The person who was cured of cancer by the grace of the Guru, is now telling the tale. Vasu Bhardwaj, a Hindu from Indian state of Gujarat and a non believer in God went to the holy shrine of the Sikhs, Harimandir Singh (also known as Golden Temple) and was cured by divine grace.
He now narrates his story.
Interestingly, Vasu Bhardwaj was not a Sikh, but his sister in law was a Sikh who prompted him to listen to the Sikh scripture and visit the Sikh shrine.
Vasu claims that it was not a miracle, but God's grace.
part 2:
part 3:
part 4:
part 5:
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Monday, 20 August 2007
Sikh to death
War nerd writes about Sikhs and their martial abilities. It makes fun of them sometimes, praises them on other occasions.
anyway here is the article
http://www.exile.ru/2007-July-27/war_nerd.html
Sikh To Death
Gary Brecher
By Gary Brecher ( war_nerd@exile.ru )
Browse Author (122)
« Previous (119)
Next (1) »
FRESNO, CA -- I think I've finally found a religion I can convert to. I'm thinking of turning Sikh. And we'll just slide right by all the puns popping into your little heads, if you don't mind. The Sikhs are just the coolest warrior tribe around. Take their scripture. My Bible goes on about beating swords into plowshares -- I always hated that bit, because all you'd get was a wrecked sword and a lousy plow. But the Sikh scripture actually says that the sword predates the universe: "After the primal manifestation of the sword, the universe was created."
See? That's a god who's got his priorities in order! No doubt about it, I'm letting my beard grow and practicing wrapping old socks around my head. Gary B. Singh, you can call me from now on.
It all started when I got a letter from a guy named Gill, a Sikh in the UK, whining about how I'd talked up all the other warrior tribes but never had a word to say for the Sikhs. "Give us some love, Gary," Gill whined.
Well, the War Nerd makes war, not love, but after weeks of looking into this Sikh thing, I gotta give the bearded boys their due. The Sikhs have one of the most amazing military histories on the planet. And they're still living through their Golden Age right now. One of the great last stands in Sikh history happened less than 25 years ago, when 200 Sikh militants holed up in their version of the Mormon Tabernacle, the "Golden Temple" in Amritsar, India. Anybody with sense knew those 200 Sikhs were going to fight like demons, because that's what Sikhs have been doing for the past 400 years. Sikh military history is so packed with glorious last stands that George Armstrong Custer would be a smalltime footnote if he'd worn a big turban to go with that long hair and beard of his.
It was 1984, and the Indian Army must have known it was in for a big bloody mess to get the temple back, especially since its upper ranks are filled mostly with Sikh generals, Sikhs being the designated hitters of the Indian war game. But Indira Gandhi was PM, and she was a lady who didn't like being disobeyed, so she ordered her Sikh Commanding General to overrun the temple.
Mistake. The Sikh CO inside the temple was a dude named Shahbeg Singh, who pretty much single-handedly engineered the collapse of the Pakistani Army in the 1971 Indo-Pak War. It was Shahbeg who organized the Mukhti Bahini, the Bangladeshi guerrillas who made history by being the first Bengali armed force in history not to pee in their dhotis and flee at the sound of gunfire. In fact, this Sikh must've given the Bengalis some kind of Sikh blood transfusion because they fought well enough to make the West Pak garrisons surrender en masse even before Indian troops crossed the Bengal border. After that it was the end of history for East Bengal, except for a bunch of whiney George Harrison begging chanteys, and a tidal wave or two.
Well, this same Shahbeg arranged the defense of the Golden Temple so well that at the end of a seven-day battle with the Indian Army's best units, his 200-odd amateur militants had inflicted 83 KIA on the army and even managed to blast the first tank to enter the compound. They paid a price, naturally - at least 500 Sikh dead and the Temple blasted into gold dust. But Sikhs -- well, if there's one thing you can say about 'em, it's that they're willing to pay any price.
And they make the enemy pay, too. Less than five months after Indira Gandhi ordered the attack on the Temple, she was strolling into her garden to be interviewed by that fat old Brit with the Russian name, Peter Ustinov, when the Sikhs got their revenge. It must have been a pretty scene, the fat man sweating in the Delhi heat, Indira swirling up in her best sari -- when BOOM! Two of her bodyguards, who were Sikhs, naturally, opened fire on her with machine guns, turning her into human chutney. She died before the sweat dried on Ustinov's chins. And then, just to add to Ustinov's fun, her other non-Sikh bodyguards started blasting at the Sikh shooters, killing one and wounding another.
