The Fall and Rise of Amandeep

The Fall and Rise of Amandeep

I'm often asked what it was like growing up as a Sikh girl in east London, which is a bit of a stupid question when you think about it. I mean, how can I compare my experience to that of someone growing up as a Sikh elsewhere in the world, or to the experience of a non-Sikh growing up in east London for that matter? It was just my life and it was normal to me.

Well, most of it was normal anyway. Had a blind person visited the girls' school I attended they wouldn't have thought me, or any of the other Indian kids, any different to the white kids. Same cockney accent, same gripes about the teachers, same excited discussions about now long-forgotten boy bands we liked.

And when I went home, I raided the fridge, watched TV, and did my homework like anyone else. So what was it like growing up as a Sikh in east London? Ninety-five percent of it was no different to anybody else growing up in east London. Why do people always seem to want to focus on the small differences rather than the many similarities people have?

Looking back, of much more significance to me than small cultural or linguistic differences between my family and my friends' was the absence of a father figure in my home. Dad died when I was nearly five so I was raised by my mum although, because Mum worked two jobs, my eldest sister was often my main carer. My only brother died in infancy long before I was born so between my all-female senior school and my all-female home, I didn't have much contact with boys or men after I left primary school.

I had male teachers at school, and I met my friends' dads if I went to their houses for sleepovers, but it wasn't the same as having a strong male as a rock, a support and a blind-eye friend as my friends' fathers were. And with Mum out working almost every waking hour, I lacked the hands-on love, the sense of purpose, and the strong direction only a mother can provide.

I suspect my two sisters felt the loss of my father even more keenly than I did. Being five and seven years older than me, they had known Dad before his long illness and drawn-out death, and the changes his passing brought must have come as a considerable shock to them.

Harkiran, my oldest sister, looked after me most days even though she was no more than a girl herself at the time. Always obedient and diligent, it was usually Harkiran who would pick me up from school and cook my dinner each evening before sitting me in front of the TV and disappearing to her room to study. If Mum wasn't back from work - which she usually wasn't - it was Harkiran who would say the Kirtan Sohila with me in my bed, even though I understood little of the prayer's meaning at the time. Her gentle face was often the last thing I saw each day as my eyes flickered closed and her soothing voice put me to sleep. When Harkiran left home to go to university it was like losing a parent all over again.

By the time Harkiran left home Gurmeet, my other sister, was sixteen and she couldn't have been more different. Having coasted through adolescence with none of the responsibilities, duties, or work ethic of her elder sister, Gurmeet had developed a much more frivolous and irresponsible attitude to life. She started skipping school and Gurdwara, instead choosing to smoke God-knows-what or drink with her friends from the estate. On one occasion she was brought home by the police. Even Mum could do little to stop Gurmeet from going off the rails, it seemed.

When she turned eighteen, she would invite boys home when Mum was at work and I could hear them giggling through the bedroom wall while I was doing my homework. Before long the boys were replaced by men - sometimes even middle-aged men - and I began to suspect that Gurmeet was having sex with them for money. She would always swear me to secrecy or, if that failed, threaten me with violence if I told Mum about her visitors. I confess, I was always too scared to go against her demands and kept quiet. Typical Amandeep - always following the path of least resistance.

A shrink would have a field day analysing the impact this had on my thirteen -year-old mind. With my principal carer gone, my mother largely absent, my sister a delinquent, and my father long dead, I was largely left to navigate the difficult teenage years on my own. I continued to go to Gurdwara, and the Gurus' teachings helped give me a moral compass and a sense of perspective, and performing sewa in the langar kept me rooted in the Community, with all the high expectations that brought. It gave my life purpose and stability, for a while at least.

My mum would occasionally give me news from Harkiran about how well she was doing, and every summer she came home for the holidays. I was so proud of her and wanted to emulate her success - maybe following her to Cambridge to read Law, or going to medical school - and my teachers certainly seemed to think I had the potential to do so. I knew that if I applied myself to my studies, worked hard, passed my exams, and had a bit of luck along the way, I could achieve everything Harkiran had. The world was my oyster.

