“Sitting in an English garden waiting for this sun; if the sun don’t come, you get a tan from standing in the English rain.” -- The Beatles

We had our first proverbial English rain last week, not that I mind, however. I adore the rain, frizzy hair, cute ‘brellies (of which I am now a proud possessor), soggy green grass and all. The English, as a people through history, are pretty big on their gardens and the gray skies and chilly drizzles that make them as fecund as they are. But what I have found even more interesting, is what seems to be growing in England’s cultural plots. The flora of customs is varied and sometimes indistinguishably entwined. Some of it is carefully cultivated, nurtured from brave green nascence, and tied to the old wooden stakes of tradition, and some of it grows unchecked, the societal weed that bursts through cracks in the once scrupulously tended solid-brick garden walls of London and struggles for a peek at the shy sun.

The beautiful garden at my home stay in Woking

Last week, Arcadia took its students to a Hindu Temple in the plain, outskirts neighbourhood of Neasden. At first, my classmates and I were thoroughly befuddled at the purpose of this particular excursion, traversing tubes and light rails and junky suburban drives, it wasn’t until we rounded a bend on an ordinary lane, watched only by the vapid eyes of brownstone houses and the odd CCTV camera, that we were faced with a magnificent, imposing, marble temple, sprung ivory and intricate out of the drab surroundings. The temple visit was on our agenda, I assume, to illustrate the overwhelming influence Indians have had over England. When we were asked at orientation what the national dish of England was, our responses of bangers and mash or fish ‘n’ chips were incorrect. It is Chicken Tika Curry. The Mandir temple was built in the 90s so that English Hindis could hold on to their faith far away from their cultural home. In the garden of tradition, the temple is well tended by community leaders, fertilized with the adaptations to and acceptance of modern life, and it is thriving. The Mandir, as well as many other religious orders (like the New Apostolic Church, which I attended two Sundays ago at the request of Patrick Elsing, who sought out the local branch of his home faith), has managed to find its niche in London’s multifarious jungle, but only because of prudent planning and nurturing. Some other areas of cultural growth is purely wild, uncultivated, and spawned from ancient, long-forgotten seeds embedded deep in London’s history. And these, too, change the shape of the metaphorical garden path.

Pat's New Apostolic Church

The Mandir Temple

Riding home on the DLR from Neasden’s temple, I witnessed another type of culture entirely. This one was angry, thorny, and seemingly immune to society’s usual weed killer. Two men of African descent sat opposite me and my friends on the afternoon train. They spoke wildly and passionately and we tried to ignore their hateful voices. They preached truculently on racial stereotypes, and in professing that all their misfortunes were based on the colour of their skin, I believe they perpetuate those very stereotypes, an thus, discriminations. The older of the men ranted that all throughout history, blacks have been the group most targeted. However, if 
you look through the annals of time, I believe you will find barbarism is something that confines itself to humans in general, genocide by and of every form and color. It is an abhorrent but very present part of this great thing we call civilisation. It upset me to see these men so indignant and so unhappy to be living in this country that I have come to love and not realise how privileged they are compared to so many others.

Yet this resolute disapproval was slightly shaken this evening when I went to go see the play “Slave: A Question of Freedom” at the Riverside Studios. It follows the true, heart-wrenching, recent story of a Nubian Sudanese girl who was stolen from her village and made to work as a slave for 10 years. Even though Mende’s harrowing and lonely plight is now resolved, she feels that she still suffers knowing there are millions of others in forced labour today who do not have friends, nor memoirs, nor plays to alert the world to what they are going through. Therefore, is it the job of those men on the train to accuse the “white man” of oppressing his darker fellows to remind us that injustice between all people still rages on? Or do they worsen the situation by broadening those cracks in the garden wall that separates two distinct, but seemingly harmonious “English Gardens?” Should I continue to sit dumbly across from them and accept the inculpation for crimes our ancestors committed against each other? Or should I have the courage to speak up and point out that, although what’s growing in our respective gardens may appear vey different, it is the same “English rain” that falls on us all, and whether we use our gnarled, cultural roots as a crutch or a lesson, we are still born of the same earth, and should thus try to achieve the peace that all religions, no matter whom they pray to, seem to be working toward?

Windsor Castle seen through English ivy