The Compassionate Guru: Founding Sikh, Nanak Sahib
Shortest -- and loudest -- interview the old battle-ax ever gave. Last, too.
That was the Sikh revenge for "Operation Bluestar," the temple raid. By the way, that's another of these lame ops titles they keep coming up with. Should've called it "Operation Blowback," or "Operation Indira, Are You Sure?"
For the Sikhs, this was just like Chapter Two Million in a long and glorious series of battles, assassinations and massacres. The Sikhs were born in the Punjab, the coolest part of India. Every conqueror in history headed that way as soon as he got his learner's license at 15. Punjab was the last, and the toughest place Alexander himself ever tried to take. He was so impressed with the army of Pontus, as they called it then, that he said every Punjabi deserved to be called Alexander. Which was high praise, since Alex was never known for modesty.
Before him even those lazy necrophiliac Egyptians had a stab at the Punjab. I couldn't believe it when I read it, but apparently those Nile-side loungers had the energy to attack the Punjab. Everybody had a turn, though it was the Persians and the Afghans who turned invading the Punjab from a healthy, occasional fun evening into an unhealthy obsession.
And that was before Islam was added to the subcontinental mix. By the time Sikhism started, about 400 years ago, the Mughal emperors, basically a bunch of land pirates who swooped down out of Afghanistan to plunder the plains, had tried to convert India to Islam by using the time-honored method of appealing to the prospect's common sense: "Convert or we'll hack you into a million tiny pieces." The Hindu majority, under the thumbs of hundreds of feudal kings, tried to weasel out of conversion so they could hang on to their own homegrown miseries, like the caste system. The Hindus' ultimate weapon was simple inertia and birthrate. The Afghans' sword arms just got tired after a while, hacking in that heat, and they said, "Aw, the Hell with it." Northern India settled into a lazy routine with the occasional massacre, a lot of bribery, nasty little village snobs hating each other.
A brave Sikh martyr takes a Moghul bath
Then along comes the founder of Sikhism, Nanak, and says, "There is no Muslim, there is no Hindu." Meaning the Hell with both of you. Sikhs were radicals from the start. All the little traditions people know about them started out as in-your-face rebel yells in the Punjab. Like those beards: only the Mughal were allowed to wear long hair and beards. So the Sikh all let theirs grow longer than John and Yoko's. That name, "Singh," every Sikh guy has? It means "Lion" but the real point is that it replaced all the caste names they had before. Like Malcolm making his last name "X."
The Mughals didn't like it. They said so pretty clearly. Take the early career of the sixth Sikh guru, an orphan named Gobind Rai. It was the Mughals who made him an orphan, by torturing his dad to death. See, in the old Punjab death was nothing, death was what you got if the head man was in a good mood. Most of the time they weren't in a very good mood, so you got real slow, horrible deaths. At least somebody at the Mughal court was nice enough to FedEx Gobind a package with his dad's head in it, Seven-style.
Gobind decided right about then to end the whole peacenik tradition of Sikhism. He had a sense of style, so to set the mood he called all the Sikhs together and came onstage with a big huge sword and said, "My sword wants blood. Who wants to supply it? I need a volunteer!" Well, he would've bombed as a stage magician because there was a looooooong silence, no hands raised, till an Untouchable convert came up. Gobind took him into a tent and came out alone, bloody as an apprentice butcher. Four more volunteers and the crowd was beginning to grumble. Then Gobind revealed the trick, which you've all probably guessed already especially if you remember Sunday school, Isaac and Abraham: the five dudes were alive! Heroes! All in new armor! Ready to kill!
These "Five Beloved" were the core of the Akala, the Immortals, an elite Sikh unit that wore these ridiculous Harry Potter turbans with metal rings on them. The rings, called "quoits," were supposedly sharp and you can throw them as weapons. But I'm sorry, I'd be willing to stand all day in front of some dude in a wizard's hat throwing sharpened frisbees at me.
The Sikhs' real weapon was the flintlock. A grumbly Muslim Afghan wrote that "these dogs [the Sikhs] invented the musket, and nobody knows these weapons better. These bad-tempered people discharge hundreds of bullets on the enemy, on the left and right and back." Aww, poor little Afghan! Those pesky bad-tempered Sikhs, shooting at you when all you want to do is massacre them for their unbelief and steal their stuff along the way! No-friggin'-fair!
