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Kaur Ji
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh
Embracing Sikhi...
I grew up in traditional Punjabi family. Dad was a mona, mom was very religious
but had little say of anything in the household, and brothers were just plain
clueless. I spent most of my life singing, dancing, acting and modeling. those
were my dreams-I wanted to become famous. I was also one of the most popular
girls in school everyone liked me. I was living the typical kalyug life.
I had no clue what so ever what a Sikh was supposed to be like. my parents never
taught me anything about Sikhi. everything I knew about Sikhi came from books
that my nana Ji would send me from the UK.
One such thing that I had learned from one of the books was that Sikhs aren't
supposed to eat meat-reading this I had the biggest fit with my parents. I
couldn't believe that my family ate meat knowing that Sikhs aren't supposed to.
I gave the stuff up that very day. no regrets.
My first darshan of Gursikhs was at the local Gurdwara that we started to attend
regularly. ok maybe they weren't Gursikhs-just Punjabi people that went for a
free meal including my parents that would do the same. There were no amritdhari
people there except the granthi and rumor had it that even he liked a good
bukhra and glassie once in a while.
One day in 1991 or 1992 can't remember while doing seva at guru ghar, my dad
(yeah hard to believe that he would do seva) bumped into a Singh. the Singh had
just moved to the states and my dad became good friends with him. what an odd
bunch-my dad the drunken mona who never wore a Kara until he married my mom and
this full bana chardhi kala Singh. the Singh had such a positive influence on my
dad. my dad packed up his bindrakhia and gurdass mann tapes and started to
listen to keertan.
The Singh gave me keertan tapes. I had become addicted to akhand keertan. I had
an auto reverse stereo in my room that would play bhai harpreet Singh tapes over
and over 24 hrs a day. he was very young at the time and I was just so over
whelmed with emotions thinking that how could someone at such a young age sing
keertan with their whole heart like that. I decided to learn keertan. there was
no one to teach so I would just sing shabads way off tune on my keyboard-didn't
have a vaja either.
Bhai Hapreet Singh Ji inspired me to learn keertan-the only reason I’m
mentioning this is because on various akj forums people argue that it isn't
important which keertanee is at the samagam-keertan is keertan. but jee let me
say that there is a big difference, listening to keertan coming from someone
that puts their whole heart into it is a lot sweeter than listening to someone
that can't wait to collect the maya when they are done. and there are a lot of
jatha keertanees that have changed so may people's lives.
Ok I’m making this way too long-there was an Amrit sanchar that the jatha had
prepared at our local guru ghar. the night before we all decided that we should
take Amrit-need to say that my dad was still mona-ish and didn't really do
anything to prepare for it-he decided to do it for us.
Meeting one chardhi kala Singh had changed mine and my family's lives
significantly. from going to parties on weekends we started to have youth
keertans. no more getting up at 11 or 12 in the morning. my family started
getting up at 2:30 to do simran and trust me nothing brings a family together
better than that.
We as Sikhs fear that being different will get us harassed, laughed at, etc. but
jee let me tell ya once you get on this path with your heart no one can harm
you. we-my brothers and I have always been the only Sikhs in our schools and we
get so much respect it's unbelievable. people crowd around us like we're
celebrities and everyone wants to be friends with us. I know it sounds kind of
corny. Guru Gobind Singh Jee gave us an identity to stand out from all the joe
shmoes. why do Sikhs choose to hide it? partly because today's parents don’t
teach their children anything about religion like mine didn't.
well enough said. Waheguru Rakha. Raj Karega Khalsa.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh
and oh yeah I’m not much of a writer so if anything sounds unusual or doesn't
make any sense just ignore it.
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