10 months ago, 4-year old Tanya Kaur was among the 24 Afghan Sikhs who were bru­tally killed in the holy precincts of Gur­d­wara Paathshahi Satvin in the heart of the Afghan cap­i­tal city of Kabul. When young poet-artist Gurleen Kaur saw the dreamy-eyed photo of the bright kid, called “Amma” by her fam­ily, it touched her and she de­cided to do a por­trait of the child as a trib­ute to her mar­tyr­dom, to be pre­sented to the par­ents and sib­lings of the sad vic­tim of the tragedy. Last week, Gurleen Kaur pre­sented the paint­ing to the pain-struck fam­ily at Gur­d­wara Guru Ar­jan Dev in Delhi amidst the Afghan Sikh fam­ily and San­gat. Poet-artiste Gurleen Kaur shares her soul­ful thoughts in a first-per­son ac­count of the evening of shar­ing love, grat­i­tude and homage.

WITH AWE, RE­SPECT AND A LIT­TLE PAIN, I reached the Gur­d­wara Sahib to of­fer my trib­ute to a kid whose life was snatched by a fa­natic who had dif­fer­ent mean­ings of be­ing re­li­gious. I was shy and solemn, but my soul was re­spond­ing with a sense of sat­is­fac­tion and a feel­ing of em­pa­thy for those Afghan Sikhs -men and women -young and old, pre­sent there and rel­a­tives of those whose lives had been snubbed out since the decades-old strife in Afghanistan.

The am­bi­ence was spir­i­tual, the souls no­ble and their eyes look­ing at me with love and grat­i­tude. They made me feel spe­cial, very spe­cial. Emo­tions and feel­ings ran through my be­ing for mak­ing this a spe­cial day for me and en­rich­ing me with soul-search­ing pre­sents. This will stay with me for­ever.

Tanya Kau­r’s fa­ther Harinder Singh, sis­ter Gur­jit Kaur, brother Gagan­deep Singh, pa­ter­nal aunt- Man­jeet Kaur and un­cle Kul­vin­der Singh -all feel­ing blessed, sad yet pleased.

Re­flect­ing on the emo­tions and feel­ings that crossed my mind and touched my soul in the en­vi­rons of a beau­ti­ful Gur­d­wara Sahib in Delhi, I won­dered about the two hours that spelt like a life-time with the Afghan Sikh fam­ily. I kept on think­ing about Tanya Kaur whose por­trait I had painted, her par­ents, her brother and sis­ter and why they were show­er­ing re­spect and ho­n­our on me.

It was so soul-sat­is­fy­ing and warm amongst all the lovely souls at the Gur­d­wara. When I got the Siropa -the robe of ho­n­our, I mur­mured to my­self, ‘Oh Great Guru! what have I done that you have blessed me with this?’

Tanya Kau­r’s mother Sur­pal Kaur was killed last year on 25 March 2020, in the deadly at­tack on Gu­rud­wara Guru Har Rai Sahib in Shor Bazar, Kabul. Her el­derly grand­fa­ther Nir­mal Singh Bha­gat Singh and grand­mother Bal­want Kaur were also killed.

Soon af­ter the tragedy, Jag­mo­han Singh -ed­i­tor of The World Sikh News sug­gested me to read the story of the killings and then we de­cided to do a por­trait of Tanya Kaur as a hum­ble trib­ute to the kid and through her to all those were killed in the ghastly at­tack, in­clud­ing the lone Mus­lim guard of the Gur­d­wara Sahib in Kabul.

Sketch­ing the paint­ing onto the can­vas, the ex­pres­sion in her big eyes pierced my soul. While I painted, I also penned a poem to de­scribe the pain in­flicted by the event. When the paint­ing was done, the paint­ing and poem were pub­lished on The World Sikh News web­site, as Tanya’s fa­ther and un­cle told us, the brother and sis­ter of Tanya Kaur cried in­con­solably.

As my un­cle Har­min­der Singh, WS­N’s Gurmeet Singh and I pre­sented the paint­ing to the fam­ily of Tanya Kaur, I just man­aged to hold back tears en­velop­ing in my eyes. Time froze. Emo­tions froze. Thoughts halted. Ex­pres­sions were stoic. A silent homage, love and grat­i­tude filled the air amidst the chant of ‘Bole So Ni­hal.’

At the mo­men­tous event or­gan­ised by The World Sikh News in as­so­ci­a­tion with Kul­vin­der Singh -the un­cle of Tanya Kaur, emo­tions, love, ho­n­our and pride ran through the air. The aura of sac­ri­fice and sad­ness was vis­i­ble in the moist eyes of every fam­ily mem­ber of Tanya Kaur and oth­ers in the San­gat.