The Sikhs were more than happy to fight hand-to-hand whenever it made sense, and even got praise from the Brits for hacking Brit soldiers to death with their swords even after being spitted on the redcoats' bayonets. But the Sikhs were also sensible people: Why risk getting cut when you can lure the enemy into an ambush and knock him out of the saddle at long range?
The Sikhs evolved a theory of warfare called "the two-and-a-half strikes." You got a full point for ambushes and hit-and-run attacks, but only a half point for pitched battles where you lost a lot of your own men. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Francis Marion and Patton himself would have agreed.
By 1810 the Sikhs had driven the Mughals out of the Punjab. They owned the place, literally: They had an independent Sikh kingdom running there, and by all accounts it was the one place in India where something sorta resembling law and order actually prevailed.
The only reason the Sikhs didn't go on to run all of India and maybe the world is simple: They ran into the Brits. Same reason the Zulu didn't get to own all of southern Africa. A lot of big, strong tribes were on the movie in Queen Victoria's time, and the same thing happened to most of them: They met the Brits, and that was all she wrote.
Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab, was smart enough to sign a treaty with the Brits, keep a strong army to back it up, and avoid the sort of little faked "border incidents" the Raj loved to use to start a war. When he died in 1839, the Punjab fell into the usual bickering, and the Brits pounced.
I keep telling you, the Brits circa 1840 weren't the cute little Monty Python guys you imagine. They were stone killers, the best since the Romans, totally ruthless, no more conscience than a drain contractor. They saw the Sikhs fighting among themselves and went for it.
Even then, even with Sikh traitors fighting for the Brits, the Sikhs had the best of the first Anglo-Sikh war. The Brits lost more than 2,000 men in the first battle, Ferozeshah, in 1845, and were on the verge of offering unconditional surrender when reinforcements arrived and overwhelmed the Khalsa, the Sikh army. The second war, in 1849, was easier, because the Brits, who knew more about occupation than our lame Bremer clones ever will, used the three years in between to bribe, assassinate and divide the Sikh elite. Even so, the Sikh cavalry, fighting basically without any leaders, slaughtered the British cavalry at the battle of Chillianwalla, smacking down the redcoats' little ceremonial swords with their big scimitars. I've read Brit officers' accounts of that battle, and they say something you get in all accounts of the Sikh: how big and strong the bastards are. The Brits said they felt like children beside the Sikh horsemen, and there's really funny picture of a white officer surrounded by Sikh soldiers, looking like a pasty little midget with his bodyguards.
And you know the best thing about the Sikhs? They don't waste time holding grudges. The Brits won; they accepted it, worked with it, and in a few years they were the core of the Raj's army. That came in handy during the Great Mutiny; the Sikhs stayed loyal and that was what saved the Raj. In fact, the Sikhs stayed so loyal that the battle of Saraghari, one of their greatest-ever last stands, was fought in the service of the British.
In 1897, 21 Sikh soldiers in British service were occupying two tiny forts on the Afghan frontier. The Pushtun were getting bored, the way they do every few months, and decided to stop taking British gold and attack the Raj instead. So 15 or 20,000 Afghans whooped down to the frontier. And those 21 Sikhs were standing in their way.
Proudest of the Proud: Officers in the Punjab Cavalry
The Sikh garrison knew they were doomed, and if anything it kind of relaxed them. They went on to cover themselves with glory, killing hundreds of Afghans before they were overrun. The unit's communications specialist, who used a helicograph, a kind of semaphore, sent his last message asking permission of his Brit officer to stop signaling and go down and die spitting Afghans on his bayonet. Permission was granted, and he carefully packed up his helicograph, charged into the fight and died gloriously.
The only objection you could make, and it's kind of a quibble, is that politically this is a little weird, like a bunch of Mexicans dying in defense of the Alamo. I mean, it was the Brits who wrecked the Sikh's homeland and all. But see, that kind of nitpicking is what ruins war-nerding. If you ask me, the Sikhs who died at Saraghari were just doing what they do best. I mean, what boy didn't dream of dying at the Alamo, or Thermopylae, or on the Bonhomme Richard? Not many of us get a chance to actually do it, and if you do, you don't nitpick about who pays your wages, you just soak up the gloriousness of it and imagine the songs they'll write about you, how you'll look as a statue.
