Many of us were ei­ther not around or were too young when the Sikh quom marked the 500 Years of Guru Nanak. Many may not be around by the time we mark 600 Years. But we will al­ways be held ac­count­able for how we chose to mark this pi­ous oc­ca­sion of 550 Years of Guru Nanak. Times have changed; we will be leav­ing godowns full of records be­hind for fu­ture re­searchers to as­sess our work, ap­proach, thought process, and, if you don’t mind, level of in­her­ent hon­esty or lack thereof even when we were deal­ing with the Guru. This is a re­portage from the front­lines of the on­go­ing cel­e­bra­tions, but with a look in the rear view mir­ror, too. Not every­thing in here will please you, and if, by any chance, noth­ing dis­turbs you, that, too, will not please the Guru.

WE ARE IN THE THROES of cel­e­bra­tions. Amid all this ex­cite­ment at the open­ing of the Kar­tarpar Cor­ri­dor, we are drowned in the ec­sta­tic wafts of kir­tan em­a­nat­ing from the guru ghars and the en­thu­si­asm of the peo­ple and the state find­ing myr­iad ways to cel­e­brate the Gu­ru’s 550th year.

We are spread­ing the mes­sage of the Guru.

We have lit­tle time to pause and pon­der about what this mes­sage of the Guru is. We have a very short win­dow to spread it. We mea­sure our life, con­duct and so­cial, po­lit­i­cal, re­li­gious selves in news cy­cles now.

We passed through the heady days of anti-Pak­istan rhetoric in the run up to the 2019 elec­tion. Then the news cy­cle about elec­tions and the un­prece­dented vic­tory of Naren­dra Modi and Amit Shah con­sumed our mind­space. We spent the next phase en­snared by the news cy­cle about EVM ma­chines. Time and again we fell for the ‘whither is the In­dian econ­o­my’ news cy­cle.

Kash­mir hit us and we did­n’t know what to do, how to re­act. Weeks, then months passed, and we veered off Kash­mir. For many of us, a weari­ness set in, a sense of en­nui. New inani­ties took over our mind. Off and on, fes­tiv­i­ties suck us in. A gur­purab here, a Di­wali there.

One way to cel­e­brate was to have Guru Nanak’s mes­sage in­form our every ac­tion every sin­gle day of every sin­gle year of our life. That’s seem­ingly very tough. So we chose an­other sim­pler, pop­u­lar, bet­ter known, tried and tested way of cel­e­brat­ing the Guru. 

And all of this is pep­pered with a thou­sand mi­nor blasts of other news.

Add to all of this your own What­sApp stream, Face­book ex­plo­sions, Twit­ter chat­ters and in­ces­sant stream of mes­sages in your in­box. On top of it, amid all this, we have to live our per­sonal lives, too; read the news­pa­per, watch the umpteen tele­vi­sion chan­nels.

And then we have to make some space for the Guru also, be­cause it’s an im­por­tant oc­ca­sion. 550 Years of Guru Nanak.

One way to cel­e­brate Guru Nanak was to have the Gu­ru’s mes­sage in­form our every ac­tion every sin­gle day of every sin­gle year of our life.

That’s seem­ingly very tough.

So we chose an­other sim­pler, pop­u­lar, bet­ter known, tried and tested way of cel­e­brat­ing the Guru.

The en­tire com­mu­nity be­gan look­ing for cel­e­bra­tory pro­jects. A march here, a kir­tan dar­bar there, a run for peace here, a walk for love there. But it had to be big­ger, bet­ter, glam­orous, all ooz­ing with raz­za­matazz, lined with shows of re­li­gios­ity and spir­i­tu­al­ity as un­der­stand­able by a me­dia-savvy world. Every­thing re­duced to an im­age, the im­age re­plac­ing every­thing.

So, all of a sud­den, im­agery took over.

A transna­tional cor­ri­dor car­ried a mas­sive im­agery. It had a his­tory. The com­mu­nity had been crav­ing for it for years, of­ten hold­ing prayers to re­al­ize the dream. On the ground, the steps taken to turn it into re­al­ity were so few, so lack­ing fol­low up, and so in­ter­mit­tently spread, that one won­ders how it fi­nally came about at all. But the cor­ri­dor did come about in any case.

We are an openly casteist so­ci­ety that mar­ries and so­cialises as per caste, lives caste and lives with caste every hour of the day and night, and still loudly pro­claims it­self to be caste­less. It is a truth every­body knows. That makes us ut­terly hyp­o­crit­i­cal, un­afraid of the Guru. The gall that we have!

