A Journey Back Home: India and Beyond
Jasmine Singh & Puran Singh Rai (1971-75 & 2020)
A collection of poetry and photography discussing immigration and Punjabi heritage. Photography by Puran Singh Rai; poetry by his granddaughter, Jasmine Singh.
Growing up as the daughter of two immigrant parents, I would constantly hear stories about India. My mother would passionately describe her childhood home as if it were a fairy tale. It was hard for me to conceptualize and understand the undying love my mother had for India until I saw my grandfather’s photos. My grandfather was a child during the partition of India in 1947, and along with the clothes he had on his back, he carried his love for photography with him. Sorting through photos from my mother’s youth in the 1970s was a very surreal experience. I got to see life the way that she did, and for the first time, I understood the pain that came with having to leave everything behind. She was blindly walking into a world that she never thought she would be in. Running away seems to be in my bloodline. My grandfather and grandmother left their home in what is now Pakistan to come to India. My mother and father left their homes in India to come to the United States. The movement of people is inevitable, but for a moment I wanted to stay still and appreciate where I come from. For a long time, I was confused because it was hard for me to appreciate a culture I had never experience. However, it was my grandfather’s dedication to his culture that inspired me to look deeper in ways that I never have before. Even though I was born in New York City, I can’t help but feel a thread that connects my heart to my mother country. I curated this collection of photographs taken by my grandfather to remind us that no matter how far we are, our roots will always be grounded in the heart of our culture.
Along with these photographs, I have also written a collection of poetry discussing immigration. A Mile Away is a recollection of how my father immigrated into the United States, emphasizing the struggles and sacrifices that have to be made when someone chooses to immigrate into another country. My father had dreams of becoming a pilot, however, those dreams quickly washed away because of his ambition to live a life outside of India so that he could provide for his family. The Unresolved Trauma of Immigration is a continuation of my father’s journey and the tolls that immigration takes on you. After coming to the United States, he worked very hard to receive citizenship. Although that triumphant moment was met with happiness and gratitude, the scars of immigration would forever linger my father’s mind. To this day there are things that he can’t talk about because of how painful they are, and as the daughter of an immigrant, I have had to endure some of that lasting trauma. As a society, I think we overlook the mental and emotional weight that immigrants have to carry. In Blow Smoke and Blood, I am revisiting the past and making parallels between my father’s immigration to the United States and my grandparent’s immigration back to India during partition. As the saying goes, history repeats itself. The trauma of having to leave everything behind is something that is both relevant in the past and the present.