Tanya Kau­r’s fa­ther Harinder Singh from Kabul, who is now in Delhi with the 600-odd Sikhs who have come from Afghanistan six months ago, drenched in grat­i­tude thanked me and every­one for their love, af­fec­tion and sup­port. His nar­ra­tion of the at­tack in­side the Gur­d­wara where his lit­tle an­gel -his very learned “Maa” left this world in the lap of her mother was dev­as­tat­ing. The small kid, I was told, was smart and thor­ough, as if she crammed her life into all of her four years.

Tanya’s fa­ther’s words ring through my ears when­ever I look at the pic­ture of Tanya Kaur. With a heavy throat and voice crack­ing with emo­tion, he vividly de­scribed how his daugh­ter, wife and other Sikhs died in front of his eyes. Tanya’s sis­ter Gur­jeet Kaur and aunt -Man­jeet Kaur, could not stop cry­ing as that hor­ri­ble sight haunts them to this day.

I thank the Almighty for bless­ing me with the abil­ity to use the brush. I grate­fully ac­knowl­edge Tanya Kau­r’s fam­ily for ac­cept­ing my paint­ing and for their warmth and love.

I saw a ray of very unique and spe­cial love for me in the eyes of Tanya’s sis­ter -Gur­jeet Kaur, to de­scribe which words fail me. Her lov­ing, silent and pen­e­trat­ing gaze pierced straight into me. The thought that con­tin­ues to sting my heart is that all the el­ders will some­how coun­sel their hearts and sup­port them­selves but how can that young girl and her brother Gagan­deep Singh over­come the loss of their younger sis­ter.

Gur­jeet Kau­r’s in­no­cent face had in­nu­mer­able unan­swered ques­tions writ­ten in jum­bled words, un­solved puz­zles of sad­ness in her eyes. She did­n’t know what to say and she kept ask­ing me to visit her home. I promised her that I will come some­day.

Re­call­ing the mem­o­rable evening, I wrote,

I wish I could ab­sorb her pain
I wish I could join the parted beads of the chain
I wish I could help her charm, to re­gain
I wish in my heart these feel­ings re­main
I wish I could meet her again.
And she won’t be the same
But an ir­re­sistible strong woman chal­leng­ing the bru­tal game.

Speak­ing on the oc­ca­sion, Gurmeet Singh of the Delhi desk of The World Sikh News ac­knowl­edged that Afghan Sikhs were an im­por­tant part of global Sikh so­ci­ety and have a che­quered mod­ern his­tory, not known to many. He re­told the story of the con­tri­bu­tion of the Sikh Di­as­pora in re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing Afghan Sikhs in In­dia, Canada and the United King­dom. Still, he said there is a lot to do, es­pe­cially on the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion front.

The Gur­d­wara Guru Ar­jan Dev Ji Del­hi’s man­age­ment ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion to­wards WSN in choos­ing their Gur­d­wara Sahib to hold the his­toric func­tion of pay­ing trib­utes to a fam­ily of Afghan Sikhs. So­cial ac­tivists Bhavneet Singh and Amardeep Singh were also pre­sent to ex­press sol­i­dar­ity with the fam­ily of Tanya Kaur.

I thank the Almighty for bless­ing me with the abil­ity to use the brush. I grate­fully ac­knowl­edge Tanya Kau­r’s fam­ily for ac­cept­ing my paint­ing and for their warmth and love.

As my un­cle Har­min­der Singh, WS­N’s Gurmeet Singh and I pre­sented the paint­ing to the fam­ily of Tanya Kaur, I just man­aged to hold back tears en­velop­ing in my eyes. Time froze. Emo­tions froze. Thoughts halted. Ex­pres­sions were stoic. A silent homage, love and grat­i­tude filled the air amidst the chant of ‘Bole So Ni­hal.’

As I de­parted from the Gur­d­wara Sahib, the Gu­ru’s words –Pehlan Marann Ka­bool, Ji­wan ki chadd Aas -Pre­pare for death and for­get the thought of liv­ing, as the phi­los­o­phy of Sikh way of life struck me. I was won­der­ing that these lines must be giv­ing so­lace to the fam­i­lies of those killed in Afghanistan for ab­solutely no fault of theirs ex­cept that their tur­ban was dif­fer­ent from those who killed them.

Hav­ing a last glimpse at the paint­ing of Tanya Kaur, it seemed as if she was whis­per­ing in my ears, the words from meta­phys­i­cal poet John Don­ne’s poem -“Death, be not proud.!”