We did not see the com­mu­nity dwelling with any amount of se­ri­ous­ness on why the cor­ri­dor came about when it did. It was help­ful to not get into a se­ri­ous dis­cus­sion about why in­im­i­cal na­tion states act in sur­pris­ing ways when lit­tle on the ground had changed. In­stead, we de­cided to take credit for the cor­ri­dor — “We prayed, we prayed so hard that the gov­ern­ments had no other op­tion left but to agree to the cor­ri­dor.”

It is the same ap­proach that we have with news cy­cles. We have learnt the sub­tle art of liv­ing our lives in a seg­mented, frag­mented, com­part­men­talised fash­ion.

News cy­cles in one box, Guru in an­other box, per­sonal life and con­duct in a dif­fer­ent box.

That’s a com­plete nega­tion of Guru Nanak’s mes­sage. And we have cho­sen the pi­ous oc­ca­sion of 550 Years of the Guru for this abom­inable ex­er­cise, car­ried out in full pub­lic view, with in­ter­na­tional me­dia gaz­ing and our shenani­gans of­ten re­layed on live tele­vi­sion, beamed on global chan­nels.

Look at the ob­streper­ous ar­gu­ments and ca­coph­o­nous de­bate in the run up to the cor­ri­dor — who should get credit, will a pass­port be re­quired, should a pass­port be re­quired, should we be asked to pay $20 fee, should it be open only for the Sikhs, how much mar­ble was used, how huge the com­plex is, will it be ready, will there even­tu­ally be ho­tels, how many can go, what if some­one de­cides not to come back, will Navjot Sidhu go, will the Sar­nas go, should the PM have a sep­a­rate stage, should there be a sin­gle stage, will Akali Dal dom­i­nate, will Amarinder refuse to go cit­ing ISI an­gle, and a thou­sand other ques­tions.

The Guru is a walk­ing, talk­ing threat. He can in­spire men and women to ques­tion the state of af­fairs in any regime. He not just teaches us to ques­tion, he even trains us in how to seek an­swers, how to af­fect the course of things. He pre­pares us to fight for the truth. And he makes us fear­less. Is there an­other way of defin­ing a rev­o­lu­tion­ary, the kind regimes every­where are afraid of? And yet, it is the regime that is cel­e­brat­ing the man!

These ques­tions con­sumed the masses no end. They fought and abused and blood­ied each other on the so­cial me­dia. Every­thing about every ques­tion was the de­f­i­n­i­tion of hy­per. And it was all be­ing done in the name of the Guru.

Now, imag­ine, what would have hap­pened if we had re­ally en­gaged with the mes­sage of the Guru?

While en­gag­ing with a Guru who en­vis­aged a caste­less so­ci­ety, we have the gall liv­ing caste and liv­ing with caste every day, and yet call our­selves Guru Nanak Naam­l­eva. On 550th, if we had re­ally meant to en­gage with his mes­sage, we would have been dis­cussing and ar­gu­ing and fight­ing with each other about whether we should rec­og­nize and for­mally state our fail­ure on deal­ing with the caste ques­tion, and should the com­mu­nity de­cide to make a mas­sive an­nounce­ment to it­self and to the world that the day of the Guru shall be the end of the caste sys­tem in the com­mu­nity. We know we need this shock ther­apy. We would have had schol­ars telling us that such a goal would be utopian, that we needed to take sev­eral steps to­wards that goal, and we should in­stead fix 2069 for this an­nounce­ment. That de­bate would have got­ten us into a mess so tan­gled that we would need the bless­ings of the Guru to un­tan­gle our­selves, but it would have been much more fruit­ful to land in that mess and go through the ex­er­cise.

So far, we have been run­ning away from this ques­tion of caste. We are an openly casteist so­ci­ety that mar­ries and so­cialises as per caste, lives caste and lives with caste every hour of the day and night, and loudly pro­claims it­self to be caste­less. It is a truth every­body knows. That makes us ut­terly hyp­o­crit­i­cal, un­afraid of the Guru. And we dare to cel­e­brate the 550 years of Guru Nanak with aplomb and show!

And we think we can hood­wink the Guru. The gall that we have!

