Navigating faith on the road

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London. And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to put all the issues on the table that keep me up at night. The interview brings you conversations with the people shaping our world.

0:44From global leaders. I've much more than fulfilled the promises that I've made. To cultural icons. I'm just interested in how it feels to be playing songs that are 50 odd years old. Songs are like children. They're with you forever. The interview from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:11On an average, I drive 10 ,000 miles a month. So for a year, it becomes 120 ,000-something miles. It's too much. Sukpal Singh sits behind the steering wheel of his truck, about an hour from Toronto on Canada's east coast. Here, there are more than a million trucks, just like his, crisscrossing the country's roads each day. It can be a tough job, long hours alone, weeks on the road and little time at home. And more and more, these jobs are being done by Sikh truck drivers, including Sukhpal. Especially whenever I go to some remote areas quite far from the cities, I know there are a lot of few people, they don't know about Sikhism.

2:01This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Megan Lawton. And on this episode of Heart and Soul, which explores approaches to spirituality from around the world, I'm in Canada to find out how the country's thousands of Sikh truckers navigate religion on the road. Sometimes they think that we are Muslims. Sometimes they ask about our rituals. Sometimes they're surprised by the turban. so I always feel proud that I am conveying my message. I am able to tell them about my religion, especially the trucking, it gives me a platform to reach so many people. Do you always feel respected by people when you're out on the road or do you come up against ignorance sometimes?

2:42Nine out of ten times, we always get some respect from the people, but yeah, one out of ten I can see there's some kind of ignorance. But most of the time, I get respect. People, they love to ask more things about my religion and even I always feel proud to tell them about my culture, about my religion. Roughly one in five truckers in Canada are South Asian. In Ontario, the country's most populated province, that rises to more than a quarter. And in British Columbia, it's over a third. Many of those drivers trace their routes to Punjab in India, and a large number are Sikh. It was one aspect of industry that was familiar to the last major migration that has come here to Canada of Zeke's from Punjab.

3:28I'll meet drivers who spend weeks behind the wheel away from loved ones, using their cabs as kitchens, bedrooms and places to pray. When I started my long haul, it was like I was out of my home for like seven, eight days straight. My daughter was forgetting me. We'll look at the community built on the road and dealing with prejudice. We're a very, very visible minority, so it's very easy to target us. It's a warm summer's day and I'm at a large truck stop about an hour outside of Canada's biggest city, Toronto. The sun here is beating down hard on a wide stretch of concrete in front of me. If you've ever been to a truck stop, you'll know the scene.

4:11Huge vehicles rumbling in and out, engines growling, air brakes hissing. it feels like everything here is supersized. The petrol station, the parking bays, the rigs themselves.

4:26Hello. Hi, it's Megan here. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you doing? We're here to meet Sukhpal Singh. He's a long-haul trucker originally from Punjab in India and we've arranged to meet at one of his regular fueling stops. I will be there in 15 minutes. Actually, there's a traffic delay, so I will see you soon. Hi. Hi, Megan. When Sukpal finds us, he greets us with a warm smile and a handshake. He's wearing a yellow polo shirt, his face sporting a salt and pepper beard, a yellow turban fixed atop his head. If you want to drive, you can sit on this seat. I don't think that's a good idea.

5:04Showing us into his truck, Sukpal invites me and my producer Sam inside the cabin. This is amazing. So this is your office? Yeah, just let me pull. Okay. The truck is fully equipped, and the dashboard is home to several screens showing navigation routes and traffic updates. Safe to say, finding a parking spot in a truck this big isn't always easy, so we take a short drive around the block until a new space becomes free. And do you have a microwave in the cab? How are you sort of keeping it? And I'm guessing you've got a fridge? Yeah, I do have my fridge there, you can see, and I do have my microwave, my toaster, vegetarian diet.

