In our times, per­sonal re­li­gious sym­bols, such as head­gear, have of­ten been used to dis­crim­i­nate and prop­a­gate prej­u­dice. Against such a back­drop, Gur­preet Kaur was moved by the fact that a stranger sought help on see­ing her Du­malla. The Sikh tur­ban, says  Gur­preet Kaur, who works in the ar­eas of ed­u­ca­tion and so­cial change, thinks that the Sikh tur­ban is a sym­bol which en­joins the bearer to up­hold jus­tice and hu­man dig­nity.  World Sikh News in­vites you to share her ex­pe­ri­ence and whilst be­ing care­ful, to be open to be­ing kind and com­pas­sion­ate.

IWAS ON MY EVENING STROLL IN MY DRI­VE­WAY.  A move­ment near the gate of my house made me stop. A young man, per­haps 23-34 years old, was try­ing to catch my at­ten­tion.

“Ma’am, if you don’t mind can I speak with you? I need some help.”

I was­n’t sure at first, but the help­less­ness in his eyes and his hes­i­ta­tion made me pause. He was wear­ing jeans with a shirt hang­ing loosely over his nar­row frame. His hair was tied up in a small pony-tail high on his head. He had a small beard, and was vis­i­bly tanned, which he ex­plained later was due to days of walk­ing in the sun.

As I stud­ied him, he told me about him­self, in bits and pieces. Stop­ping some­times to catch a breath, some­times to hold back tears.

“I saw your du­malla from a dis­tance. I thought you must be from Pun­jab. I am from Pun­jab too. My fam­ily em­i­grated to Poland seven years ago. My broth­er’s death broke my fa­ther, and he wanted a change of scenery to deal with his grief. I com­pleted my stud­ies in Poland. I was se­lected for an in­tern­ship with Segro which brought me back to In­dia. And now there’s a lock­down.

I am stuck at the air­port with many other pas­sen­gers. The for­eign cur­rency ex­change coun­ters are not work­ing. We have been pro­vided with ac­com­mo­da­tion at the air­port, but things are very bad there. They pro­vide wa­ter but we have to buy our own food. The food at the air­port is very ex­pen­sive, and I have run out of cash.

I need to buy some med­i­cine. I am left with 13 ru­pees. I need 87 ru­pees. Could you just help me with that?” He looked away as his voice choked.

“I have enough money in my ac­count. I am not able to with­draw any­thing be­cause of the lock­down. For a few days, I was tak­ing help from a French na­tional next to me. I would trans­fer seven eu­ros to his ac­count and he would ex­change it for In­dian cur­rency worth six eu­ros. But to­day he has found some trans­port and has moved out. I can give you my pass­port and IDs. You can check my pro­file on so­cial me­dia too. I just need 87 ru­pees. I am not ask­ing for any­thing else.”

He went on to give me more per­sonal de­tails to re­as­sure me that he was not try­ing to con me.

“We were in the lorry that was in­ter­cepted at the bor­der. We were des­per­ate to go home. The lorry dri­ver charged us 3000 ru­pees to drop us up to Ahmed­abad. From there, I was hop­ing to go to Delhi and then to my vil­lage in Pun­jab. I lost that money too. The dri­ver is now in jail. I have to wait un­til the 15th for the flights to start op­er­at­ing. I want to go to my vil­lage in Pun­jab. There I can ac­cess my bank ac­count and also pay you back.”

As he sat down on the stone slab near the gate, I could see that he was worn out and dis­tressed. I asked him if he had eaten any­thing. He said he had not had any­thing since yes­ter­day. And his voice choked again. I was pained to see a hu­man be­ing hav­ing to go through des­per­a­tion and stress in an un­known city with no friend, no fam­ily, no ac­quain­tance. Left com­pletely to fend for him­self.

Be­gin­ning to re­lax a lit­tle by now, he be­gan to ask me about my fam­ily. My mind went back to sto­ries re­counted by my par­ents about the 1947 Pun­jab Par­ti­tion and anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984. I have no roots in pre­sent-day Pun­jab. My grand­par­ents had to leave every­thing be­hind dur­ing the Par­ti­tion. In fact, my fa­ther was born in a refugee camp in Gilgit, cur­rently in Pak­istan ad­min­is­tered Kash­mir. It helped me un­der­stand in some way what it means to be stranded far away from home. To have to live your life day-by-day not know­ing what to­mor­row will bring.