Where is the de­bate about preda­tory fees and costs be­ing im­posed on those seek­ing ed­u­ca­tion in the uni­ver­si­ties of the land where the Guru dwelled. Where is the de­bate about the kind of ed­u­cated youth our uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges are churn­ing out? Where is the de­bate about the dig­nity of labour? Where is the de­bate about the fights our young, ed­u­cated women are hav­ing to wage against no­tions of pa­tri­archy, fight­ing all alone? Which side do you think the Guru must have blessed?

For a Guru so rev­o­lu­tion­ary, we have pro­jected him sans any edgi­ness, shorn of all his ag­gres­sive ap­proach to truth and to truth­seek­ing. For a guru who does not com­pro­mise one wee bit, we pro­ject him as some­one who is so ac­com­mo­dat­ing that we shall find a place at his feet de­spite our char­la­tan be­hav­iour.

He ar­gued. He in­ter­vened. He dug his heels in. He stood up to false­hood.

He cared lit­tle that some­one was a Moghul badhshah. And he cared lit­tle that the man he loved could only of­fer him the poor­est form of leav­ened bread. As a child, he could ques­tion the shal­low rit­u­als of ty­ing a holy thread and as a preacher he could ques­tion the rit­u­als of aarti.

Even in those times when means were fewer and ter­rain was un­charted, he trav­elled more than most do even to­day, with all the com­forts and means avail­able in the world. He had a fam­ily, left it be­hind, and then went and spread en­light­en­ment be­cause he could not al­low the dark­ness to pre­vail. Hu­man be­ings every­where were his fam­ily.

The man’s a pure threat — a walk­ing, talk­ing threat. His words are revered. He can in­spire men and women to ques­tion the state of af­fairs in any regime. We pro­ject him as a prob­lem solver but the man can be a real prob­lem cre­ator. He teaches us to ques­tion. He trains us in how to seek an­swers. He pre­pares us to fight for the truth. And he makes us fear­less. Is there an­other way of defin­ing a rev­o­lu­tion­ary, the kind regimes every­where are afraid of?

And yet, it is the regime that is cel­e­brat­ing the man.

How come we have al­lowed that to hap­pen? Be­cause we have now moulded the Guru in our own im­age: flex­i­ble, ad­justable, ac­com­moda­tive, fits any de­f­i­n­i­tion, is suit­able for all. The regime is not afraid of the Gu­ru’s mes­sage spread­ing far and wide. In­stead, it has ap­pro­pri­ated the mes­sage. Look at the ef­fort and re­sources be­ing spent in get­ting the show­biz style cel­e­bra­tions go­ing. It’s a Guru Nanak of the cof­fee-table book that they want us to em­brace. We are be­ing de­prived of the Guru Nanak who would want us to en­gage with the ac­tual prob­lems and chal­lenges of our times.

How come the en­tire cel­e­bra­tions of Guru Nanak’s 550 Years pass off with­out any en­gage­ment with the state of the mil­lions in Kash­mir, lit­er­ally bar­ri­caded from the rest of the civil­i­sa­tion on this planet with con­certina wire rolls and con­fined in­side their homes, their streets stuffed with jack­boots of the state? Who among us se­ri­ously thinks that Guru Nanak would have watched the cel­e­bra­tions with­out be­ing ter­ri­bly, ter­ri­bly an­guished about the fate of Kash­miris to­day? Quick, raise your hand, please, and stop read­ing any fur­ther if you did.

The Guru spent the last years of his life cul­ti­vat­ing the land at Kar­tarpur. His metaphors come from peas­antry. ਮਨੁ ਹਾਲੀ ਕਿਰਸਾਣੀ ਕਰਣੀ ਸਰਮੁ ਪਾਣੀ ਤਨੁ ਖੇਤੁ। How are we en­gag­ing to­day with the state of those who pur­sue the same vo­ca­tion? What is the com­mu­ni­ty’s re­sponse to farm sui­cides? To deaths of men who go down the gut­ter to make sure sewage drains are not clogged? To a sys­tem where the dirt­i­est of jobs are re­served for a par­tic­u­lar low­ered caste? All in the land where the Guru lived!