5:46And if you go to a Gurdwara, that's the Sikh place of worship, the community meal will always be vegetarian. But eating on the road, however, isn't always as easy. So as a vegetarian, there are a few options on the road, like from Subways, Burger King, so we have to manage. So that's why normally I prefer to take my own food with me. So my wife, my mom like they make like four or five days food for me so that I don't need to like worry about finding a vegetarian diet on the road. And how do you find the I guess the concept of this that your cab right now that we're driving is your office often for five nights a week it's your bedroom as well how do you how do you find that?

6:30Yeah actually I love I love staying on the road I love being a long haul truck driver I have like time option to meet a lot of people from like a different backgrounds, so even I can enjoy different landscapes. So it gives me a platform to travel a lot of miles. I don't think a normal person can travel that much as we travel in one year. But with long miles on the road, Sukhpal tells me he misses out on time with his family, especially his son, who's four years old. Obviously, because I'm a four-year-old son, he always misses me whenever I go for a long trip. but that's the nature of the job so yeah I miss my family yeah yeah of course but your your son he knows that dad's out there and he's driving around all the major roads in North America though he's like only four years but yeah he knows he knows like I go for a long on the long trips you like riding yeah that was a smooth journey you're a good driver yeah yeah after a loop around the block, we park up once again at the truck stop.

7:38And I asked Sukhpall some more about his family. In my religion, I can say we are more family oriented or something like that. We keep our parents till their last breath with us. We don't send our parents to the aged cares. So we always take care of them. I can say that thing is quite different from other religions, maybe. And is there not a guilt, I guess, but when you're on the roads, you're away from your family do you ever think oh it would be great to kind of be there with them and if your parents are getting old sort of support them yeah you're right it always like runs in my mind especially if I talk about my son because he's in a growing stage he's just only for the kids of his age they are going to have some soccer like game or some swimming I always miss those moments I even my parents they're aging right so those things always run in my mind yeah and I guess you have to just work around how you keep in contact whether that's the phone calls the pictures whatever it is for you that means you feel in touch with them yeah I always try yeah I always try to be in in contact with them even I have my like cameras outside my home so I can so that I can watch my son playing on my driveway yeah I always try to do my best so that I can stay in contact with my family but yeah physical presence is is the most important thing I know

9:00For Soopal, family isn't just central to his faith. It's a constant presence in his thoughts, from his young son waiting at home to his ageing parents. It's a reminder to me of what's missed when weeks are spent on the road. But Sikh life is also built around something much bigger than just the household, the community. And to understand that side, I've come to the Canadian city of Guelph, around an hour's drive from Toronto and the city's Gurdwara. It's a place where music, prayer and food bring together the local Sikh community, many of whom at this one are long-haul truckers. There's a spiritual aspect.

9:39There's also just the social aspect where people get together. Hakirat Singh works at the Guelph Sikh Society and is part of the community at the Gurdwara here. Then there's also, downstairs we have what we call Lungar, which is a community kitchen, so everyone can come and eat for free down there. so it's a service for everyone. In our religion, we believe in having a strong society, a strong, we call it Sangat. And so that sense of community is really important in our religion and this is the best place for that for us.

10:16The first Sikhs came to Canada from India's Punjab region in 1904, mainly to British Columbia to work in lumber mills, on the railways and in agriculture. By 1908, there were an estimated 5 ,000 Sikhs living in Canada, almost all men, as immigration rules at the time severely restricted South Asian families from joining them. It's a history that Pardeep Singh Nagra has researched extensively. He's the executive director of the Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada. As a settler community, and sometimes referred to as the early Sikh pioneers in Canada was the early 1900s and you know faced some difficulties.

11:00Some of the difficulties are still some that the community will face because of racism and discrimination and marginalization but they showed a lot of resilience and part of that resilience is kind of some of the theme and narrative of this program of keeping faith and identity. And one of the very first things that the early Sikh settlers did was to build a Sikh Gurdwara, which is a Sikh place of worship. And that became a community hub to manage all aspects of community life. Now we're a thriving community over 100 years later in Canada, represented in all social fabrics of society, and contributing towards the social and economic fabric of Canada.