And that's the great thing about being a Sikh, which I'm gonna be soon unless the beard turns out too scratchy: It's still happening! The Golden Age of Sikhism is still in session! When the rest of the world is a convalescent home, you can count on the Punjab - along with the Horn of Africa, and the Congo -- to keep the old ways going. And you can count on the Sikh to be there, doing a Little Big Horn or Alamo every few years to keep life sweet, and give me hope that there's something better outside of this office life I'm stuck in.
anyway here is the article
http://www.exile.ru/2007-July-27/war_nerd.html
Sikh To Death
Gary Brecher
By Gary Brecher ( war_nerd@exile.ru )
Browse Author (122)
« Previous (119)
Next (1) »
FRESNO, CA -- I think I've finally found a religion I can convert to. I'm thinking of turning Sikh. And we'll just slide right by all the puns popping into your little heads, if you don't mind. The Sikhs are just the coolest warrior tribe around. Take their scripture. My Bible goes on about beating swords into plowshares -- I always hated that bit, because all you'd get was a wrecked sword and a lousy plow. But the Sikh scripture actually says that the sword predates the universe: "After the primal manifestation of the sword, the universe was created."
See? That's a god who's got his priorities in order! No doubt about it, I'm letting my beard grow and practicing wrapping old socks around my head. Gary B. Singh, you can call me from now on.
It all started when I got a letter from a guy named Gill, a Sikh in the UK, whining about how I'd talked up all the other warrior tribes but never had a word to say for the Sikhs. "Give us some love, Gary," Gill whined.
Well, the War Nerd makes war, not love, but after weeks of looking into this Sikh thing, I gotta give the bearded boys their due. The Sikhs have one of the most amazing military histories on the planet. And they're still living through their Golden Age right now. One of the great last stands in Sikh history happened less than 25 years ago, when 200 Sikh militants holed up in their version of the Mormon Tabernacle, the "Golden Temple" in Amritsar, India. Anybody with sense knew those 200 Sikhs were going to fight like demons, because that's what Sikhs have been doing for the past 400 years. Sikh military history is so packed with glorious last stands that George Armstrong Custer would be a smalltime footnote if he'd worn a big turban to go with that long hair and beard of his.
It was 1984, and the Indian Army must have known it was in for a big bloody mess to get the temple back, especially since its upper ranks are filled mostly with Sikh generals, Sikhs being the designated hitters of the Indian war game. But Indira Gandhi was PM, and she was a lady who didn't like being disobeyed, so she ordered her Sikh Commanding General to overrun the temple.
Mistake. The Sikh CO inside the temple was a dude named Shahbeg Singh, who pretty much single-handedly engineered the collapse of the Pakistani Army in the 1971 Indo-Pak War. It was Shahbeg who organized the Mukhti Bahini, the Bangladeshi guerrillas who made history by being the first Bengali armed force in history not to pee in their dhotis and flee at the sound of gunfire. In fact, this Sikh must've given the Bengalis some kind of Sikh blood transfusion because they fought well enough to make the West Pak garrisons surrender en masse even before Indian troops crossed the Bengal border. After that it was the end of history for East Bengal, except for a bunch of whiney George Harrison begging chanteys, and a tidal wave or two.
Well, this same Shahbeg arranged the defense of the Golden Temple so well that at the end of a seven-day battle with the Indian Army's best units, his 200-odd amateur militants had inflicted 83 KIA on the army and even managed to blast the first tank to enter the compound. They paid a price, naturally - at least 500 Sikh dead and the Temple blasted into gold dust. But Sikhs -- well, if there's one thing you can say about 'em, it's that they're willing to pay any price.
And they make the enemy pay, too. Less than five months after Indira Gandhi ordered the attack on the Temple, she was strolling into her garden to be interviewed by that fat old Brit with the Russian name, Peter Ustinov, when the Sikhs got their revenge. It must have been a pretty scene, the fat man sweating in the Delhi heat, Indira swirling up in her best sari -- when BOOM! Two of her bodyguards, who were Sikhs, naturally, opened fire on her with machine guns, turning her into human chutney. She died before the sweat dried on Ustinov's chins. And then, just to add to Ustinov's fun, her other non-Sikh bodyguards started blasting at the Sikh shooters, killing one and wounding another.
The Compassionate Guru: Founding Sikh, Nanak Sahib
Shortest -- and loudest -- interview the old battle-ax ever gave. Last, too.
That was the Sikh revenge for "Operation Bluestar," the temple raid. By the way, that's another of these lame ops titles they keep coming up with. Should've called it "Operation Blowback," or "Operation Indira, Are You Sure?"