We are talk­ing day and night about Guru Nanak who preached ਵਿਦਿਆ ਵੀਚਾਰੀ ਤਾਂ ਪਰਉਪਕਾਰੀ but have not held even a sin­gle dis­cus­sion, a sin­gle de­bate on the preda­tory fees and costs be­ing im­posed on those seek­ing ed­u­ca­tion in the uni­ver­si­ties of the land where the Guru dwelled. These score and a half of pri­vate uni­ver­si­ties and their fee struc­tures were ap­proved by gov­ern­ments that we voted into power time and again. These same gov­ern­ments have been cel­e­brat­ing the cen­te­nar­ies of Sikh gu­rus and our his­tor­i­cal mile­stones, splash­ing mas­sive funds. When did we re­sist such preda­tory fee struc­tures?

Where is the de­bate about what kind of an ed­u­cated youth our uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges are churn­ing out? Where is the de­bate about the dig­nity of labour? Any such de­bate would have forced us to en­gage with the dec­i­ma­tion of trade union­ism at our work­places, and we are so afraid of any de­bate about a Sikh con­struct be­com­ing about an is­sue ap­pro­pri­ated by the Left, just as the Left is wor­ried that its ideas will get hi­jacked if it men­tions the name of the Guru in the con­text of dig­nity of the kirti masses.

Has the com­mu­nity re­sponded in any mean­ing­ful way to the con­cerns of to­day’s young, ed­u­cated women who are ques­tion­ing no­tions of pa­tri­archy and fight­ing back, of­ten all alone? We have cho­sen to be blind to girls fight­ing lonely bat­tles for equal­ity on uni­ver­sity cam­puses, in work places, in salary struc­tures. The women of Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity, Pa­tiala and Pan­jab Uni­ver­sity, Chandi­garh won those fights, and with­out most of us lend­ing a hand, with­out the com­mu­nity own­ing up their strug­gle. Which side do you think the Guru must have blessed?

But we are all cock-a-hoop about the raz­zle-daz­zle cel­e­bra­tions we have rus­tled up in the name of the Guru. It’s been hap­pen­ing ear­lier, too, and is noth­ing but Bol­ly­wood-isa­tion of what should es­sen­tially have been an af­fair more re­flec­tive of the state of the com­mon Sikhs of the Guru. Where is the in­ward look? Where’s the sense of a con­nec­tion with the Guru at a very deeper level?

Those run­ning the show only care about the im­agery gen­er­ated — every­thing must be big, chunky, glitzy, bling-stud­ded, gold or emer­ald thrown in. All we want is to make it the biggest show on earth. We are flail­ing about for that tag, we lit­tle puny men!

The cel­e­bra­tions may be hap­pen­ing in­side gur­d­waras, or in the pres­ence of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. But those run­ning the show only care about the im­agery gen­er­ated. So, every­thing is big, chunky, glitzy, bling-stud­ded, gold or emer­ald thrown in. This is gov­ern­ment-backed cor­po­rati­sa­tion of Guru Nanak go­ing on be­fore our very eyes, and we are hap­pily gulp­ing it be­cause we are brought up on Bol­ly­wood or Hol­ly­wood ver­sions of what cel­e­bra­tions or hap­pi­ness or plea­sure is all about.

All we want is to make it the biggest show on earth. We are flail­ing about for that tag, we lit­tle puny men!

The profit-ori­ented phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor in In­dia is a scan­dal with di­men­sions that has no par­al­lels even in the much-ma­ligned cor­po­rate world. In Gu­ru’s own land, in the very vil­lages and towns where the Guru lived, poor peo­ple are dy­ing for lack of treat­ment not be­cause the treat­ment does not ex­ist, not be­cause it is not avail­able near their place, but be­cause they can­not af­ford it. And in many cases the treat­ment is not so costly be­cause it ac­tu­ally costs so much, but be­cause pric­ing poli­cies are such.

We have a Guru we can talk to every hour of the day. We have a Guru that talks to us in every sit­u­a­tion we find our­selves in. What kind of a con­ver­sa­tion are we hav­ing? The Guru in the gur­d­wara, well dec­o­rated, air­con­di­tioned with rows of string lights mak­ing it look all so beau­ti­ful, and we in our homes, snug and com­fort­able. The rest of the world can go to hell!

Preda­tory pric­ing means preda­tory prac­tices against hu­man be­ings. This is akin to hu­man hunters hunt­ing hu­man game. Imag­ine the fol­low­ers of Guru Nanak, who said ‘‘ਏਤੀ ਮਾਰ ਪਈ ਕਰਲਾਣੇ,’’ not even talk­ing about the is­sue in the 550th Year of Guru Nanak. Raise your hand if you think the Guru would not have talked about it so loudly, so co­gently, so hu­manely, that we would have been on the verge of a rev­o­lu­tion. If you did, then dear reader, a lit­tle bit more en­gage­ment with the Guru will surely help.