But Gurmeet's lifestyle also held a certain appeal.

I envied the large numbers of friends she seemed to have, the endless pots of money she could always draw upon, and the amazing clothes she would buy before going out for another night on the town. She always seemed carefree and happy, and none of the concerns that most people of her age had ever seemed to trouble her. Gurmeet was proof that happiness could be achieved without the dedication and application Mum and Harkiran had always sought to instil in me.

"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary, Amandeep", Mum had often told me, and I had believed her. But was it true? Gurmeet seemed to be the exception to the rule.

I admit - I was jealous. Struggling with the expectations of my school and community, and - with Harkiran gone - now having to take care of myself, Gurmeet's life just seemed so much more appealing than my own. I wanted to be older, to buy fancy clothes, to go clubbing until the morning, and never worry about finding a proper job. Most of all, I was jealous of the attention men gave Gurmeet. Every day she seemed to bring home a different guy and, judging by the sounds coming through my bedroom wall, she had more fun than ever when she was with them.

At that age, it wasn't sex I wanted from a man, of course. I was late to puberty and had no sexual thoughts or feelings at all that I can remember. I liked some Bollywood film stars but not in THAT way. It was the thought of a strong, successful man giving me hugs, reassurance and attention that I wanted; someone to tell me I was his princess and to treat me like I was the most important person in the world.

Although I had heard a lot about sex at school, I was still very naive about what it was like to actually do it, but I knew that if the noises I heard coming from Gurmeet's room were of her having sex as I suspected, it must have been amazing. At times, it sounded like she was about to explode with pleasure, and whichever man she was with at the time seemed to be enjoying it just as much.

But I had also heard stories about sex being painful, others about sexually transmitted diseases that could kill you, and some about men forcing women to have sex. These stories portrayed sex as disgusting, dangerous, uncomfortable, and unhealthy and made me think I didn't ever want to do it. How could sex be both amazing and hazardous at the same time? It was a contradiction that took me many years, and some tough experiences, to finally make sense of.

I continued to work hard at school and at home helping Mum. As I progressed through school, my grades continued to exceed those of my peers and I became known as something of a geek. The school expected great things, with teachers constantly comparing me to Harkiran who was about to graduate with First Class Honours in Law before taking up a job with the EU Commission. In normal circumstances this would have spurred me on, giving me the confidence that I too could replicate, or even exceed, the successes of my sister.

But at home things deteriorated badly: Gurmeet and Mum had a series of blazing rows which eventually resulted in Gurmeet leaving home. I don't know if Mum eventually found out how Gurmeet was earning her money - her name was never mentioned in the house again - but it was obvious that the split was irrevocable. I received the occasional email from Gurmeet in the months that followed with stories of how much fun she was having but she never told me where she was or what she was doing with her life. When the emails stopped I was worried but I didn't dare raise my concerns with Mum who would have been angry if she knew Gurmeet and I had been in touch.

I think the stress began to take its toll on Mum and she aged rapidly in only a few years. Her long, black hair quickly turned grey and she put on a huge amount of weight. It wasn't a surprise when the doctor eventually told her she had diabetes, but that was only the beginning of our problems.

One day, shortly after I had turned sixteen, I came home from school and found Mum sobbing on the sofa. I remember her gently rocking backwards and forwards as she told me she had lost her main job as a seamstress and that she didn't know how we were going to live on the meagre earnings she brought in from her cleaning job. She soon lapsed into a deep depression and our downward spiral gathered pace. Her behaviour became erratic and her cleaning job also ended amid accusations of poor conduct and unreliable timekeeping. Before long, Mum was virtually housebound; unable or unwilling to leave the sofa and I often found her just curled up, crying over bills she couldn't pay.

