Although I’m first generation British Asian, I’m the fourth generation of my family to live in the country. My great grandfather was one of the first five Pakistani’s to move to Glasgow. He made his living as a door to door salesman, but his is a story for another day.

The focus of this entry is my grandpa, my father’s father. My grandpa grew up on a farm in Pakistan. His mother died when he was very young and he doesn’t even have a vague memory of her, his father immigrated to Scotland in order to make a living and be able to send money back to the family. My grandfather married my grandmother before the creation of Pakistan as a country. My eldest uncle was born in India, not Pakistan. My grandfather made a life for himself in Pakistan but eventually he made the decision to do what his father had done and move to Britain to make a living. So he left behind his family and moved to Glasgow, an illiterate man from Pakistan doing what he could to help his family.

Just over a month ago I accompanied my grandmother to one of her hospital appointments. On our way back I was driving through the Cowcaddens area of Glasgow and while stopped at a red light my grandfather started to reminisce about the area. When he first arrived it was vastly different to the Cowcaddens we see today. It was more the recollection of a day when he got off the bus at Cowcaddens instead of his usual stop and found himself lost in the area that triggered something off in my head. I could imagine how I would feel if I got a little lost in a city that I didn’t know but if I didn’t have the ability to read or even speak the language of that country then I would be, well to put it simply, shit scared. It was this small recollection that made me realise that my grandparents and even my parents have been through so much hardship but at the same time this has given them all such interesting lives. My grandparents are still both illiterate yet both don’t forget a single birthday of all their grandchildren. They know which medication to take, at what time and in which quantity by just looking at the packaging, they have memories far superior to my (sometimes dying) memory.

The relevance of all this? It’s actually something that’s inspired me to write something. It’s just a small piece at the moment, which isn’t yet finished. I’ll post it tomorrow, but I felt that the back story itself should be explained a little and if I’d have included it with the finished story then it would have just been a little too overwhelming.