Anandpur Sahib: The unexpected pilgrim

WHAT induced a loud-mouthed agnostic like to me agree to go to Anandpur Sahib for the Baisakhi of the establishment of the Khalsa Panth? Only to wallow in applause and receive a Siropa — head scarf of honour. Either they do not read what I write against established religions or are large-hearted enough to overlook my verbal and written misdemeanours.

I find myself in Chandigarh escorted by my grand-daughter, Naina. She is more eager than I to acquaint herself with the Sikh side of her heritage. She has also never been to Chandigarh before and is keen to make up for the shortcoming.

As usual the Delhi-Chandigarh Shatabdi Express is late by half-an-hour. A very patient Sharda Kaushik and Inderjit SinghSandhu have been deputed to look after us, await our arrival. By the time we are in our respective rooms in Shivalik View Hotel, it is past 9.30 p.m. Sharda’s husband Anil Kaushik joins us for drinks and dinner. He gets into a contentious argument with Naina about the pre-eminence of Hindu gods during the Vedic period. He insists he knows about them because of his Brahmin ancestry; Naina insists she is right because she has read and taught the Vedas in St Stephen College. By the time the Chinese dinner has been eaten and the arguments resolved, it is past-midnight — three hours after my switch-off time.

Morning papers forecast a scorching hot day with dust-blowing winds. They also report a stampede at Anandpur Sahib Gurdwara which was brought under control by the police before anyone was injured. Crowds assembled for the occasion are said to number over 20 lakh. The Chandigarh-Anandpur Sahib road is said to be clogged with marchers, trucks, tractors and cars. What normally takes one-and-a-half-hours to cover, takes four. VIPs are being flown to the site by helicopters. I am not among them.

We set off around 11.30 a.m. I had visions of crawling along at a snail’s pace all the way. It was nothing of the sort. We went along at a galloping pace through an endless succession of arches with words of welcome in Gurumukhi Jee aayaan noo or lakh lakh badhaaee hovey. And every few yards a chabeel offering sharbat and a free meal. Men with yellow flags force you to halt to drink and eat free of charge. The closer we get to our destination, there are more arches and hoardings with Guru Gobind Singh’ pictures and quotations. No road blocks till Ropar. We are far too early, so we decide to take a roadside break to refresh ourselves. There is a dusty dhaba with a friendly name Saanjha Chulha — Vaishno (vegetarian). We sit under the shade of a tree to sip ice-cold soft drink. Though a warm wind blows, it is cooler out than in the air-conditioned car with its air-conditioner not working.

At Kiratpur on the Sutlej, the scene changes dramatically. There are police check-posts, buses loaded with men and women in bright yellow or dark blue, kirpans, spears. A burly fellow knocks the bonnet of our car with his kirpan and tells us to be patient. We get out of the car and await clearance by the police. An old, wizened Nihang high on bhang dances his way through the traffic shouting Boley So Nihaal and disappears into a dhaba. After a while we seek shade under the thatched roof of the same dhaba and find ourselves next to the Nihang now busy combing his beard. He bids us welcome. The siren of a train going towards Anandpur Sahib disturbs him. He laps up and brandishes his kirpan challenging the bhootnee (railway engine) to a duel. The cowardly bhootnee does not accept the challenge and runs for sanctuary toAnandpur Sahib.

The police gives us the green signal. We march along behind a slowly moving kafila of automobiles and humans and arrive at Anandpur. As I step out of car, the first person to greet us is B.L.Sharma "Prem" — who was baptised to the Khalsa Panth a month ago. He has grown a full beard; the turban sits nicely on his head. What could be more auspicious than meeting a new Khalsa in the original place of baptism, Anandpur, the city of bliss!

At 3 p.m. we are in an open-air stadium, a maidan, which nature has made to be a sports ground. Low hillocks enclose a large, flat ground in which simultaneously many competitive sports are going on. Directly beneath where we are seated on sofas clay pigeons are blown up and blasted mid-air by Randhir Singh Sidhu and other competitors. A little further one can see competitions being held in kabaddi, tug-of-war and wrestling (India versus Pakistan). Farthest from us are horsemen riding around in clouds of dust kicked up by their steeds getting ready for tent-pegging. It is a most colourful scene with too much going on at the same time. I hardly notice a young lad lift a plough with his teeth, another take the full load of tractor with seven men atop on the belly, and yet another pitting his strength against a tractor and bringing it to a halt. There were too many hands to shake and exchange Baisakhi greetings. I shared the sofa with Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, MP and Nawab Nusrat Ali Khan of Malerkotla, Minister of Sports. The guest of honour was Roob Lavrie, High Commissioner for Australia.