The Gu­rus have left us a Guru for the pre­sent times — the Liv­ing Guru in the form of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. We have a Guru we can talk to every hour of the day. We have a Guru that talks to us in every sit­u­a­tion we find our­selves in. What kind of a con­ver­sa­tion are we hav­ing? The Guru in the gur­d­wara, well dec­o­rated, air­con­di­tioned with rows of string lights mak­ing it look all so beau­ti­ful, and we in our homes, snug and com­fort­able. The rest of the world can go to hell!

The Gu­ru’s words were the foun­da­tional stone for such an army of truth­seek­ers. What bat­tles are these truth­seek­ers wag­ing these days? To get a video ap­proved? To fight for their own sep­a­rate stage? To try and take pot shots at an Im­ran Khan, us­ing Guru Nanak’s shoul­der be­cause their own droop un­der the weight of their sins and vested in­ter­ests?

How do you think Guru Nanak was placed, ma­te­ri­ally? Study the in­fla­tion fig­ures, fac­tor in the GDP growth since, and cal­cu­late the so­cial stand­ing of Mehta Kalu’s fam­ily 550 years ago. Why do we think Guru Nanak went off to travel in lands far and wide? ਬਾਬਾ ਦੇਖੈ ਧਿਆਨੁ ਧਰਿ ਜਲਤੀ ਸਭਿ ਪ੍ਰਿਥਵੀ ਦਿਸਿ ਆਈ। The guru was never into mir­a­cles; he saved us from all such non-sense. He did­n’t just close his eyes and re­alised that things were too bad, and im­me­di­ately went about rec­ti­fy­ing mat­ters. He thought, ap­plied his mind, did deep chinta, found out, stud­ied and de­cided that the state of af­fairs needed his in­ter­ven­tion, a proac­tive en­gage­ment that will re­quire years of travel, writ­ing, preach­ing, spread­ing the light of knowl­edge, fight­ing the demons of dark­ness and ig­no­rance.

When the Guru ਚੜ੍ਹਿਆ ਸੋਧਣਿ ਧਰਤਿ ਲੁਕਾਈ, he did not look for tie ups with the gov­ern­ments. He knew he was up against the regimes. It did not take long for the regimes to recog­nise the power of his rev­o­lu­tion­ary mes­sage and they were soon in con­flict with his dis­ci­ples down the ages. Our tra­di­tion of mar­tyr­dom is a liv­ing proof that be­ing a Sikh is akin to be­ing the force of re­sis­tance against re­pres­sion, against in­jus­tice, against lies shoved down the throat of com­mon, in­no­cent, poor peo­ple.

The Gu­ru’s words were the foun­da­tional stone for such an army of truth­seek­ers. What bat­tles are these truth­seek­ers wag­ing these days? To get a video ap­proved? To fight for their own sep­a­rate stage? To try and take pot shots at an Im­ran Khan, us­ing Guru Nanak’s shoul­der be­cause their own droop un­der the weight of their sins and vested in­ter­ests? These are the men and women we have vir­tu­ally del­e­gated the cel­e­bra­tions of Guru Nanak’s 550th Gur­purab to? What’s wrong with us?

Out there, mas­sive wars are on. Out there, the chil­dren of poor are be­ing cheated of their en­tire lives. Out there, kids from the eco­nomic strata I came from are study­ing in schools that are so re­source-less and soul-de­stroy­ing that they will never be able to tell their story, to feel what it is like to have a voice. For those who know that Guru Nanak was the voice of the voice­less, where is the de­bate about steal­ing the voices of mil­lions of peo­ple?

The me­dia, whose role and god-or­dained duty it was to be the voice of the peo­ple, has in­creas­ingly be­come the voice of the voice-snatch­ers. Of course, all glory to those who are re­spond­ing to their in­ner voice even in this muz­zling, muf­fling world of hy­per me­dia, but the de­bate about this theft of the san­gat’s com­mon space is miss­ing from the cel­e­bra­tions in the name of the Guru.

We are even afraid of start­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about how the hype over the cor­ri­dor has re­sulted in the en­tire cel­e­bra­tions cen­tring around Kar­tarpur Sahib, where the Guru left for his heav­enly abode, and has rel­e­gated Sri Nankana Sahib to the back­ground.