11:44And how do you think it is the case that Sikhs became so strongly represented within trucking and transport in this country? Well, the interesting piece when we're looking at the Sikhs and the trucking industry is, first of all, some of the great cultural Punjabi songs, GT Road, speak about trucking. It was one aspect of industry that was familiar to the last major migration that has come here to Canada of Sikhs from Punjab. And then when you couple that with a major demand for truckers over the next number of years because of retirement, So it's also to fill a very important economic aspect of economy, the trucking transportation industry.

12:37You get your truck license, there's a big demand, there's individuals that then even formed companies and were looking for drivers. And so to be able to get into employment was another aspect that really saw a boom in the industry. Pardeep says Sikh truckers haven't just filled jobs, they've reshaped Canada's urban geography. It's created its own economic infrastructure across Canada, for example, even across the US. You know, people will start now buying or building truck stops and gas stations along that route. In fact, people are willing to settle in towns before because, you know, usually you want to be in the metropolitan areas in most cities.

13:16And now the community, because truckers and where they travel and what they've seen are willing to be in suburbs away from the core itself, right? And even in remote areas. And then you're having whole industries around from truck parts to truck tires to truck repair to tow trucking, restaurants, certain types of convenience stores. And then now even in those smaller communities, then having places of worship. So it's really interesting how that aspect has kind of shifted even just what I would call the settlement landscape of the Sikh community in Canada. One city with a steadily growing South Asian community is Guelph.

14:00Back at the Gurdwara, our guide Harkirat and his father show us to a small room upstairs, where we're offered steaming cups of tea and pukoras, as we wait to meet some of the truckers in the congregation. Hi! Sorry! That's funny! Then a knock at the door, and a man in casual clothes and a brightly coloured turban enters. My name is Gurpreet Singh, and I've been drugging from the last three years. It's like you've got a lot of freedom to do. You have a lot of brotherhood on the road. A Sikh is like helping a brotherhood along. It's like meeting people. It's more about helping people. It's all about doing prayers, do good deeds on the road.

14:45That's all about Sikhi. Sikhi is another word for Sikhism. It comes from the Punjabi word Sikh, meaning student. Many prefer it because it frames their faith as a way of learning and living, rather than just another ism. A key part of that learning is savar, selfless service, the duty to help others. It's something Gurpreet carries with him on the road. Based less than two hours from the US border, he often drives his truck across it, and on one trip to New York, he tells me about a time he stopped to help a stranded driver. The lady was stranded on the road because the car broke down on the road.

15:22Her coolant was down. I just got out of my truck, helped her fill the coolant and she was back on the road. And I guess you've seen some pretty epic sights around North America, places that most people would never see. Yes, I came from Canada in 2021 and when I switched to a trucking job. When I first went from Toronto to Surrey, when we crossed Banff, Calgary, and the views were epic and breathtaking. That moment I can't forget in my life. Yeah, and take me back to when you were doing the long haul trucking you just described there, the journey from the east coast of Canada to the west coast of Canada.

15:57Within that time, and you are trying to navigate your faith on the road, how did that play into it, finding time to pray? If you are on the road, you can recite while driving and you can listen to Gurbani. So it's not mandatory that you have to sit and recite your prayers. Oh, hello. Nice to meet you. We're joined at this point by another man in a brightly coloured turban. He sits down next to Gurpreet and introduces himself as Afdej Singh Gil. I've been on the road for the last 11 years. I started my driving career in 2014. and for the last nine years I've been on the road, for short haul, long haul, all the way to the USA.

16:36I ask him about practising his faith on the road. That's the beauty about Sikhism. You're not bound to one place. That's why we can do prayers while driving. If we have time, of course, we just wash our hands, wash our feet and everything. We just have to remember the God every minute you're driving. That's the beauty about Sikhism. And today we've come to the Gawara and it's a Sunday and it feels very busy. is quite a juxtapose to what you are doing in the truck when often it's just you for long hours. What does it then mean to kind of be surrounded by people who are like-minded and you're all visiting the same place?

