Split personalities and cultures

Sathnam Sanghera's parents were travelling to India and the bags weighed much more than what the airline had allowed. While unpacking, Sanghera came across medicine and a doctor's note that said his father suffered from schizophrenia "" the deadliest mental illness known to man. That was also the moment when he realised that his older sister's odd behaviour too was nothing else but schizophrenic.

When he made this discovery, Sanghera was 26. It was only some years later that he gave up his job with a newspaper to find out what had gone wrong and trace the journey of his parents. What follows is sad as well as heart warming. Sad because his parents, transported straight from rural Punjab to England, could never understand the full damage of the illness; heart-warming because the family still found love amidst all the gloom.

In a broad sweep, Sanghera tackles with admiration subjects as varied as mental illness, anxieties and values that are typical of Indian households, lives of Punjabi immigrants and clash of cultures. The concoction is a heady mix, enjoyable and difficult to put down. Never before has a story so gripping on Punjabi migrants been told.

Several rivulets run right through the book. One is Sanghera's account of his adolescent years in a Punjabi home at Wolverhampton and his relationship with his mother. The second is the ordeals and ambitions of Punjabi immigrants in England and the third is his parents' early days in England and how they cope with his father's schizophrenia. Last, but not the least, is his own life as a journalist in London, detached totally from the Punjabi world he grew up in.

Sanghera's grandfather owned agricultural land in Punjab and was the only child of his parents. There was no reason for him to leave his farm and migrate to England. Over the years, he sired no fewer than nine kids. The land was no longer big enough to support all. So he left for England, where some of his children joined him subsequently. One of them was Sanghera's father, unlettered and unschooled.

Before leaving, his marriage was fixed with Sanghera's mother, though they tied the knot in England. That is when life became a nightmare for them. The husband turned violent with his wife right from the day of their marriage and was no different with his relatives and co-workers. In turn, he was sent to hospital, where he was even given electric shocks, and subsequently sent to jail after he failed to mend his ways. Six years after marriage, he left his job never to work again. His mother accused her daughter-in-law, Sanghera's mother, of having worked black magic on her son.

It is towards the end of the book that Sanghera comes to know that his great-grandfather in Punjab (who was said to be a teacher in Patiala but made no efforts to educate his own son) too suffered from a similar mental illness and died young. Does schizophrenia travel from one generation to the next? Does it show up after skipping a generation? Medical scientists and doctors are not yet ready with an answer. But the trail in Sanghera's blood line "" three schizophrenics in four generations "" is spine-chilling.

Right through, the book switches from Sanghera's discoveries of the little family secrets to his relationship with his mother. Like most Indian boys, Sanghera wants to break free (his mother wants him to marry a Jat Sikh girl) but does not want to hurt his mother in doing so. Of her two sons, she had brought up only Sanghera as a Sikh but kicked up no dirt when he got his topknot cut in school. Yet, he lives under the constant fear that if he tells his mother that he will marry a girl of his choice and not hers, it will break her into pieces.

Afraid of saying all this to her face, Sanghera writes a long letter, gets it translated into Punjabi from India for $300 and hands it over to his mother in his London flat. This ends the unforgettable story of secrets and love told with wit, passion and a true journalist's dispassion.

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Sathnam Sanghera
Viking/Penguin
323 pages; £9.99