These Cassette Tapes Reveal the Realities Behind the Lives of British Pakistani Migrants
Courtesy of Tape Letters Project
When he visited his mother’s house to look for cassette tapes containing the voice of his late father singing Naats, Wajid Yaseen stumbled on other cassette tapes that brought back childhood memories. He recalls, “As I was standing there in my mom’s bedroom holding these other cassette tapes I found in her drawer, I went, ‘I remember this! I remember being roped into saying hello as a child to some auntie in Pakistan and being deeply embarrassed about the whole thing.” Holding these tapes in his hands, he suddenly realised that he was holding “a perfect snapshot of time in the sound of what it was like for British Pakistani who migrated to the UK and the effort they have made to keep in touch with their relatives back home,” Wajid explains. This moment of realisation started The Tape Letters Project. And so he takes on a national effort to recover tapes just like these that might be hidden away in people’s homes. These tapes may not be significantly valuable for their owners now, as some have re-recorded other materials over these messages. However, Wajid feels otherwise. He sees the values in it as it shines a light on the practice of recording and sending messages on cassette tapes as a mode of communication for Pakistanis who migrated and settled in the UK between 1960 and 1980. Throughout those years, these tapes have captured intimate, heartbreaking, humorous, lighthearted, and often heated conversations be- tween British Pakistani migrants and their relatives back in Paki- stan. One of the tapes captured the voice of Zareena Darr as she worriedly told her brother about the nightmare she had. She says,
““Brother, I had a bad dream and it was terrible – I was upset the whole day recalling it. I don’t know why but I dreamt that you were ill, sister Halima and brother Yaseen – I’m talking about the two of you. I had such heartache over it seeing you ill like that, so I told Maryam about the dream, and I told her I didn’t know why it was so bad, but she told me that I’m always thinking too much and that it will be fine. They’d call us and speak to us if there was anything wrong she said””
This recording captured the fear that comes with being a migrant. Fear of losing your loved ones while you are living on the other side of the world, with very little prospect of coming home. This is the kind of fear that a lot of people can resonate with. These days, we may be a lot more mobile than we would’ve been back then. We may also have a lot more choices and flexibility in how we can communicate with our relatives. However, for a lot of people who have experienced being away from their loved ones, this feeling lingers. Therefore, to know the limitations they faced, we can only begin to imagine the intensity of the fear they felt.
These cassette tapes offered the kind of privacy that even phone calls weren’t able to. Wajid shares, “We had a couple that recorded messages to each other with cassette tapes, even though they had phones in their homes. For them, phone calls just weren’t private enough. Meanwhile, these tapes offered deep privacy where they would lock themselves in a room and put towels under the doors and make sure that they were in a room where it was sealed tight and no one could listen to them recording these messages. And over time, they fell in love through these tapes.” Acknowledging the private nature of what is inside these tapes, the project gives a lot of reassurance to the owners of these tapes that they will take the utmost care in terms of what they will make publicly available. In one instance, Wajid describes, “One of the cassettes that we got contains explosive content even to this day. It was recorded fifty years ago, and if it were to go out today, it would still have a huge impact on several families. So we received this tape on the back of the agreement that nobody can access this for the next fifty years. So it is in the archive. It is a closed item. Nobody can hear it and read the transcript.”
At times, these tapes capture parts of the British colonial experiences that these migrants brought with them as they moved to the UK. Wajid describes, “people who are like my parents - working-class farmers, their understanding of the British people was really through the lens of British occupation in India. They were accustomed to seeing the British ruling class. When they came to the UK, they were expecting gold and riches because those were what they saw with the British people in India. So when they actually got to the UK, it was a shock for them to see working-class white people.” These kinds of experiences and reorientations of perspectives were captured as they were conversing with their relatives back in Pakistan through these tapes.
As historical artefacts, these tapes captured a snapshot of a moment in time in which communication technologies were progressing. These days, our communication technologies have gone so far as to allow us to not only hear but also see the people we are communicating with in real-time. This is something that was not possible back then. Therefore, to be able to hear the voice of their loved ones was an amazing experience as they were able to somewhat feel their presence. Although the gap was still there. Communicating with cassette tapes couldn’t offer the immediate result that our WhatsApp voice notes could these days. To get these tapes to their loved ones, they would have to wait for someone to travel to Pakistan to bring these tapes over with them, which didn’t happen very often. Alternatively, they could send these tapes over via postal service, which could take between a week or two. However, as Wajid specifies, this communication technology was not deliberately made to be a medium for communication. “This was a medium that was developed specifically for music, and the fact that it was re-appropriated in this way was something that wasn’t predicted. Nonetheless, it reveals what human beings are good at. We are very adaptable,” he explains.
Significant to the use of these cassette tapes as a means of communication is the Pothwari language, as an oral-only language. To recognise its significance, Wajid takes us back to understanding the place of the Pothwari language in the history of British colonialism in India. He explains, “Before the partition of India that happened in 1947, Pakistan and India were all India. When the partition happened, several areas were split right down the middle. There was the actual line known as the ‘Radcliffe Line’ that created a clear border between the two countries. This line splits the region of Punjab in half. Punjabi as a language was also split along this border, where we’ve got Punjabi on the Pakistani side and Punjabi on the Indian side. These two languages are essentially the same language, but it has entirely different scripts on each side of the border. On the Indian side, the script is known as the Gurumukhi script and on the Pakistani side, it is known as the Shahmukhi script. In this region, other languages exist. In Paki- stan, Urdu was determined as the main language in the country. It is the language of the educated class. So you need to speak and read Urdu to get by in society. Pothwari is another language that exists, which is considered to be the lowest-status language in this region. It is technically defined as a transitional language between Punjabi and Hindko. Around 78% of the people who use Pothwari in these cassettes also use it as a language they speak at home. So essentially, you have the lowest status language that is being used in all homes all over the UK.”
This hierarchy of language highlights the issue of gender inequality, further put to light through the practice of recording messages with these tapes. Although not massively different, women used these tapes a lot more to communicate with than men. Precisely because women were not given the opportunity to have an education that would’ve allowed them to speak and write Urdu. “In fact, there have been instances where you had a man who received these cassettes but would respond in letter form so they could demonstrate that they have been educated,” Wajid reveals.
