Eh Karza Kish­taan Vich ada ho raha hai -pay­ing off the loan of the Guru in in­stal­ments, bit by bit. Bat­tle of Chamkaur- 46 ver­sus 1 mil­lion. No par­lance till date in his­tory. In his racy style, youth men­tor Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia takes you on a jour­ney into the past, touch­ing your lives in the pre­sent to en­liven your fu­ture. The crafts­man­ship of the Tenth Mas­ter has no par­al­lel. His phi­los­o­phy of mod­ern man­age­ment prin­ci­ples based on the ethos and his­tor­i­cal leg­ends of Sikh his­tory is unique and ex­em­plary. The Gu­ru’s Khalsa had no re­treat, no go­ing back ever, and they had to fight till the end. Read and see the de­vel­op­ments on the out­skirts of Delhi to­day in this light and you will un­der­stand the con­text.

TODAY THE BAT­TLE OF CHAMKAUR IS HAP­PEN­ING, IN WHICH AN IN­CRED­I­BLE rewrit­ing of val­our, war­fare, courage, de­ter­mi­na­tion, res­olute spirit and supreme sac­ri­fice is be­ing car­ried out by 46 Sikhs- in­tox­i­cated with di­vine nec­tar to root out in­jus­tice.

No morsel has been taken by them till now, they are fa­tigued, weaponry re­duced to a bare min­i­mum, and have slept in the open sans any warm clothes and bed­ding. A thin cloth which is on the sad­dle of their horses is all they had to cover them­selves in the cold bit­ing night.

In­ci­den­tally, no wa­ter is there to drink yet they are ready, ex­cited to pounce, on the mighty num­bered en­emy with­out a pause, with­out wa­ver­ing with­out even har­bour­ing any doubt. It’s now or never for them, it’s the pre­sent that they are look­ing at – they are com­mit­ted to ex­pand­ing the pre­sent with ex­cel­lence- they are stead­fast to re-cre­ate new dawn, a bet­ter one, each time, every time. For them, it’s not the mo­ments in life that are im­por­tant, crit­i­cal was to in­fuse life in those mo­ments.

 

An in­cred­i­ble spirit that Guru Gob­ind Singh in­fused in them. These are the few good men that the Mas­ter cre­ated, shall I say crafted -in whom there was not a sigh, not an iota of doubt.

Their arms were torn off, their legs ripped, but there is noth­ing like a sigh of an am­pu­tated spirit. There is no pros­thetic for that. That’s the cra­dle of lead­er­ship – in­spi­ra­tional, im­mers­ing, ex­pand­ing and evolv­ing.

Mak­ers of man, cre­ators of lead­ers, be ob­ser­vant of what kind of lead­ers the Tenth Mas­ter cre­ated. They will never sell their souls to buy their fu­ture. And that my friend is in­tegrity. That is called courage. That’s the stuff lead­ers are made of. They al­ways knew what the right path was and they took it will­ingly even if it was hard -very hard.

So much was their charisma and en­ergy that the en­emy camp re­treated when the for­ma­tions of the five were com­ing out of the Garhi -fort, with the door, closed be­hind them. There is no re­treat, no go­ing back ever, and they had to fight till the end.

This is im­pec­ca­ble courage – the art of liv­ing dan­ger­ously that was in their DNA, scripted at the House of Nanak.

Fac­ing cer­tain death, cause they un­der­stood fully that death is the bride of the brave. Their spir­its were res­olute, firm, un­wa­ver­ing; they were af­fixed to the path of up­hold­ing right­eous­ness- prin­ci­ples that they be­lieved, lived and were will­ing to die for!

And above all, it was­n’t a con­flict for a woman, wealth or land- gen­er­ally con­sid­ered the rea­sons of bat­tle; it was the con­flict to up­hold the right to live with dig­nity, ho­n­our, val­our, self-es­teem, self-love, self-re­spect by liv­ing and think­ing be­yond them­selves. They choose death rather than com­pro­mise – they rewrote re­de­fined, re­shaped and re­fined his­tory.

Their spir­its were like the flight of the ea­gle – they be­lieved in them­selves, they fo­cused on the larger pic­ture and not get stran­gled, be­sieged in trans­ac­tions.

Imag­ine Guru Gob­ind Singh who, as their fa­ther, is go­ing to wit­ness to­day- that both his teen-aged sons at­tain­ing mar­tyr­dom in front of his eyes. Both are cre­at­ing his­tory at the ages of 18 and 14.