For the Sikhs, this was just like Chapter Two Million in a long and glorious series of battles, assassinations and massacres. The Sikhs were born in the Punjab, the coolest part of India. Every conqueror in history headed that way as soon as he got his learner's license at 15. Punjab was the last, and the toughest place Alexander himself ever tried to take. He was so impressed with the army of Pontus, as they called it then, that he said every Punjabi deserved to be called Alexander. Which was high praise, since Alex was never known for modesty.
Before him even those lazy necrophiliac Egyptians had a stab at the Punjab. I couldn't believe it when I read it, but apparently those Nile-side loungers had the energy to attack the Punjab. Everybody had a turn, though it was the Persians and the Afghans who turned invading the Punjab from a healthy, occasional fun evening into an unhealthy obsession.
And that was before Islam was added to the subcontinental mix. By the time Sikhism started, about 400 years ago, the Mughal emperors, basically a bunch of land pirates who swooped down out of Afghanistan to plunder the plains, had tried to convert India to Islam by using the time-honored method of appealing to the prospect's common sense: "Convert or we'll hack you into a million tiny pieces." The Hindu majority, under the thumbs of hundreds of feudal kings, tried to weasel out of conversion so they could hang on to their own homegrown miseries, like the caste system. The Hindus' ultimate weapon was simple inertia and birthrate. The Afghans' sword arms just got tired after a while, hacking in that heat, and they said, "Aw, the Hell with it." Northern India settled into a lazy routine with the occasional massacre, a lot of bribery, nasty little village snobs hating each other.
A brave Sikh martyr takes a Moghul bath
Then along comes the founder of Sikhism, Nanak, and says, "There is no Muslim, there is no Hindu." Meaning the Hell with both of you. Sikhs were radicals from the start. All the little traditions people know about them started out as in-your-face rebel yells in the Punjab. Like those beards: only the Mughal were allowed to wear long hair and beards. So the Sikh all let theirs grow longer than John and Yoko's. That name, "Singh," every Sikh guy has? It means "Lion" but the real point is that it replaced all the caste names they had before. Like Malcolm making his last name "X."
The Mughals didn't like it. They said so pretty clearly. Take the early career of the sixth Sikh guru, an orphan named Gobind Rai. It was the Mughals who made him an orphan, by torturing his dad to death. See, in the old Punjab death was nothing, death was what you got if the head man was in a good mood. Most of the time they weren't in a very good mood, so you got real slow, horrible deaths. At least somebody at the Mughal court was nice enough to FedEx Gobind a package with his dad's head in it, Seven-style.
Gobind decided right about then to end the whole peacenik tradition of Sikhism. He had a sense of style, so to set the mood he called all the Sikhs together and came onstage with a big huge sword and said, "My sword wants blood. Who wants to supply it? I need a volunteer!" Well, he would've bombed as a stage magician because there was a looooooong silence, no hands raised, till an Untouchable convert came up. Gobind took him into a tent and came out alone, bloody as an apprentice butcher. Four more volunteers and the crowd was beginning to grumble. Then Gobind revealed the trick, which you've all probably guessed already especially if you remember Sunday school, Isaac and Abraham: the five dudes were alive! Heroes! All in new armor! Ready to kill!
These "Five Beloved" were the core of the Akala, the Immortals, an elite Sikh unit that wore these ridiculous Harry Potter turbans with metal rings on them. The rings, called "quoits," were supposedly sharp and you can throw them as weapons. But I'm sorry, I'd be willing to stand all day in front of some dude in a wizard's hat throwing sharpened frisbees at me.
The Sikhs' real weapon was the flintlock. A grumbly Muslim Afghan wrote that "these dogs [the Sikhs] invented the musket, and nobody knows these weapons better. These bad-tempered people discharge hundreds of bullets on the enemy, on the left and right and back." Aww, poor little Afghan! Those pesky bad-tempered Sikhs, shooting at you when all you want to do is massacre them for their unbelief and steal their stuff along the way! No-friggin'-fair!
The Sikhs were more than happy to fight hand-to-hand whenever it made sense, and even got praise from the Brits for hacking Brit soldiers to death with their swords even after being spitted on the redcoats' bayonets. But the Sikhs were also sensible people: Why risk getting cut when you can lure the enemy into an ambush and knock him out of the saddle at long range?
The Sikhs evolved a theory of warfare called "the two-and-a-half strikes." You got a full point for ambushes and hit-and-run attacks, but only a half point for pitched battles where you lost a lot of your own men. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Francis Marion and Patton himself would have agreed.
By 1810 the Sikhs had driven the Mughals out of the Punjab. They owned the place, literally: They had an independent Sikh kingdom running there, and by all accounts it was the one place in India where something sorta resembling law and order actually prevailed.