My aunt would nar­rate a story about my fa­ther when he was two years old. The fam­ily was in a refugee camp. One evening when they sat down in rows for din­ner, she no­ticed that he ate half his roti and tucked the other half into his pocket. When she en­quired, he told her he was sav­ing it be­cause there may be no food the next day. It still breaks my heart when I think how he was forced to learn tough lessons of life at a ten­der age. I al­ways wish I could go back into the past to meet my fa­ther in his child­hood. Give him a whole­some meal, a rest­ful shade and heal his wounds.

And give that lit­tle boy the com­fort that Mata Khivi did for so many:

ਬਲਵੰਡ ਖੀਵੀ ਨੇਕ ਜਨ ਜਿਸੁ ਬਹੁਤੀ ਛਾਉ ਪਤ੍ਰਾਲੀ ॥
Bal­wand says that Khivi, the Gu­ru’s wife, is a no­ble woman, who gives sooth­ing, leafy shade to all.

ਲੰਗਰਿ ਦਉਲਤਿ ਵੰਡੀਐ ਰਸੁ ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤੁ ਖੀਰਿ ਘਿਆਲੀ ॥
She dis­trib­utes the bounty of the Gu­ru’s Lan­gar; the kheer – the rice pud­ding and ghee, is like sweet am­brosia. – Guru Granth Sahib, Page 967.

This mo­ment, as I saw this young man star­ing ahead blank in the air, it seemed like my fa­ther’s past play­ing out again. And this was my chance to right some wrongs.

I rushed in­side to stuff some fruits and but­ter­milk in a bag as there won’t be any shops open to buy food till the next morn­ing. Along with the bag, I pressed some money into his hands to help him tide over the next few weeks. He hes­i­tated at first but even­tu­ally agreed to take it af­ter some ca­jol­ing and re­as­sur­ances.

“I am very em­bar­rassed. I don’t know you, have never met you, and here I am tak­ing money from you. My par­ents have al­ways done every­thing for me. I would­n’t even wash my glass of wa­ter. I would just eat and leave things for my mother to clear-up. To­day, I re­al­ize the value of that care, be­cause I am all by my­self.”

He left thank­ing me pro­fusely – al­ter­nat­ing be­tween folded hands, “Sat Sri Akal” and a foot­baller’s half salute, say­ing he was in­debted to me for life and will re­turn the money as soon as he reaches home.

What I could­n’t tell him enough was that it was not given with the ex­pec­ta­tion to be re­paid. Like Shams-i- Tabrizi wrote –

Adam’s chil­dren are limbs of one body,
That in cre­ation are made of one gem.
When life and time hurt a limb,
Other limbs will not be at ease.
You who are not sad for the suf­fer­ing of oth­ers,
Do not de­serve to be called hu­man

And, as Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji said:

Maanas ki jaat sabai ekai pe­hchaanbo
–Rec­og­nize all of hu­man­ity as one.

I hope he finds his way back home safely, in good health. A few weeks af­ter the in­ci­dent, we are see­ing in­ci­dents of com­mu­nal ha­tred amidst ru­mours about the spread of the coro­n­avirus. It seems like his­tory is re­peat­ing it­self yet again.

It is beck­on­ing us. It is ex­pect­ing us to stand up and play our part.

There will be two types of peo­ple in this era, where do we choose to stand?

Let mis­trust rule our head? Or, let our­selves feel an­oth­er’s pain?

Choose to be in­dif­fer­ent and shut the door? Or, wel­come the stranger in?

Con­sume the bar­rage of hate qui­etly? Or, stand up for hu­man­ity?

Go on with your own life? Or, make it the mis­sion of our life to leave this world a bet­ter place?

His­tory is watch­ing us, and the fu­ture is wait­ing.

This in­ci­dent fur­ther strength­ened my con­vic­tion that Sikh women need to stand up and re­claim our half of the sky. To keep alive the unique iden­tity ac­corded to us by the 5Ks to keep alive the val­ues of fear­less­ness and com­pas­sion.

Gur­preet Kaur has 14 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in non-profit lead­er­ship, strate­gic plan­ning, so­cial and ed­u­ca­tional change, school im­prove­ment, teacher pro­fes­sional de­vel­op­ment, re­search and pol­icy ad­vo­cacy. Cur­rently, she is work­ing on so­cial-emo­tional learn­ing at pri­mary, mid­dle and high school lev­els, in­ter-faith un­der­stand­ing and Sikh phi­los­o­phy and prac­tice in every­day life. 

Note: This ar­ti­cle was first pub­lished in kau­rlife.org
Glos­sary: Du­malla: Du­malla is a type of tur­ban worn by Sikhs. “Du-malla” lit­er­ally means two-fab­rics. This tur­ban com­prises of an in­ner fab­ric that forms the base and an outer long fab­ric that is wound mul­ti­ple times to form a high tur­ban.