17:10Yeah, we're excited. That's why we come to Gurdwara and see a Guru Sahib, you know? Oh yeah, definitely. It's like spending time with all your community people. It's our making our kids connected to our religions. That's how we brought up in our families, you know? My children to be brought up as well. Yeah. Afdej tells us he's come to the Gurdwara today to ask for a blessing for his baby daughter who has just been born. You have a little one who is very, very little. She's only just... Yeah, she's like four days old now. Five days, I believe exactly. And I guess I know one of the sort of things that really matters to the Sikh community is family and being with community.

17:46How do you balance the idea of being a dad wanting to be around like your friends that have a daughter and yeah, you want to be there and present? Oh yes, even though that's the beauty about trucking and everything, because I can be on my own boss, you know. If I want to be on the road, everything is good in family, I can go on the road. But now my family is most, I can take some off time and I can be with my family.

18:12America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to put all the issues on the table that keep me up at night. The interview brings you conversations with the people shaping our world. From global leaders. I've much more than fulfilled the promises that I've made.

18:54To cultural icons. I'm just interested in how it feels to be playing songs that are 50 odd years old. Songs are like children. They're with you forever. The interview from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

19:12If there was a big red button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

19:46From the BBC World Service, you're listening to the documentary. I'm Megan Lawton and I'm in Canada for heart and soul, finding out about life on the road for a growing number of truck drivers who are practising Sikhs. We're at a Gurdwara in Guelph, a city about an hour from Toronto, and I'm here with truck driver Gurpreet and our guide Harkirat, who are showing us the temple's community kitchen. It's located down a grand flight of stairs on a vast, brightly lit basement floor. Yeah, we're in a community center. It's called Langer Hall. So all the people sit here, have their food and stuff. This is the kitchen where we prepare our food and serve the food.

20:28People can bring up their plates, get whatever they want to. And if they need more, people are going to serve them who are sitting on the floor. And what is a typical Langer meal? Langar meal is all vegetarian. Dal, vegetables, chapati, rice, something sweet. And is it a meal you look forward to after being on the road with your packed lunches? Yeah, this is our daily meal. We have it at our home as well. We leave the Langar Hall and make our way back up the grand marble staircase. The sound of traditional music fading away behind us as we go. It's then that Gurpreet tells me about a time on the road in Boston.

21:09I was picking up frozen donuts from a company and the guy who was working there as a warehouse forklift operator and when he saw me that I was shutting my drawers he came up and asked me like on my wife Guruji ka khalsa how are you Sardarji and I told him that I'm pretty good and he offered me that do you have your food and water and everything I said yes I have everything so he asked me if you need anything just let me know then out of the courtesy I asked me how do you know about this culture and he said that I have lots of Indian Punjabi friends and I used to go with them to Gurdwara on Sundays so that was the best thing yeah yeah and I guess that's a really beautiful example of you're in Boston and somebody knows your faith and your culture that's wonderful as you say not everybody does do you feel I guess because you're going all around North America Canada you're kind of ambassadors sometimes you know it's always the love and hate you know How are you going to differentiate love and hate?

22:05So yes, sometimes we do meet people like them, but it is okay. It's a part of the people. It's a message to all those people. If they have any questions, just come and ask about why are you wearing a turban or how it is related to your religion. So we are happy to answer those questions to them. Yeah, I got the video here, actually. It's at this point our guide, Har Kirat, who's sitting in the corner of the room, mentions an incident he'd like to tell us about. It happened in the U.S. about a week earlier. Yeah, so there was a Viler video last week out of Florida. There was a sick truck driver.