The only reason the Sikhs didn't go on to run all of India and maybe the world is simple: They ran into the Brits. Same reason the Zulu didn't get to own all of southern Africa. A lot of big, strong tribes were on the movie in Queen Victoria's time, and the same thing happened to most of them: They met the Brits, and that was all she wrote.
Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab, was smart enough to sign a treaty with the Brits, keep a strong army to back it up, and avoid the sort of little faked "border incidents" the Raj loved to use to start a war. When he died in 1839, the Punjab fell into the usual bickering, and the Brits pounced.
I keep telling you, the Brits circa 1840 weren't the cute little Monty Python guys you imagine. They were stone killers, the best since the Romans, totally ruthless, no more conscience than a drain contractor. They saw the Sikhs fighting among themselves and went for it.
Even then, even with Sikh traitors fighting for the Brits, the Sikhs had the best of the first Anglo-Sikh war. The Brits lost more than 2,000 men in the first battle, Ferozeshah, in 1845, and were on the verge of offering unconditional surrender when reinforcements arrived and overwhelmed the Khalsa, the Sikh army. The second war, in 1849, was easier, because the Brits, who knew more about occupation than our lame Bremer clones ever will, used the three years in between to bribe, assassinate and divide the Sikh elite. Even so, the Sikh cavalry, fighting basically without any leaders, slaughtered the British cavalry at the battle of Chillianwalla, smacking down the redcoats' little ceremonial swords with their big scimitars. I've read Brit officers' accounts of that battle, and they say something you get in all accounts of the Sikh: how big and strong the bastards are. The Brits said they felt like children beside the Sikh horsemen, and there's really funny picture of a white officer surrounded by Sikh soldiers, looking like a pasty little midget with his bodyguards.
And you know the best thing about the Sikhs? They don't waste time holding grudges. The Brits won; they accepted it, worked with it, and in a few years they were the core of the Raj's army. That came in handy during the Great Mutiny; the Sikhs stayed loyal and that was what saved the Raj. In fact, the Sikhs stayed so loyal that the battle of Saraghari, one of their greatest-ever last stands, was fought in the service of the British.
In 1897, 21 Sikh soldiers in British service were occupying two tiny forts on the Afghan frontier. The Pushtun were getting bored, the way they do every few months, and decided to stop taking British gold and attack the Raj instead. So 15 or 20,000 Afghans whooped down to the frontier. And those 21 Sikhs were standing in their way.
Proudest of the Proud: Officers in the Punjab Cavalry
The Sikh garrison knew they were doomed, and if anything it kind of relaxed them. They went on to cover themselves with glory, killing hundreds of Afghans before they were overrun. The unit's communications specialist, who used a helicograph, a kind of semaphore, sent his last message asking permission of his Brit officer to stop signaling and go down and die spitting Afghans on his bayonet. Permission was granted, and he carefully packed up his helicograph, charged into the fight and died gloriously.
The only objection you could make, and it's kind of a quibble, is that politically this is a little weird, like a bunch of Mexicans dying in defense of the Alamo. I mean, it was the Brits who wrecked the Sikh's homeland and all. But see, that kind of nitpicking is what ruins war-nerding. If you ask me, the Sikhs who died at Saraghari were just doing what they do best. I mean, what boy didn't dream of dying at the Alamo, or Thermopylae, or on the Bonhomme Richard? Not many of us get a chance to actually do it, and if you do, you don't nitpick about who pays your wages, you just soak up the gloriousness of it and imagine the songs they'll write about you, how you'll look as a statue.
And that's the great thing about being a Sikh, which I'm gonna be soon unless the beard turns out too scratchy: It's still happening! The Golden Age of Sikhism is still in session! When the rest of the world is a convalescent home, you can count on the Punjab - along with the Horn of Africa, and the Congo -- to keep the old ways going. And you can count on the Sikh to be there, doing a Little Big Horn or Alamo every few years to keep life sweet, and give me hope that there's something better outside of this office life I'm stuck in.
Friday, 17 August 2007
Amazing Sikh tabla players
Music has always been a part of Sikh religious tradition, and not surprisingly one often comes across Sikh tabla players.
I came across The Tabla Guy, Gurpreet Channa on You tube
I looked up more about him and discovered another superb artist.
But more surprises were in store for me. I don't know the name of this artist, but here is yet another amazing tabla player.
More surprises. Here is the biggest one. Rohan Singh Bhogal. This Canada born Sikh has already performed at the harballabh samellan, India's most prestigious samellan.