So in­ter­twined with na­ture was the Guru that his mes­sage is be­ing used by cli­mate sav­iour war­riors till date. ਪਵਣੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਪਾਣੀ ਪਿਤਾ ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤਿ ਮਹਤੁ। But we know that peo­ple’s ac­cess to drink­ing wa­ter in Pun­jab, as re­flected in of­fi­cial fig­ures, will put to shame any de­cent hu­man be­ing. The In­dia-level data is even worse. For those who claim that a sin­gle death due to mal­nu­tri­tion is a blot on hu­man­ity, who are never tired of boast­ing about their tra­di­tion of lan­gar, who make news for es­tab­lish­ing a lan­gar in god­for­saken places where even regimes find it un­able to reach, please re­flect within and be­gin a con­ver­sa­tion about the mal­nu­tri­tion deaths in Pun­jab, in In­dia, in the world. For­get the gov­ern­ments, we needed to set our­selves a higher agenda. On 550th, we should have told our­selves: Every such death from now on shall be on us, and we vow to face our Guru with­out blood on our hands.

That was the way to cel­e­brate 550 Years of the Guru.

The Global Hunger In­dex fig­ures should have been at the core of any de­bate on the cur­rent state of af­fairs within the Sikh com­mu­nity. Sadly, we missed the bus ex­actly when the Guru was of­fer­ing us a ride. Don’t tell me it was dif­fi­cult; you knew it al­ready. We are the chil­dren of the Guru who had fore­warned us — ਜਉ ਤਉ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਖੇਲਣ ਕਾ ਚਾਉ। ਸਿਰੁ ਧਰਿ ਤਲੀ ਗਲੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਆਉ। Do not of­fer ex­cuses. You are un­der the ਸਿਰੁ ਦੀਜੈ ਕਾਣਿ ਨ ਕੀਜੈ  com­mand. If we were look­ing for our Nanak, we would have found him within our­selves the day those hunger in­dex fig­ures had bro­ken our heart and left us frus­trated and an­gry and seething with rage at the regimes. But pray, we are so busy cel­e­brat­ing the Guru! Just look at the bling!

Whose and which poli­cies af­fect our Pun­jab, the land of the Guru, in sin­is­ter ways? What is our en­gage­ment with the world’s mil­i­tary weapons em­pire? Where is the de­bate about peace, about global cap­i­tal flows squeez­ing the life out of poor regimesm, about the poor­est of the poor con­demned to live un­der those regimes? We are re­fus­ing to take a stand on the hottest is­sues that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions will face. And we think the Guru will be happy if we just get 550 of this, 550 of that!

Whose and which poli­cies af­fect our Pun­jab, the land of the Guru, in sin­is­ter ways? What is our en­gage­ment with the world’s mil­i­tary weapons em­pire? We are a bor­der state, lo­cated in a nu­clear coun­try openly talk­ing about en­mity with a neigh­bour­ing coun­try that also freely talks about us­ing its nu­clear weapons. And we see no rea­son to talk about nu­cleari­sa­tion and mil­i­tary weapons em­pire even when we cel­e­brate 550 Years of Guru Nanak? Are we rav­ing mad, or crim­i­nally hyp­ocrite?

We have no de­bate about Don­ald Trump and his poli­cies. We have no de­bate about how US Fed Rates and in­ter­ests are squeez­ing the life out of poor regimes and poor­est of the poor con­demned to live un­der those regimes. We are not en­gag­ing with the ex­plo­sive sit­u­a­tion in the Mid­dle East. We have no view on the ter­ri­ble things that global cap­i­tal flows are re­sult­ing in. We are not wor­ried about the new classes be­ing cre­ated by meta data own­er­ships and regimes’ in­creas­ing power over hu­man be­ings as a re­sult of 360 de­gree rov­ing Or­wellian eye and deep, pen­e­tra­tive gaze of gov­ern­ments into our lives.

For a re­li­gion so much in con­so­nance with mod­ern sci­ence, we as a com­mu­nity should have had a stand on Ed­ward Snow­den. Is he help­ing save the hu­man­ity, or is he a crim­i­nal as is be­ing por­trayed by world’s big pow­ers? Will he be blessed, or will he be damned?