Then there was the actor-wrestler Dara Singh, Didar Singh Bains, the richest Sikh in America, known as the peach King of America. The trouble with VIPs is that they are keener to chat up each other than enjoy matches arranged for their pleasure.

Sharda Kaushik and Naina are back after having made their obeisance at the main gurdwara.Inderjit Sandhu had to muscle through the milling crowd to get them in and out. They look somewhat dishevelled but triumphant that they were able to make it. I take worship as having been performed and take my leave of the VIPs to return to Chandigarh.

We start our return journey confident that we will find our road free of traffic.And so it is for half the way to Chandigarh; while the other side is a seemingly endless queue of vehicles crammed with blue turbans, with flowing black beards and women in bright yellow head scarfs.At Ropar we decide to spend a few moments on the lawns of the Boat Club to see the sunset over the Sutlej.We sit under the over-hanging branches of a weeping willow and watch the sun go over the range of hills on the other side of the river.We drive to the spot under a banyan tree where Maharaja Ranjit Singh received Lord William Bentinck, the British Governor-General.

As it starts getting dark, we rejoin the main road to Chandigarh. This time buses and trucks have banners pronouncing their loyalty to the Tohra-Bhai Ranjit Singh faction of the Akalis. They are from different parts of India: Calcutta, Patna, Delhi, Haryana and towns of Punjab. Between their long line of vehicles are a few trucks from Chowk-Mehta headquarters of the late Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.All of them in bright yellow. The kafila on the road brings the one-way traffic to a halt. It is time for the evening prayer. It is being recited loudly over the microphone, and till it is over, no one will move. No one does.

American sardarni

In a recent issue of Outlook dedicated to recounting the saga of the Sikhs on a page devoted to the community in America, it had a photograph of Dr Surjit Kaur.She is the daughter of the late Sardar Jodh Singh, a scholar who served with AIR for many years. When I first met her she was an attractive young lady with dimpled cheeks and a very svelte figure. It was hard to believe that she was a distinguished sociologist and mother of a teenaged daughter. She was very kattar (bigoted) in her religious views: I found it difficult to communicate with her. She went to the USA, got a Master’s degree in education from Idaho University and decided to settle in America.

Once when she came here to visit her family and take a Bharat darshan tour, we found ourselves together in Aurangabad.We visited the Ajanta and Ellora caves and had a lot of time to interact. She was as devout a Sikh as ever but able to take my teasing her about being narrow-minded in good spirit.We started writing to each other.

When I went to the Wilson Centre in Washington to update my history of the Sikhs, I was entitled to take on a research assistant: she agreed to help me out with material in Gurmukhi.We spent a couple of hours together everyday. She was then a grandmother of two children but as perky as ever. Also, as devout as before.

In her tiny apartment on Falls Church she had a cubicle set apart for the Granth Sahib for morning and evening prayers. She spent the hour travelling from Falls Church to Arlington, where she worked, reciting Sukhmani. And every Sunday she cooked chhola-bhatura to take to the gurdwara. I take the credit for saving her from the clutches of local Khalistanis.Despite being a religious fundamentalist, she got on very well with whisky-swilling agnostic like me.

Dr Surjit Kaur is now a licensed professional counsellor for the state of Virginia and an esteemed member of the Indian community in Washington D.C.

Great automobile engineer

A foreigner visited Ludhiana and after making a comprehensive round of the town, he could see innumerable signboards such as Guru Nanak Engineering College, Guru Nanak Auto Workshop, Guru Nanak Mechanical Works, Guru Nanak Motor Parts etc. He asked his host who was this Guru Nanak?

"He was our first Great Guru," replied his Sikh host. "It appears this Guru of yours must have been a great automobile engineer."

(Contributed by Jaswant Hans, Gurgaon)