More details can be had about this wonderful talent and student of Ustad Zakir Hussain at the website. http://www.virtuosoprodn.com/ including some downloads. He has already performed with the likes of Ghazal singer Jagjit Singh.
But if you are mesmerised by this, please look up this 12 year old Saranjot Singh doing the teeen taal.
Wah Ustad Wah!
I came across The Tabla Guy, Gurpreet Channa on You tube
I looked up more about him and discovered another superb artist.
But more surprises were in store for me. I don't know the name of this artist, but here is yet another amazing tabla player.
More surprises. Here is the biggest one. Rohan Singh Bhogal. This Canada born Sikh has already performed at the harballabh samellan, India's most prestigious samellan.
More details can be had about this wonderful talent and student of Ustad Zakir Hussain at the website. http://www.virtuosoprodn.com/ including some downloads. He has already performed with the likes of Ghazal singer Jagjit Singh.
But if you are mesmerised by this, please look up this 12 year old Saranjot Singh doing the teeen taal.
Wah Ustad Wah!
The Sweetest Revenge - Time article on Tara Singh
This article was published in the Time on April 27, 1953 about SardarTara Singh (not Master Tara Singh).
It is an amazing story, something I could not have even imagined.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,818324,00.html
Here is an extract.
But Sardar Tara Singh put a protective arm around the girl. "I will treat her in a way which will bring the sweetest revenge upon the wicked Moslems." he said. "I will bring her up as a Moslem, and restore her to her relatives when she grows up. And she will be as pure as the white snows of the Himalayas. That will teach the Moslems that a Sikh is pious in peacetime, just as he is invincible in war."
Do read the last paragraphy on p2 of the story.
It is an amazing story, something I could not have even imagined.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,818324,00.html
Here is an extract.
But Sardar Tara Singh put a protective arm around the girl. "I will treat her in a way which will bring the sweetest revenge upon the wicked Moslems." he said. "I will bring her up as a Moslem, and restore her to her relatives when she grows up. And she will be as pure as the white snows of the Himalayas. That will teach the Moslems that a Sikh is pious in peacetime, just as he is invincible in war."
Do read the last paragraphy on p2 of the story.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
What does Sri Sri Ravi Shankar say about Guru Granth Sahib
The Guru Granth Sahib, which is the not just the Holy Book of the Sikhs but also its Guru is treated with great reverance by Sikhs and non Sikhs all over the world.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of the Art of Living fame: "the Granth (Guru Granth Sahib Ji) should be taught to children not only in the country but also across the world.
Praising the Granth he said it has the essence of all the Vedas and Upanishads put together. "The Sikh Gurus defended our country once. We have reverence for them. The world is headed for destruction. Each person is under stress. This Granth holds the key to peace and calm."
source: speaking on September 2, 2004 at Amritsar as quoted by The Times of India.
What the Dalai Lama says about Guru Granth Sahib
Sikhs but also its Guru is treated with great reverance by Sikhs and non Sikhs all over the world.Here are some observations of nonSikhs on the Guru Granth Sahib:
(1) Dalai Lama: "We bow to this great Granth, which was compiled 400 years ago. Since then it had been spreading the message of peace and love all over the world. The 21st century is witnessing a revolution in technology and man is improving his skills, but in matters of living and relationships between nations there is a marked degradation. The aim of all religions is to create a good man."
source: speaking on September 2, 2004 at Amritsar as quoted by The Times of India.
Sikhism in eyes of nonSikhs
I posted a link on a traveller's experience at Amritsar.
I came across another link where a French goes to visit Amritsar. Darbar Sahib is something that "this is something the Sikh community ought to be proud of", he says.
Read his full post here. http://crossplanet.blogspirit.com/archive/2007/08/13/from-sikkism-to-buddhism.html
I came across another link where a French goes to visit Amritsar. Darbar Sahib is something that "this is something the Sikh community ought to be proud of", he says.
Read his full post here. http://crossplanet.blogspirit.com/archive/2007/08/13/from-sikkism-to-buddhism.html
Pool of immortality
I was drawn towards this post about a dip in the holy sarovar at Darbar Sahib, Amritsar. Truly impressive since it comes from a non follower.
The blog is called "out there somewhere" and it has travel and personal experience writings of the author. I just stumbled upon this blog, and dont know the author at all. But for Sikh seekers, it is a nice read.