We had hoped Harkiran would ride to the rescue. Her job in Strasbourg was going well and she must have been earning lots of money but any hopes we had that she would help us were quickly dashed. Maybe she felt her days of caring for others were over, or maybe her head had been turned by the upper-middle class, cosmopolitan circles she now moved in - I can't be sure - but support, or even visits, from Harkiran were never forthcoming. I took a couple of jobs in the evenings and weekends: one in a print shop working for a guy my mum was distantly related to, the other delivering newspapers and leaflets, but I was only sixteen and still at school so both paid poorly and made little impact on our desperate circumstances.

I stopped going to Gurdwara, partly because I didn't have the time but also because I no longer found solace there. It was just more unrealistic expectations: the pressure from the Community that I do well at school, go to university, and marry a good Sikh boy chief amongst them. The sense of order and direction the scriptures had once given me was lost amid the chaos my life had become and my faith was tested to breaking point. Where was God in my sorry life?

Burning the candle at both ends had a big impact on my grades. Suddenly I found myself struggling to keep up in classes I would once have aced. While there was no danger of me dropping out or failing school completely, my once-bright prospects were disappearing fast and there seemed to be nothing I could do to arrest the slide. I felt I was spinning too many plates at once: caring for my increasingly dependent mother, trying to earn money in any way I could, and at the same time trying to keep my grades up at school. Looking back, no young woman should be under that amount of pressure!

My GCSE results were unremarkable and while they were sufficient to enable me to progress to Sixth Form, it became clear that university was never going to be an option for me. There was no way I could leave home as Harkiran had and, while there were plenty of local universities I could have attended, the need to earn money in the short term trumped any thoughts of me extending my education beyond school. Without the incentive of university, I devoted less and less time to study and more and more time to part-time work. Consequently, I struggled through Sixth Form and when, shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I completely flunked my mock exams I decided enough was enough. I left school and, with the help of the school careers advisor, landed a job in a local garage booking cars in for MOTs and servicing. It only paid the National Minimum Wage, but it was something.

It must have been around that time that I became addicted to masturbation. What had once been a temporary release from the constant grind of my responsibilities and worries quickly became a compulsion. After waking and assessing the challenges that faced me that day, my second thought every morning was about how I could dull my feelings of helplessness and low self-esteem with a self-induced orgasm.

I learned how to make myself cum quickly using the rabbit vibrator my friends had given me as a joke gift on my eighteenth birthday, and pornography helped me to develop increasingly lurid fantasies which helped to bring me off quickly. Men were still something of an enigma to me but I did begin to imagine what it must be like to be with a guy and to be fucked like the women in the porn films I watched.

As my experimentation with masturbation became more intense I began to enjoy penetration for the first time. I mainly used my rabbit at first, enjoying the dual sensations of taking the toy inside me as the 'ears' stimulated my clit, but eventually I craved more. With money so tight, I was unable to buy proper sex toys and instead used anything I could get my hands on if I wanted more girth or depth than the rabbit could give me. A condom-covered cucumber was often the cheap alternative to a dildo that gave me the deeper satisfaction I so often needed.

I began to think more and more about being with a man. The thought of coming home from work to the warm embrace of a trusted partner, being able to unload all my problems onto him, and of being desired by him sexually held great appeal. Looking back, it all seems so unrealistic to think that some white knight was going to come along and sweep me off my feet but that was the way I thought then and it kept me going: if I couldn't escape the drudgery of my life, perhaps someone would rescue me from it. I started wearing more risqué clothing and flirted with the younger male customers at the garage, hoping for some interest. A couple of guys asked me out on dates but nothing came of them. My commitments at home took up too much time.

Needless to say, working in a predominantly male environment was something of an eye opener for me. Immediately I became something of a novelty; partly because I was young, female and, it seemed, attractive to the guys but also because I was the only Asian working at the garage. At first the fitters and mechanics didn't know what to make of me. There were five of them, most of whom were white, working-class guys and they seemed a bit wary of a Sikh woman, unsure if they could get away with the 'banter' they would have readily subjected a white girl to. In time - and after a few Friday afternoon drinking sessions at the pub - they decided I had a "high banter threshold" as they called it, and the sexist comments began in earnest. I didn't enjoy their banter - I just didn't really know how I was expected to behave in male company and ignored the casual racism and sexism thinking this was how all men behaved.

