My name is Santosh Bhushan, I am from India, born in Punjab. I came to Canada about 42 years ago with my one son 2 years old. I have 2 older daughters, Renu and Shashi; all 3 kids are married and I have 6 grandchildren between one month old and 14 years of age; good feeling.
My life started in 1967 here in Canada and we had a lot of struggles but because I liked Vancouver and I enjoyed that is was very clean and open so we [my husband and I] stayed here with our son and we did have a lot of problems. My husband was a mechanical engineer; he found the job quickly but he also lost it quickly. So we had lots of struggles in that way too…financially and to find a place and stuff [there was no help]. There was no Indian food here so we had to find vegetables and stuff like that; we were limited because we weren’t eating meat so it was kind of hard. We learnt to survive with whatever we had. We only brought $7 each person so we only had $21 in our hands and one suitcase each but we managed. I worked also, my husband and I worked on and off and he lost job and we picked up pieces again. He [my husband] developed a sickness in 1973 which was schizophrenia so after staying here about 18 years I lost him from the sickness. My son was 20 years old at the time and my daughters were 15 and 10 years old. So I was in a new country with 3 kids and no husband so it was a terrible terrible time for me. I wanted have positive feelings and because I am a go-getter/survivor so I am not going to just live on government money, everyone said to go on welfare and survive that way, but I was working for Revenue Canada at the time he [husband] took his life so I kept on going. After two weeks I said I’m not going to sit home so after two weeks I went back to work. I told my kids that whatever education they want, if they want University, that I will provide them, whatever I have to do. I provided them home and education and all my kids have degrees; university degrees and they are settled. So those feelings are very good in me, I know I achieved something; good goals for myself and for my kids.
The life is not easy is what I’ve found [but these difficulties made me stronger and made me to face the reality]. Another thing I wanted to add to that is when my kids were going to school I wanted them to learn my language. I went to talk to the teachers…should I teach my language as well as English [to my kids]. They [the teachers] told me if I teach them my language and English then they might get confused and the next day they come to school they might be speaking half and half. So it would be not very good for the kids because they won’t be able to have conversations with their friends. So we were just speaking English so they lost that touch. Even though I speak in my language they always answer me in English. When they grew up (30 and 40) they said, “why don’t you teach us our language?” so I was paying for it which I think it’s not my fault but if I wanted to do it all over I would put my foot down and teach them our language from day one. I would not listen to anyone else but I know English they learn at school and with friends and English would be their first language anyways.
One thing I want to tell that all the young families and young parents should learn is to keep their culture, language and the food so they don’t lose their touch. Because after we are gone I think our kids will mostly be Canadianized and they won’t have this culture, our cultural background and they won’t go back to home, to India, because they won’t have that bonding. So if they knew our language, our culture more: food, clothing, all those things, and [they will] want to go back all the time. So that is one thing I want to do, is add to that not to lose their roots.
Finally I will say that whatever the struggles are in life people have, everybody has those struggles; everybody has bad and good days. There’s not one person that doesn’t have bad times in their life, it could be 10 years before or later, they will have struggles but it’s not always rosy rosy. It always goes up and goes down and then we pick up. The most important is to keep positive thoughts in the mind so that we make our lives [positive] and our children’s lives [positive] with our neighbours and our friends or whatever. It’s a good feeling…to achieve and have goals. So I think I will just say that for today.