A BIAS OPINION
It’s different when you read a book written by someone extremely close to you. You know their mannerisms, thought processes, favourite things, and pains. You think you know everything about them until you read their book. And you read the things you know. And then you read the things you never would have believed. This is the importance of storytelling within a family, within a community of people. Even the ones we know best have pains hidden, yearning to be heard.
Reading my father’s book, Grandfather’s Mulberry Tree by Baljit Ghuman has to be one of the most difficult and heart-warming books I have read. Of course, I have the bias of being his daughter, but that is why I must share my unique experience of reading this book. This book was a reminder that our Sikh parents were once innocent children, filled with curiosity and searching for the meaning of life. It’s hard to imagine our parents as being these kids once when we only know the part of their lives that carried their scars from the Sikh Genocide of 1984.
The parts that stood out to me the most were this, about childhood, innocence, and carefreeness juxtaposed with the pains of quickly growing up against one's wishes and holding onto any source of comfort a child can hold in these hopeless times. We see our parents with the visual of their greying hairs but this book allows for my generation to see the children within them that were killed in this genocide. With the genocides occurring during our times, one of the things that stands out the most is the unfortunate amount of children being killed that tears our souls apart. To see an innocent and youthful thing die is one of the most tragic things that can happen. Our Sikh parents that we see today are all carrying the corpses of this child within themselves, wishing for their stories to be heard. But storytelling is not as easy as it seems. For how does a corpse tell their pains?
Grandfather’s Mulberry Tree becomes almost a handbook to all the survivors and traumatized from the events of 1984 that shows them how to tell their story. The importance of their stories. And that storytelling can be healing. Storytelling may be terrifying when one must remember wounds that can rip wide open again, but that is why we begin by telling stories to the ones we love, who we know will gently tend to our wounds. That as a Sikh community, if we sit and hear each other, and be there for each other, we can relieve each other of the pain we all hold through stories, “Those voices want me to tell their stories so that I can heal my own wounds,” (Ghuman, 90).
In some ways, I think that is what my relationship with my father has been, a journey of healing together. I grew up hearing stories from my father and maybe I got lucky that he was a writer at heart, that I got to hear every detail and I knew that every day I would get to learn something new. In return, my father always gave me room for commentary and we would have long discussions filled with curiosity, explanations, understanding, and bonding where we would learn from each other. This book only solidified the bonding we have had as father-daughter. That it is through being emotionally vulnerable with your child, that your child will also hold your hand through your pains. That a parent-child bond is just like the companionship a tree can bring into one's life.
When I tell others about my deep discussions with my father they always look at me with surprise and reply with the fact that their Sikh parents barely speak about that time, or rather about their emotions in general, and how they wish their parents did too. In those moments I realized how important these discussions were with my dad because they are what fostered empathy in me and allowed me to understand my identity and history.
That is why I urge Sikh parents and children to especially read this book, to learn the importance of storytelling. That their children crave to hear them and wish to help them heal. Healing cannot be done in isolation, it is done with the ones with love. We as a community don’t just need to survive each day, but to live every day together. We can make sure our parent's stories are never forgotten. That the children within themselves may have a second chance to run peacefully in the mustard fields through us and in return we get a strong parent child bond. Vulnerability, communication, bonding, healing. That is my unique take, I hope you take it with all my bias and plant your very own Grandfather’s Mulberry Tree.
R. Kaur