His­tory cor­rob­o­rates that Ajit Singh the el­dest took a record 292 cuts on his body while 14-year-old Jhu­jharr Singh, af­ter a valiant fight with the en­emy was crushed by an ele­phant. Both sights, not a pleas­ant one for any soul and more so for any fa­ther.

Yet Sahibe Ka­maal -Sov­er­eign Par Ex­cel­lence -is dif­fer­ent – He is the ris­ing star, an epit­ome of what cen­tring is all about and di­vin­ity per­son­i­fied.

Yet Sahibe Ka­maal -Sov­er­eign Par Ex­cel­lence -is dif­fer­ent – He is the ris­ing star, an epit­ome of what cen­tring is all about and di­vin­ity per­son­i­fied. In­stead of griev­ing, the Guru thanked the Almighty for his gra­cious­ness, bless­ings and the op­por­tu­nity. Some­thing unimag­in­able, in­con­ceiv­able and un­thought in the an­nals till date. It is this at­ti­tude that sep­a­rates men from the boys.

Re­flect folks how many ex­am­ples there are in the past and the pre­sent. More -their bod­ies along with the Sikh sol­diers at the end of the day will lie out in the open, un­at­tended, no cover, no cre­ma­tion to be or­ga­nized, no out­pour­ing of emo­tions. A sight which shakes the un­shake­able too.

His­tory rec­ol­lects that the Mas­ter chose not to give any spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion to his sons, cause he be­lieved that all sol­diers were his own sons. That’s an apt ex­am­ple of in­spi­ra­tional lead­er­ship.

Pause: how many fa­thers in our sphere can dream to do this? Think about it.

These sol­diers rewrote the art of dy­ing with boots on – never suc­cumb, make things hap­pen and not wait for things to hap­pen. Be the change and not get changed. Be some­one who is a tire­less trav­eller, an ex­plorer, one who is there to make a mark and not get marked. It’s a new way of liv­ing, a new way of ex­is­tence, a new way of evo­lu­tion.

They cre­ated an ex­tra­or­di­nary event out of a mun­dane ac­tiv­ity, where one sim­ply never gives up in the face of ad­ver­saries. They lead a cel­e­bra­tive ex­is­tence -be­yond the or­di­nary, be­yond the ob­vi­ous, be­yond self. And that’s what mar­tyr­dom is all about. It’s not giv­ing up; it’s ris­ing up, till eter­nity.

That’s what a Sikh is -one who lives to­tally and in to­tal­ity. Am I that one? Am I the one? Think. Re­flect. Pon­der. Ex­am­ine.

This spirit owes its seed to the mar­tyr­dom of the Fifth Mas­ter -Guru Ar­jan Sahib, who chose to sit on a hot plate, in the hottest month, with hot sand be­ing poured on his body, slowly em­brac­ing death with seren­ity, peace and tran­quil­lity.

Not easy -some­thing which de­fies any ra­tio­nale -but that’s what peo­ple with met­tle are all about.

Tak­ing this fur­ther -Ninth Mas­ter -Guru Tegh Ba­hadur, sac­ri­ficed his life for up­hold­ing the right of prac­tis­ing one’s own faith- the right to have faith in your faith. He chose death even if he did­n’t be­lieve in that faith. That’s what uni­ver­sal­ism is all about.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur wit­nessed the hor­rific death of his com­pan­ions -one was burnt alive in a cot­ton roll, one was boiled to death in a wa­ter pot, one was sawed alive, in front of his own eyes -with com­po­sure, calm­ness and peace.

For him in­cul­cat­ing the con­cept of the broth­er­hood of man and uni­ver­sal­ism of fa­ther in each, was more im­por­tant. He lived and died for some­thing be­yond.

That’s what a Sikh is -one who lives to­tally and in to­tal­ity. Am I that one? Am I the one? Think. Re­flect. Pon­der. Ex­am­ine.

Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, pop­u­larly known as K S Ahluwalia de­scribes him­self as a stu­dent of Sikhism, en­deav­our­ing to un­cover, un­der­stand bet­ter the Sikh ethos. For the past two decades and more, he has been shar­ing in­sight­ful thoughts in print, per­sonal in­ter­ac­tions, work­shops and talk shows on Sikh Inc. -man­age­ment prin­ci­ples from the House of Nanak and life-trans­form­ing lead­er­ship skills.  He is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to em­i­nent jour­nals and he has im­pacted the lives of thou­sands of youth with over 5.6 mil­lion man-hours across di­ver­si­fied au­di­ences at more than a hun­dred plus global lo­ca­tions.