I'm getting kinda lazy with this whole blogging thing, so this post is coming kinda late. But this Tuesday (I think it was Tuesday - I don't even know what today is) Sikhs commemorated the martrydom of the two chote sahibzadai.

Here's another piece of writing from Sakhian that tells of their story. This one is written by a seven-year old (there's another one that's quite good, but unfortunately too long to post here).

The

Young Sahibzadais

Once upon a time there lived four sons of Guru Gobind Singh Ji. One day Mata Gujri Ji took the youngest sons, Sahibzada Zoravar Singh Ji and Sahibzada Fateh Singh Ji, while a war that their father was in.
They had to leave because of the war. They went on a big journey. They went past dangerous animals but didn’t get scared. Then they came to Gangoo’s house for the night. Gangoo was a bad man. That night Gangoo came and took their money. Mata Gujri Ji heard footsteps but she didn’t say anything. The next morning Mata Gujri Ji said to Gangoo, “Our gold coins are gone!” Then Gangoo ran outside and yelled, “Someone has stolen our money!” Mata Gujri Ji stopped Gangoo because she didn’t want to get caught by the police who were looking for them. Mata Gujri Ji said to Gangoo, “You can keep the money.” Then Gangoo got mad because Mata Gujri Ji accused him. So Gangoo went to the Kotwal and told him about Mata Gujri Ji. The police came and took them to prison. Then they took them to a cold tower. The police took the young Sahibzadais to the Nawab’s court.
They got to Nawab’s court. The Nawab said, “If you want to become Muslim you must tell me. If you are going to stay Sikh you are going to be bricked up alive.” Then the Sahibzadais said, “We will stay Sikh.” They were not scared being bricked up alive! Then they went back to the tower. The day came. They gave Mata Gujri Ji a big hug. Then they had to go. They stood up for their religion. They got bricked up because they weren’t going to be Muslim. And they stayed Sikh because they were brave and had spirit. They could trust God. They got bricked up alive but they went to Sach Khand. No one forgot about them. They will be remembered forever and ever.

~

The thing that I love about this Sakhi is that the two sahibzadais were so young and yet so wise beyond their years. This used to be a real inspiration for me when I was younger because their story taught be that I could be brave and strong despite being so young, and I wanted to be just like them. I'm sure that it inspires alot of kids even today, which is what makes it such a great story.

A few years ago a movie came out called Sahibzaday, the animation - immediate success. Since then lots more movies have been coming out to teach kids about Sikhi. This one's a bit more recent; it's called Saka Sirhind, and it's also about the chote sahibzade. Here's a quick trailer:

www.sakasirhind.com

Unfortunately there's no details on how to buy it on the website - but if anyone knows where I can get a copy, please do tell!

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ke fateh.

YAY!


SikhSpeak Issue #3 is (almost) officially here!!

Sneak Peak, here: http://sikhspeak.com/blog/?p=198#more-198

This year in English we were assigned to read William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. For those of you who don't know, the play is about a Jewish merchant, Shylock, who seeks revenge on a Christian. Throughout the whole play the Jew is dimuinised as the villian, the most hateable character - in Shakespeare's time Jews were considered no better than dogs. But the interesting thing is that, even though he's the villain, one of the most famous quotes in the play seems to sympathise (sp?) with the Jewish community. It's a very good quote - it's a very good play! Who would've thunk Shakespeare could be so interesting?

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

Heartbeats and Arbour

In connection to my previous post, here's a short story told in the view of a suffering AIDS victim in Africa. This story, written by Laura Legge Age, age 17, won fourth place in a Canadian program that challenges youth to express their views on important global issues, i.e. poverty/world hunger.

~

As a sleepy village awakes under the light of a thousand suns in the depths of the Sub-Saharan terrain, a lone woman remains asleep. It is on the floor of her kitchen where she takes in her last breaths of plantains and bean stew. It is on the floor of the very heart of her home, where her life began and was sustained, that her blind son listens to the sounds of his mother dying.

The night before, she slept, disturbed by the turbulence of rainfall and disruption of immune responses, enclosed within walls abandoned by promise. Her son, huddled against her breast, crusaded against fatigue, longing to feel the warmth that had long since been robbed from this frail woman's body. The virus, as always, takes with it more than the strength of the beautiful woman it infects. It robs from her the child she had fought down ramparts of adversity to bear. In her dream, she has visions of necromancers and doctors, handing her cups overflowing with the medicines her prayers have come to replace.

She gave life to Babatunde when she was only eighteen. In her Yoruba tradition, his name means "the father has come back", for he was born not one week after the succumbing of her own father to the AIDS virus. Now he lies in the midst of old ghosts and lost opportunity, nursing matriarchy's severed head.

As Babatunde slowly lifts his eyes to a tragedy he cannot see, he becomes painfully aware of the feeling of death. He has grown used to this phenomenon. Across the oceans perhaps a rock star is proclaiming the necessity of the situation in Africa, but in the bowels of his home Babatunde exists without hope. He will never traverse the oceans. Instead he dreams of Oshun and the terrible temper of love. He feels the dam in his sightless eyes give way. A flood of tears drowns his protector in the room where dreams come to die. His mother lies motionless in front of the fire, her hand still wrapped around the warmth of a wooden ladle.