The world is watch­ing hu­man be­ings de­stroy­ing the only planet they have. More aware peo­ple every­where are mak­ing it their lives’ mis­sion to talk about, fight for and sac­ri­fice their lives for sav­ing the planet. We sat­isfy our­selves by cook­ing lan­gar in a gur­d­wara on CNG gas and then see­ing it be­ing re­ported in a good for noth­ing Pun­jabi news­pa­per splashed across three columns. Is that the level of en­gage­ment we think will suf­fice to please our Guru? Is our Guru so easy to please?

We are deal­ing with one of the tough­est guys on this planet to please, for such was his own life and con­duct. The stan­dards he set are god­damn im­pos­si­ble to live up to. And yet, we have no op­tion but to try and live up to them. The Guru is watch­ing how hard we try, and don’t you try to hood­wink him.

When we in­vite a supremo politi­cian to lead the cel­e­bra­tions, when we de­cide not to fac­tor in the fact of 2002 anti-Mus­lim Gu­jarat ri­ots, when we want to over­look the prime movers of the pol­i­tics of ha­tred that has gripped In­dia with a saf­fron fer­vour, we are try­ing to hood­wink the Guru. When we want to keep our cel­e­bra­tions of the 550 Years of the Guru pris­tine by choos­ing not to talk about the next wave of re­li­gious fer­vour knock­ing at our doors since the Supreme Court’s ver­dict on Ay­o­d­hya dis­pute is just hours away, we are try­ing to hood­wink the guru.

Why, when we have the en­tire world’s at­ten­tion, have we de­cided not to talk about 1984? One thought the com­mu­nity al­ways wanted the world to pay at­ten­tion to geno­ci­dal killings of Sikhs. The prob­lem is that geno­ci­dal killings are not patented by any one side. Ne­far­i­ous pol­i­tics de­mands im­moral com­pro­mises. Any talk about 1984 will trig­ger talk about 2002. And once that Pan­dora box opens, we will soon be get­ting into a de­bate about the regime-backed gangs cur­rently ac­tive on the roads of In­dia, hunt­ing fol­low­ers of a par­tic­u­lar re­li­gion to save a par­tic­u­lar cat­tle.

We for­get that we are deal­ing with the real, gold-stan­dard Fakhr-e-Quom, not the earthy mor­tal va­ri­ety. The Guru cares lit­tle about the sanc­tity we have as­so­ci­ated with the nu­meral fig­ure of 550. His mes­sage was no less valid in his 549th year, and will not lose any sheen by his 551st birth­day.

We are deal­ing with one of the tough­est guys on this planet to please, for such was his own life and con­duct. The stan­dards he set are god­damn im­pos­si­ble to live up to. And yet, we have no op­tion but to try and live up to them. The Guru is watch­ing how hard we try, and don’t you try to hood­wink him. 

The shenani­gans of gold coins and 550 trees and 550 schol­ars and 550 cy­clists ped­alling in the name of the Guru are least likely to please him, but if you are alone, have lit­tle money to spare, but are an­gry and sad that the lo­cal civil hos­pi­tal does not have enough life-sav­ing med­i­cines and are still not tired of fil­ing RTI ap­pli­ca­tions to know the state of af­fairs and keep flood­ing the ed­i­tor of the lo­cal ver­nac­u­lar news­pa­per with let­ters de­tail­ing the state of af­fairs and plead­ing that it de­serves to be re­ported in a bet­ter way in the news­pa­per, then you are do­ing Guru Nanak’s work. He will find a cor­ri­dor to reach you and you shall be His.

You do not need a cor­ri­dor to reach him. That’s his do­main. He will find a cor­ri­dor to reach you and you shall be His. You only need to do his work, walk his path. He’s kind, he cares. He comes and he res­cues.

That’s the kind of man you are deal­ing with. You do not need a cor­ri­dor to reach him. That’s his do­main. You only need to do his work, walk his path. He’s kind, he cares. He comes and he saves.

There’s no other way to Dhan Guru Nanak. And you do not even need to say it 550 times. Once is enough. Just mean it.

The au­thor, SP Singh, is a se­nior jour­nal­ist who has worked with lead­ing mast­heads, an­chors the TV show ‘Daleel with SP Singh,’ writes the weekly Pun­jabi Tri­bune col­umn, ‘Likhtum BaDaleel,’ and dab­bles with equal fe­lic­ity in Eng­lish and Pun­jabi. He lives in the ter­mite-hills in­fested back-of-the-be­yond of Chandi­garh, but is ac­ces­si­ble on singh.in­dia@gmail.com.