The Sikhs

Many Americans probably know the Sikhs as those hardworking and amiable folks who wear turbans and often operate the convenience store or Indian restaurant in their local neighborhood. This became the case in my own childhood community when a pair of Sikh brothers took over the Redwood Carryout—the source of the best candy aisle for ten blocks—that also happened to sit in one of the rougher parts of Kennedy Heights in Cincinnati. The corner outside the Redwood was notorious for an array of urban blight, which often spilled into ugly violence before the store’s doors. I remember well the day those brothers purchased the Redwood. My dad proclaimed, “Those guys are the warriors of India! Let’s just see who dares to cause a raucous around that place now.”

In my father’s imagination, I think he saw these guys standing stoically with arms crossed behind the register, an elegant sword tucked in a handsome robe that administered justice by its simple presence. Indeed, I don’t remember anything big going down while they ran the Redwood, so perhaps tucked in my dad’s perceptions of these Sikhs were a few elements of truth. After all, this was the 1980s, in a part of the neighborhood with a strong dose of Black/White tension. Perhaps these guys played the warrior card as the best business model for that time and place.

As an adult, I have since been to India twice. Each time, I have often travelled with a Sikh driver and frequented a Sikh owned store. Their English is often quite strong and their knowledge of a city and region robust. Also, in a country where entrenched castes often push service providers into a deferential demeanor that can be quite unsettling to an American’s more egalitarian tastes, the Sikhs’ aura stands out as proud, down to earth, and solidly middle class. More than once I’ve left my bags in the care of a Sikh driver to venture into a city or activity. Every time I’ve returned to find them alertly sitting by my things, or they have found me, worried that I might have lost my way in a strange land.

During our second trip to India this past month we travelled to two places where the Sikh’s graciously invited us to get to know their community a bit more—Amritsar, home of the Golden Temple, and Mussourie, home of a small New Year’s mountainside street party that we happened to stumble upon in the middle of the night.

Following a ridiculously fun day watching the daily closing ceremonies at the Indo-Pak border, our small group of American travelers spent the hour car ride back to Amritsar jubilantly shouting out the cheers we’d learned while watching two armies peacock before the border’s gates. After this spectacle and a dinner at a restaurant in the midst of India’s urban chaos, our entrance into the Golden Temple complex ushered us into a completely different realm. Gone was the cacophony of machines, people, and animal folk that seem to dance about one another on every foot of flat urban space, among streets and buildings that don a perpetual coat of dust and wear from the developing economy upon and within.

Instead we found ourselves in a serene quarter. No hawkers, no beggars, no motors. Just well paved and marbled space, with small groups of good-natured folks gliding about in appreciation or anticipation of a special place. The Golden Temple allows no commerce, save for a small convenience stand in a recessed nook. Everything else is free. A sit down restaurant, sleeping spaces, and sparkling bathrooms are available to any visitor free of charge, housed in handsome white marbled halls that line the large rectangular pool in which sits the Golden Temple itself.

It was well past dark when we passed through the towering arch that opens to the edge of the pool, the water in a shallow footwash a warm welcome to bare feet on a cold winter eve. The placid water was the color of the black air, the meeting of the two like mirror images, one glossy, one matte. The world above shimmered back from the world below, clean marble lines in four directions framing the splendor of the gleaming Golden Temple before us. A three story rectangular box with ornate dome and corner towers, it is literally wrapped in gold, karats afire from lights placed discreetly in the darkness.

Yet absent was a stoic air of religious power or wealth. As my senses came in sync with the scene before me, I became aware of peoples’ movements around us. Some made a deep bow on their knees toward the temple once they passed through the arch. Some stood in peaceful reflection of the beauty before them. Groups of family members or friends slowly glided about sharing quiet words and smiles. Each face that we passed gave a warm nod in welcome. As we joined a steadily moving line of pilgrims across the bridge to the temple itself, an efficient and respectful frisk by a guard in royal blue turban and orange robe ended with a nod that made it clear we were welcome inside the temple itself.

Outside a group of young men stood arm in arm heartily singing an impromptu song. We followed the line of pilgrims around the exterior wall until we came to an open doorway. Inside there was an elegant but simple room, at the center of which sat a temple keeper seated before an alter with rounded edges covered in rich blue and gold cloth, beneath an ornate, matching square cloth canopy, the keeper brushing small clouds of incense into the air with a straw broom. Seated cross-legged on the floor just beyond the canopy was a ring of men sitting cross-legged, I’m guessing senior officers of the Sikh faith. Beyond them, men and women were kneeling on the room’s elegant carpet, bowing slowly forward in prayer. There was an air of warm inclusion and the kind of happiness that is the simple sharing of a special place.

I’m embarrassed to say I knew next to nothing about the Sikh faith prior to my visit to its holiest center. I’d heard from various folks that it had sprouted during Islam’s move into India, as the Mughal armies pushed their empire into the subcontinent. I’d been told that it was a fusion of the Muslim and Hindu faiths—a new warrior class to answer the thirsty invaders coming from the Middle East. The long spears of the temple guards and the two swords that form the base of the faith’s crest indeed reflected these stories of military purpose. It was high time I check out Wikipedia to gain some knowledge from a more detailed and slightly more reputable source. What I learned:

Sikhism traces its roots to a Guru named Nanak Gev who lived in the 15th Century. Sikhs believe in one god who does not reflect the image of man but rather the universe. Guru Nanak summed up the Sikh lifestyle with three requirements: meditate on the holy name, work diligently and honestly, and share one's fruits. The teachings of the faith proclaim the equality of all humans and reject discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, and gender. There is no heaven and hell, rather reincarnation until one achieves a union with god. The five sins of ego, anger, greed, attachment, and lust are the big hurdles to this achievement. Sikhism rejects the idea of living life as an ascetic, and instead stresses the need to live life as a householder. The Sanskrit root of the name Sikh means “learner.”

Much of what Wiki provides on Sikhism is likely echoed in bits the website houses on the world’s other great religions. Regardless of similarities or differences, the experience of everyone in our group at the Golden Temple made one thing very clear: Sikhs are a very welcoming and inclusive group of people, that cultivate a center of worship that is steeped in the appreciation and joy of shared community. My visit to the Golden Temple is the high point of two trips to the subcontinent.

But official places of worship are but one window into a people’s culture—a broad and important one to say the least, yet an incomplete view of a larger portrait. Another window would come about two weeks after our pilgrimage to the Golden Temple on the last night of our trip, in the form of our taxicab’s windshield as we rounded the bend of a windy Himalayan foothill road on our way home from the pub. There before us on the shoulder was a huge bonfire, a band of drummers, and a small crowd of dancing Sikhs. I cast a surprised look at our turbaned driver and he responded, “Sikh New Year! Would you like to stop?”

Elated, I jumped from his minivan and whipped out my camera to get some video footage of the scene. Within seconds a jubilant hand grabbed a hold of my arm. An acquaintance from a train ride the week prior smiled and said, “Come on! You should dance.” Into the circle of revelers we went. A guy jumped in front of me with arms raised to the beat, a playfully intense challenge to keep up with his moves. The Kennedy Heights memories of my urban youth kicked in – in a way they haven’t in a long time. I kept up and then some, to the delight of a bunch of Indians who I’m betting rarely see a white boy with moves. More than one approached Melissa and shouted, “He can dance!” In the middle of that roadside circle I completely let go. At the ripe age of 37 I’d reconnected with the youthful anecdote for middle age, while making some friends among some very cool and fun folks.

Photos compliments of the wife, Melissa, and our friend in India, Andrzej Plonka