TNN Oct 26, 2012 - KOCHI: Satwant Kaur is a demure and pleasing person. Though advancing age and her arthritis knee may have weakened her, at 73 she is the oldest living Sikh in a close-knit community in Kochi.
Accompanying her husband, Harban Singh Sethi, she came to Kerala in the late 1960s. Doctors back in their hometown, Patiala, wanted her husband to move to the south to regain his health. Slowly he fell in love with this place and shifted to Kochi. Theirs was the first family of Sikhs to settle in the city.
Now more than 25 Sikh families call the Queen of Arabian Sea their home. A proof of that is the Gurudwara they built in Thevara. It is here that the faithful from all over the city congregate on important days in the Sikh calendar. Sitting on a 25-cent land, the Gurudwara has now become an easily recognizable landmark in the city.
Every Sunday, all the members of the Sikh community meet here. Interestingly, it is not just the Sikhs who come here; some of the Punjabis in the city too make it to the Gurudwara on festive occasions.
The city now has many more Sikhs and Punjabis, thanks to the Navy and the Coast Guard.
"When a naval ship visits Kochi, the Sikhs in it come here to pray," said Bunty Singh, Satwant Kaur's son, a Kochi-born Sikh who speaks Malayalam fluently.
Since most of those in the Navy are here only for three years, they make friends with the locals and the camaraderie continues till it is time for transfer.
Satwant Kaur remembers the choices she had to make while coming here. "My husband looked at this as a good business option, and opened a new automobile spare parts business in the city. But Kochi was so far away from home and it wasn't easy initially to adjust to the different culture," she recalled. It was a Muslim friend in Thevara who was most helpful in that phase of her life here. This friend, whose name she doesn't remember now, was the person who helped her husband and her learn the first few words in Malayalam.
Even though they adore this place, Punjabis who love their food, miss that in this city. "Here we don't get authentic Punjabi cuisine that we normally get in other cities. That is the only thing that we miss here," Bunty said. Asked why no Punjabi had started a dhaba in Kochi, Bunty said not many were ready to take the risk. "Though it will be a surefire success, there won't be any time for the family," he said. Other than the Sikhs, there are around 25 families from Punjab who have made Kochi their home. "We are comfortable here and mingle with the rest of the North Indian communities," said Prakash, a businessman who has been here for the last 22 years.
"I used to be in Hyderabad, and later moved here. Now I can speak Malayalam as well as Telugu," he said.