Pilgrim to the Creek
A Conversation with Parminder Kaur Bhandal
Interviewed by Caitlin Cefai (she/her)
“Going to the protests, going to Camp Sovereignty… It instilled in me this idea of communal care. Naturally our play became a sanctuary itself, a reflection of our experiences.”
Naarm
Art by Sonya Kaye, @good_on_ya_sonya_art
Perhaps my choice to interview one of the warmest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing on the coldest morning of winter was divine timing. Perhaps it was the universe’s way of ensuring that I felt Parminder Kaur Bhandal’s ethereal brightness at its brightest, as she breathed inspiration back into my hypothermic mind, which was stagnated with writer's block.
As Parminder approached me, crossing Bennett Street in the aptly named suburb of Sunshine, Melbourne’s coldest day in five years suddenly became less of a nuisance and more of a metaphor. Parminder has a way with people—her golden aura fills a space, expanding like rays from her shoulders and fingertips, like sunlight through a storm.
I first experienced this when I met Parminder at Demure’s 23.02 event. Parminder introduced herself, wearing a white faux fur coat with flowers twisted into her hair. She stood out from the crowd of edgy downtowners, and I instantly liked her for it.
We spoke about the role of activism as a writer and the need for something beyond the performative appearances we often see in Melbourne's creative circles. Parminder shared her father’s story of being persecuted for being Sikh and how that fuelled her sense of duty toward the Palestinian community facing genocide. I admired her vulnerability. We became instant friends. At the time, Parminder was working on a play, —still unnamed— drawing from these cultural and social experiences and forging her path of self-discovery.
In preparing for this profile, I spent hours reviewing Parminder’s portfolio, social media (@1parminder1), and the synopsis of her play. Her work was primarily rooted in the natural world filled with eucalyptus trees and flower petals. Parminder’s photography captures pockets of peace within nature, with trees gently swaying in the wind and flower petals adorning faces. Her poetry reads as gentle and thoughtful, with a motif of nature once again. Her love for the natural landscape seemed almost sacred.
When I asked her why nature was a theme in her play, Parminder told me it began during a period of darkness in her life.
“I dropped out of art school during COVID, not long after my first breakup. All I could do was go on my daily walks at the local creek. I was sexually assaulted there but I didn’t tell anyone.”
Parminder was stoic. Her face did not betray the emotions I expected from someone summarising some of their darkest moments in a sentence. I asked her how she moved past such a shocking experience and found safety in nature again.
“After some time, I guess the only thing I could do was give myself exposure therapy and go back to the creek instead of locking myself out of the world,” she told me.
“I would go there and listen to a podcast by Dr. Gabor Mate. I found solace in his understanding of trauma and the need for mental flexibility. So, when something devastating happens, like what happened to me, I could face it and not break.”
What also bolstered her confidence as a survivor was the creek itself.
“I remember walking there and thinking about how so many things around the world were uprooted at the time, not just for me.”
“To someone else, this meant little, but by taking the time to observe the details in the natural world I kept having these revelations about how preciously beautiful and fleeting everything around me was. I could see colour and texture and the flow of the water. In those moments, I put my hand on the chest of the world and felt its heartbeat.”
“Among everything, I was insecure about my skin. I felt discoloured. I would sit by the creek and look at the bark on a tree and realise it was discoloured too. But I didn’t think the tree was anything but beautiful, and so I applied that to myself.”
Feeling renewed by the reflection of herself in the natural landscape she saw by the creek, Parminder recounted how she started taking her friends there and photographing them, which ultimately inspired her first play. Her daily pilgrimage to the creek became a shared journey.
“It felt so intimate when I touched my friends' faces, turning their heads so I could adorn their faces and hair with flowers and capture their likeness.. It became this beautiful process of acknowledging and honouring .”
When I sat with Parminder between shelves of books at the Sunshine Library for this interview, the play’s showing had passed. The singular performance of the production, titled Inner Sanctuary, sold out the Bowery Theatre in St Albans. It took the audience on an immersive, multi-sensory journey through community, love, and loss through the lens of ecology.
When I asked how the play came together, Parminder explained it didn’t easily fall into place.
“I remember two months before the play, I had to attend a meeting with the officers at the council. I had to tell them what my tech requirements were, but I didn’t even know what they were because even at that point, I had no idea what the hell I was going to do for the play,” she explained.
“So I rock up to this meeting, and I’m like… Okay, so the play is called Inner Sanctuary… because art is a gratitude ritual for life, and I wanted the play to be inspired by peace. I only thought of this all in the meeting… I had a kind of fake it ‘till I made it approach.”
Parminder and her ex-partner based the play on deeply personal voice memos and poems which were written during their daily pilgrimages , utilising their recordings as the basis for the multimedia experience. In addition to the theatrical performance, Parminder co-produced an accompanying poetry and music album with musician Zen Butler.
The album accompanying the play, Inner Sanctuary, is available through bandcamp.com
“Every year, I have a word for myself, and this year, the word was Care,” Parminder tells me.
“Going to the protests, going to Camp Sovereignty… It instilled in me this idea of communal care. Naturally our play became a sanctuary itself, a reflection of our experiences.
“[my partner and I] would spend lots of time walking around Brimbank recording voice memos. We talked about this idea of belonging, and my mum said belonging was going to where your heart calls you, and that will make your body and soul happy. We recorded that, and we put it in the play.”
“The play was a combination of our voice memos, music, poetry, and footage shot in India and Australia.”
Parminder wanted audience members to feel immersed in the experience of Inner Sanctuary, and so she invited them on stage after the show. She even donated funds she received as part of the residency program to various organisations including black people’s union and GoFundMe’s for Palestine aid.
“We donated half of our budget to community, this meant so much of what we used for the stage design was free. We found a log by the creek, chairs and curtains on the side of the road… I believe the universe truly gifted us these things… you couldn't buy these riches from the store.”
Nothing speaks truer to Parminder’s character than that.
Parminder is an artist and a giver. It is clear to see in the way she dresses, in her social media posts, but more than anything, you can hear it in the way she speaks.
“The strongest resource we have is each other, and there’s something to share in all of us.”
Sonya Kaye is a traditional and digital artist from Maldon, Victoria, on the land of the Dja Dja Wurrung people of the Kulin nation. Created primarily with pastels, Sonya’s portraiture work is highly saturated, textured, and complex, reflecting themes of intersectionality, individualism and pop culture. With an eye for capturing personality and beauty in her soft – almost nostalgic – use of chalk pastels, Sonya was the natural choice for preserving Parminder Kaur’s story in art. Her recent series of four portraits portraying people of varied social contexts including LGBTQ+ community, and people of colour. She hopes to one day have a gallery space where she can share her art with a community beyond her social media @good_on_ya_sonya_art.
Sonya recently moved to Naarm to pursue a Bachelor of Communication Design at Swinburne University.