibrant youthfulness, exuberance and spirited promise for the land of five rivers, Punjab. Blessed and protected from the evil eye by the great Himalayas, bathed in Sukhna Lake, the poem describes her decadent adornments as being made entirely of unique landcape plant material used to beautify Chandigarh.
After graduating from Khalsa College, Amritsar majoring in Horticulture, I started my first job as Horticultural Inspector at the picturesque Moughal Gardens in Pinjore and then with the capital project, Chandigarh.
Leaving India
I made the decision to leave India and travelled to England for financial reasons. Being the eldest in the family and determined to help educate my siblings, I decided to pursue higher education in England. With three pounds to my name, I worked back breaking hours at various factories during the day and in the evenings commuted to London via subway to study an intensive Masters Degree program at the prestigious Landscape Institute, London. During this struggle, I was offered a job as a landscape assistant with Derek Lovejoy & Partners, one of the most distinguished International landscape consultants in England where I continued to work after graduation as a landscape architect. I returned to India and married Inderbir Dhillon in 1972.
For better educational opportunities for our children, Navreet and Navdeep, we moved to the United States in 1992 where Inderbir proved that it's never too late to go back to school and is currently a Licensed Vocational Nurse. I fell back on my first love of horticulture and worked as an Agricultural Biologist for the County of Fresno before retiring in 2006. Now I spend my time using my horticultural and landscaping skills in my own garden as well as writing, recording and sharing my experiences of life through my poetry.
Community Involvement
Actively involved in community matters, I am currently a co-host for Punjab News and Viewswhere I talk about everything from landscape design to the promotion of Punjabi language, literature, and culture. Also along with other members, I have helped in forming the Sikh Council of Central California Fresno, the Punjabi Sahit Sabha California, and the Indo-US Heritage Association in Fresno, California. I take great interest in helping to organize events such as Interfaith Alliance functions, literary meetings as well as events close to my heart such as commemorating functions in the fond memory of the Gadhri Babas and other freedom fighters who laid down their lives to free India. As General Secretary for the Sikh Council of Central California, we helped raise over $50,000 during the 9/11 Disaster Relief fundraisers. Recently as a representative of the Sikh Council of Central California, I helped to coordinate a fundraiser for the Guru Nanak Heritage Institute for Punjabi Studies in San Jose where the local community has established a Punjabi language and cultural studies program for the past ten years at San Jose State University. A similar effort is also in the process to start up a Punjabi language and cultural studies program in the Central Valley at the California State University, Fresno.
Professional Experience Working on United Nations funded projects took my family and I on a whirlwind adventure through Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. I worked with the U.N. team as a landscape architect involved in designing and developing Dodoma, the new capital city of Tanzania in East Africa. I also served as a resident landscape architect for five years where my responsibilities included the landscape design of the presidential complex in Abuja, the new capital city of Nigeria, West Africa. From 1987 to 1992, I worked as a Senior Landscape Architect with the Dubai Municipality in the United Arab Emirates. As a Technical Advisor to the Director of the Planning Department, Abdullah-Al-Ghaith, I was responsible for coordinating major and now internationally reknowned parks such as Jumeira Beach Park, Dubai Creekside Park, Deira Cornish and Al-mamzar Park.