22:42He made an incorrect turn, try to make almost a U-turn on a highway, I believe. And when he made that U-turn, other car crashed into his trailer and three people died from that. So very unfortunate incident that happened. And just this last week. After the driver was arrested, he appeared in court without a turban. Sikh organizations have since called for the authorities to respect the suspect's religious and civil rights, something Harkirat is also concerned about. And because he's a visible minority and it's in the Trump administration now, I believe one of the Trump persons in the Trump administration, they said we're not handing out worker visas now for truckers.

23:32and is it because of this accident or is it racism? Away from the US, Harkira explains how the impact of that incident is being felt back at home. Because of this viral video, a lot of people are now becoming a little more anti-sick against the truckers now because they're saying, oh they're undocumented, oh they're not getting trained correctly, there's a lot of information or misinformation out there. So I'm sure some sick truckers are concerned about that. Yeah, I'm also concerned about this story. It was the fault of the driver that he wasn't following the rules. It was not a U-turn, and he made a U-turn, and three people, they lost their lives.

24:13So a truck driver has more and more responsibility if he's on the road rather than any other driver because he's carrying a heavy equipment, and it's not a light equipment. And though Gurpreet says the fault lies with the driver, not the community, he feels Sikhs are judged more harshly because of who they are. And yeah, skin colour definitely matters a lot. It is very harsh that he has to face 45 years in jail. That's the same thing I would say. It's a very fast decision right now. Because of the one person, everyone should not be punished with it. In fact, in recent years, Har Kirat and driver Gurpreet tell me hostility on the road has grown.

25:00You get that backlash. You really see the racist comments online more than anything. The rise of people saying like, deport people, deport them all, you know, like these type of comments are becoming a lot more common in the last two, three years, I would say. Now, I think it's mostly online, but if it's online, that must be some people's sentiment in real life too. so yeah and how do you because it's not nice for anyone to see any kind of hate online especially when it's direct to their community how do you kind of as a community like be resilient against that um i think we just can't focus on i mean we're a minority we're only two percent of canadian population so online you're just gonna get flooded like you can't do anything about that i think that's where our community is very strong together as a people um and putting out positive stuff that we do like during covid a lot of six were giving free food to people that was like very common so like those we push a lot of positive stuff about our community i think uh the negative stuff's gonna happen it's hard it's hard to avoid that i would say that yes most of the sick population is in trucking business and we are the visible minority because we we are the turbine so yes if i compare to any other community it would not go that viral but for the community it did So, yeah, it is unfair.

26:18And I guess if we take it back to trucking, what would your message be to these people about the hard work and the hours that you put in to ensure that they get their groceries or their products? You're a really, really vital cog in the way society functions. Yeah, if everyone is eating their food, their food is placed onto the table because of the trucker and the farmer. So, yeah, we should respect truckers and farmers. They are always moving onto the road. They don't have any prescribed hours. They don't do a 9-to-5 job. Yes, we should respect each one. That if they're on the road and giving hours to the job and they're missing all the families and fun stuff at home, it's a sacrificing job, very sacrificing.

27:02When I started my long haul, it was like I was out of my home for like seven, eight days straight. So that's why I chose the local job to be home daily because my daughter was forgetting me. I thought that that's not worth it. And your daughter's happy to have Daddy home? Oh yeah, she's very happy now, definitely. It matters a lot. Back downstairs in the lobby of the Gurdwara, we stand watching as men and women, young and old, often accompanied by children, come and go through the big glass entrance. We turn to see Gurdwara coming towards us, with his wife and daughter next to him. Hi, Dwarf. Oh, your daughter, hello.

27:44Hi, this is your daughter. She missed me a lot, that's why Yeah, we've just been hearing about your daddy behind the big truck and he used to be gone for lots of time and now less time back every day Did you venture on truck with me? Tell them What colour is my truck? Green And is that the colour of your truck now? Yeah, and what do you think of daddy's truck? Is it a nice thing to drive? You like seeing daddy drive it? Yeah And is it nice that he's home a lot more now? Exactly, yes. That's kind of a relief. Being away from many days, it's kind of a connection and everything. But yeah, emotionally we are more connected now.