The Mind Creative OCT 2013
The year was 1881. A young
Punjabi Sikh by the name of
Uttam Singh from the village
of Moga in Punjab left the
shores of India for greener
pastures. He landed in
Sumatra where he worked on
a tobacco plantation owned
by an English firm. There, he
supervised a couple of
hundred coolies on the
plantation and also reputedly
worked with the British
Mounted Police service
during that period. After a
period of five years, he
returned to his village and
purchased some land with his
hard earned money.
The call of distant land was
however too strong and the
need to preserve his family’s
social respect or “izzat” was
overwhelming. Soon, Uttam
Singh left for Batavia (later
renamed to Jakarta) to visit
his brother. During his travels,
Uttam Singh had already heard
tales (thanks to the Sikh
network) of two faraway lands
of opportunities “Telia”
(Australia) and “Miktan”
(America). For reasons
unknown, he decided to set
sail for “Telia” and in 1890,
reached the city of Melbourne.
Soon, he came to be known as
Otim Singh.
Otim obviously had exposure to the English language before arriving in
Australia because records show that he educated himself in Melbourne
and within a span of three months, had enough knowledge of the
language to “enable his travels to the inlands of Australia”. During
those years, racial prejudice was rampant in the Australian society
and being a Indian was, in fact, a very difficult social problem that
Otim had to deal with. Most Sikhs were erroneously identified as
“Ghans” (Afghans) or as just “Hindoos” and lived marginal lives.
6