It is hours later when Babatunde's only surviving relative returns from market to see him crouched above his mother, gripped by a hermetic sobriety. Babatunde's grandmother pauses, watching the sun expire with an excruciating splendour in a sky tickled by twilight. She ambles to her daughter's side, quietly humming dirges to pacify her tender grandson. She is a heroine. Each day she fashions with her own hands small wooden coffins as a means of livelihood out of the palm wood that grows in abundance around her home. It is this palm wood that caresses her daughter's skin as she is placed among the roots and soil of the underground. Her son weeps, his tears fertilizing the earth that swallows his mother. This scene is enough to lead Babatunde's grandmother to imagine an entire generation eradicated by a preventable virus. At this point, the reader perhaps begins to imagine witnessing firsthand the first instance of an entire continent of children adopting parental roles for sustenance. Sub-Saharan Africa has become a complex of nations of grandmothers and orphans, of bridges built through generations by heartbeats and ardour.

Faced with the direst destruction, Babatunde refuses to allow himself to be buried alive among the four walls of a kitchen compound that seems to swell with despair. He keeps his head raised so high that when he exits through the narrow doorway he hits his nose on thick cumulus clouds. Death has permeated his days in a way that life has not: it has been ever-present, omnipotent, the harrowing reality that has always overshadowed football victories and feasts of goat. It was in his first year of primary school that Babatunde lost his father, a mild man, blissfully unaware of his own majesty. The virus compromised his immune system, a process that was expedited by already prominent liver damage. Without the bastion of patriarchy to establish his family in good stead with the surrounding villages, Babatunde lost all economic advantage, even those school fees which brought verve to his slow routine.

Like so many of his generation, Babatunde is raised by his grandmother. An intense, squat woman, Babatunde's grandmother makes daily libations of honey and milk so that her children may be protected; at night, she secretly sneaks these rations into her bath water. Babatunde's grandmother channels all of the power of the ancestors, of the family robbed of her, into movements that are pointed and triumphant. She never once considers her hopeless situation with hopelessness. Each day is a struggle to support Babatunde, his wealth of siblings, and the teething infants the missionaries left under her vigilant care. And although she celebrates spirituality as a basis for renewal, Babatunde's grandmother begins to feel the effects of her age. She has raised her own children, her being has imparted upon them the knowledge she had gained for future undertakings; although she could not deny the role, she was not prepared for another cycle of parenting. Still, she believes in her own strength.

Babatunde grows to embrace the sense of solidarity his grandmother promotes, for the unity of hearts in his village has long since become poisoned by the stigma attached to HIV. Babatunde's grandmother hides her face in folds of thick cloth when she ventures to market for fear of taunts, but when she returns home to wrap Babatunde in her radiant folds of skin, he regenerates under her love. Teetering on the other edge of the world, balanced precariously upon a structure of privilege, a Western boy of Babatunde's age complains of earache and is pacified with the sweetest medicine. It will be eight years before he learns the meaning of death.

"Babatunde!" his grandmother calls in dulcet Nigerian tongues, "I have something to show you!" He urgently rushes to his grandmother, sensing in her voice a revelation. He holds out his hands for his grandmother, her callused fingers grabbing at his open palms, and waits without expectation. From the depths of her throat, Babatunde's grandmother lets loose a chuckle full of gravel. He has almost forgotten the sound of laughter.

He uses his hands as eyes to see the gift in his palms. It is small, yet secure in its stature; it is soft, yet incendiary in its incarnation. It is a leather-bound book, a book, he excitedly notes, by the ridges in its title, which contains his mother's memoirs. An oasis in the desert of his consciousness, Babatunde drinks in the knowledge his mother has left for him with a new sense of euphoria. The lost generation seems less like a phantom than a player in Babatunde's own narrative. He rediscovers the meaning of harmony.
And Babatunde's grandmother can only smile, flashing ridged gums and lips cracked in exhilaration. It seems that the wisdom of a generation has not disappeared; it seems, at least for the moment, that the sun will set as usual upon Babatunde's home. It is as if his mother has returned to breathe life into him.

The child in the next house, the young girl in the next village, the boy in the next country, continue to raise themselves, orphaned with the melancholy of an unwarranted burden of solitude, without the resiliency of a grandmother. They will never discover the lost generation's bible. The balance of power will continue to ebb and flow, never concerning itself that an entire continent has been consumed by a virus, that orphans and struggling grandparents have dotted the map of Africa like locusts, that this does not have to be the case.

http://www.bp208.ca/winners2006/ind_wri_4.php

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Dec. 1 is
World Aids Day

Heartbreaking...

The facts about AIDS are overwhelming and confusing. In Africa, AIDS is a pandemic, which affects women, men, and children. In fact, by 1999, AIDS had killed an astronomical 12.5 million children. In terms more North Americans would understand, AIDS in Africa kills the same amount of people as if there were two major airlines crashes every single day. The knowledge of this devastation is indescribable. No one likes to hear that South Africa’s life expectancy has dropped significantly: from 54 years in 1990 to a measly 33 years in 2001. This steady decline is most definitely a direct result of AIDS. No one likes to think of orphaned babies, sick people, and the rapid deaths of millions of innocent human beings. No one likes to think about death.

Read the rest: Click here