It says
It’s an astonishing place. The Harmandir (that you can see here) is about as beautiful a building as I’ve ever seen. More impressive still is the atmosphere of unhurried, peaceful devotion that surrounds it. It could move even the bitterest of cynics. read full piece here. http://www.outtheresomewhere.net/?p=278
The blog is called "out there somewhere" and it has travel and personal experience writings of the author. I just stumbled upon this blog, and dont know the author at all. But for Sikh seekers, it is a nice read.
It says
It’s an astonishing place. The Harmandir (that you can see here) is about as beautiful a building as I’ve ever seen. More impressive still is the atmosphere of unhurried, peaceful devotion that surrounds it. It could move even the bitterest of cynics. read full piece here. http://www.outtheresomewhere.net/?p=278
Monday, 13 August 2007
Sikhs in army all across the world
Sikhs have made a name for themselves as warriors, and the Indian army right from the time of the British has always had Sikhs in the army.
That is why the proposal to have a British Sikh regiment did catch my eye. The proposal was reportedly mooted by the British Sikhs themselves, but was dropped since it sounded racist. But the piece by Daniel Hannan was remarkable. He pleads the case for a "Sikh spirit in a multicultural army"
So apart from India, which countries have Sikhs in their armies?
(1) Sweden is one. Surprisingly, but there is just one Sikh in their army as the Swedes accommodated a Sikh by accepting his religious rights. You can read the story and find his picture as well here
(2) Apart from Sweden, Pakistan too has one Sikh in its army. The Dawn writes about this
(3) British army - ever since the times of the British rule in India. I don't know exact date but I came across this news 1981 news item from reuters which can be seen in the New York Times archives.
Sikh in British Army Is Lured T o a Belfast Flat and Is Killed
Published: September 6, 1981
The Irish Republican Army took responsibility for the fatal shooting today of an off-duty British soldier who was killed after being lured to an apartment by two women.
Another soldier who had gone to the apartment with the women was seriously wounded in the ambush, the police said. Soon after they arrived, four gunmen burst in and opened fire at close range. The army identified the dead soldier as Schan Singh Virdee, a Sikh of Indian origin, from Birmingham, England.
(4)Off course the present Indian army chief, Gen J J Singh is a Sikh.
Sikhs also figure in the UNESCO's one of "eight stories of collective bravery", where 21 Sikhs fought 10,000 afghans in the Battle of Saragarhi.
And as I write this, here comes a report on British drive to recruit Sikhs in its army.
P.S. Sikhs have been a part of British army for long.
Saturday, 11 August 2007
What makes Sikhs great spinners in cricket?
I am not a spin doctor, and Sikhs are not famous for being one. But reading this article in the daily mail on Bishen Singh Bedi and Mudhsuden Singh Panesar set me thinking. What makes Sikhs great spinners?
Look at the Sikhs who have made it big in cricket. Barring Navjot Sindh Sidhu, who began as a "strokeless wonder" and moved on to become "sixer Sidhu", all of them happen to be spinners.
It started with the Sultan of spin, Bishen Singh Bedi. Later came Maninder Singh, who was described as Bedi's successor. Bedi once remarked that if he had half of Maninder's talent, he (Bedi) would have the world at his feet.
Then came Harbhajan Singh, often known as Bhajji, who continues to be a matchwinner.
And now comes Mudhsuden Singh Panesar, more famous as Monty Panesar. His official website is here.
Barring Harbhajan Singh, who is a right arm spinner, the other three are or were left arm spinners.
However more interest revolves around Monty Panesar, since he is the first Sikh to play for the English cricket team. India no longer enjoys monopoly over Sikh talent, it seems. Monty Panesar's official website also has t-shirts with the logo "Sikh and destroy".
The other Sikh who played international cricket was Gursharan Singh, albeit very briefly. I do not recall of any other Sikh cricketer, barring Yuvraj Singh (who apart from being a batsman is also a left arm spinner), who may not be described as Sikh by purists. But if you count Yuvraj, then don't forget his father Yograj Singh, who made his mark in Punjabi films rather than cricket, though he was acknowledged by many to be faster than Kapil Dev.
But back to spin. Gursharan Singh and Yograj never made it big. Sidhu did and so is Yuvraj, but
the balance is in favour of spinners.
Sikh and spin!
Friday, 10 August 2007
Religions of the world
I have created a poster titled religions of the world. It compares the top six organised religions in the world, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism.
You can click on the image for viewing a larger size.
If you would like to download the entire poster in pdf format, you can go here to the rapishare link and download it.
http://rapidshare.com/files/48198910/religions_of_the_world.pdf
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)