In truth, although I didn't like the tone of many of their comments, I secretly quite enjoyed the attention. Whenever I went into the workshop the whistles would begin and some joker would pass some comment or other but I knew it was because they found me attractive and I liked to feel appreciated. Their particular favourite quip was to refer to me as "Imindeep" rather than Amandeep, and the joke about my long, dark plait being "something to hold onto" never seemed to grow old. Of course I could have complained to the boss about sexual harassment but I found the comments, for all their coarseness, quite flattering and played along with them. In time, I even developed the ability to give as good as I got.

"Hey, Imindeep! Nice short skirt you're wearing today. Come back when I'm in the grease pit and give me an eyeful of Indian pussy, will you?"

"It's been that long since you've seen any pussy I'd be surprised if you recognised one, Bray!"

You get the picture.

It all changed when I had to ask the boss for an advance on my salary. Things had been really tight financially; there had been a family wedding and, not wishing to betray our unfortunate circumstances to the family, Mum and I had given more money than we could afford as a wedding present. We were completely broke and the only option was to ask the boss to pay me part of my salary early. Unfortunately, although he said he wanted to help, company procedures didn't allow him to advance me any money and I left his office empty handed. Somehow the lads in the workshop found out and their teasing quickly turned into something much less pleasant.

"Hey, Imindeep! I hear you're a bit short this month. There's fifty nicker in it for you if you suck me off round the back," Gary, the head fitter, had said, slapping down some notes on a car bonnet to jeers and guffaws from the other guys.

I was so desperate I actually considered the 'offer' for a fraction of a second - long enough that there was a discernible pause before I replied with, "It would take more than fifty quid for me to take your cock in my mouth, Gary. I'm not that desperate." But I looked at the money a little too enviously. It wasn't a lot, but it would put food on the table for a few days.

"Look! She's thinking about it, Gary!" Tyler piped up. "Chuck in another twenty and I reckon she's yours, Mate."

"Tell you what, Love. We'll call it a hundred if you swallow. Can't say fairer than that." Gary opened his wallet and put down more notes, enjoying the reaction from his colleagues as they encouraged me to take the money with catcalls and insults.

Desperation is a terrible thing. In normal circumstances I wouldn't have considered doing anything so slutty and immoral - and in my workplace too - but I was left without much choice. Mum needed her medication urgently and I had no money to pay for the prescriptions. There was little or no food in the house and it was still over two weeks until pay-day. Bills were overdue and I didn't know what else to do.

I thought of Gurmeet. She had fucked other guys for money but she had used it to buy clothes or to pay for nights out. At least if I degraded myself it would be to help Mum and to keep our household in food - there was no comparison. I picked up the money and the fitters all let out a long, "Ooooh!", surprised that I was actually going to do it. I decided the best way to hold onto what little dignity I had left was to be brazen.

"Come on then. It'll be the easiest minute's work I've ever done - I can't imagine you'll last longer than that, Gary," I said, and walked towards the rear door of the workshop. The fitters all started slapping Gary on the back, telling him what he ought to do to me.

"I'm just going to take a piss - I'll see you outside," Gary said, heading off for the Gents toilet.

The wait for Gary to appear seemed to go on forever. Eventually he emerged from the door, telling the others to fuck off and mind their own business when they tried to come out and watch. He had removed his overalls and the zip of his jeans was still unfastened in anticipation of what was to come.

There were some guys in the workshop I would have liked to get to know better; Steve, one of the apprentices, in particular was quite a nice guy and although he joined in with the banter, he never took it too far. Gary however, was not so pleasant. I often thought that if he left the garage the whole sexist culture would end because, as the head fitter, the others took their lead from him. He was about forty-five, married with kids, and too much beer had given him a discernible paunch. The thought that I was going to have my first proper sexual experience with him repelled me and almost made me reconsider, but the money was still in my hand and I needed to keep it there.