Trans­port­ing him­self to the lo­tus feet of Guru Gob­ind Singh, ex­ec­u­tive coach and men­tor Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia re­lives the mo­ments when the Tenth Mas­ter pre­pares to leave the Anand­pur Sahib Fort -lock, stock and bar­rel, know­ing fully well that those who promised safe haven would re­sort to de­ceit and sub­terfuge. In this beau­ti­ful metaphor, the au­thor traces mo­ments of his­tory which every Sikh, nay, every in­di­vid­ual who wants to un­der­stand Guru Gob­ind Singh and his Sikhs must re­live and pon­der over.  The out­pour­ing of his thoughts in this man­ner is an amaz­ing jour­ney that the read­ers must un­der­take, even if to un­der­stand what kind of in­domitable spirit lives through the Khalsa farm­ers con­test­ing for their rights in harsh weather con­di­tions.

LET’S RE­VISIT THE SCENES WHICH ARE HAP­PEN­ING AT ANAND­PUR SAHIB 316 YEARS AGO. NOW. The fate­ful night-dawn of to­mor­row when Guru Gob­ind Singh, along with his fam­ily con­sist­ing of his aged mother, wife, four sons, along with the band of his war­riors will need to de­part from the land which his fa­ther had bought. To­day night he would be home­less, rud­der­less – and his home would be the vast ex­panse of the sky.

Hos­tile weather, nail-bit­ing cold, the weather turn­ing bad to worse- rain ac­com­pa­nied by strong winds will be lash­ing in the early dawn, com­pound­ing the mis­ery. Above all weary, fam­ished Singh’s who haven’t had a proper, nu­tri­tive morsel for a long time, war­riors whose arms and am­mu­ni­tions are de­pleted to bare min­i­mum lev­els. Horses that haven’t been fed prop­erly for a long time is a new re­al­ity.

At this hour the Mas­ter is busy prepar­ing for the fi­nal on­slaught as he is cer­tain that the en­emy com­pris­ing of Mughal forces and Ra­jput Ra­jas are sure to break their vows of al­low­ing a safe pas­sage to him and his fol­low­ers as com­mit­ted by them. He is spot on to vi­su­al­ize that they are peo­ple sans in­tegrity, con­scious­ness, as they are dri­ven by power hunger – come what may. For them, the ends jus­tify the means.

The Mas­ter is ex­alt­ing his band to be ready for the penul­ti­mate test, which is sim­ply some hours away. The en­emy is busy craft­ing du­bi­ous and ma­nip­u­la­tive steps on how to an­ni­hi­late the Sikhs along with the Mas­ter and his fam­ily. They are cer­tain once the Mas­ter and his band are in open; they have a strik­ing ad­van­tage due to sheer num­bers of their war force, cou­pled with a great reser­voir of arms and am­mu­ni­tion. They know that the Gu­ru’s army is mal­nour­ished, hence are weak phys­i­cally, con­se­quently easy to be wiped off. Right now every­thing ap­pears to be in their favour and they stand on an ad­van­tage point. If this is so, this is the op­por­tu­nity for them to make the Khalsa as his­tory.

Mas­ter’s fam­ily must be busy in get­ting their es­sen­tials – coins, some gold, eat­a­bles, warm cloth­ing, etc – packed such that they can have a rea­son­able stay wher­ever they are des­tined to be.

Folk’s re­cap- you are forced to leave your own place, dis­card your own com­forts, be­long­ings, forced to shed liv­ing in abun­dance. And now you are re­duced to penury. It pains and pains hard. Cou­pled with this is the fear of an­ni­hi­la­tion, maybe a gory death await­ing.

Any nor­mal per­son would be in jit­ters, hal­lu­ci­nate and give up.
· Why me can cross the mind of any­one?
· What did I do wrong? It’s sim­ply easy for me to give up and get this over.
· Why am I stick­ing my neck out? The de­feat looms large on the hori­zon.
· Is it re­ally worth it for me?
· At this age, is it wise and ra­tio­nal to take this risk?
· When the ma­jor­ity have suc­cumbed to the em­pire, why am I be­ing de­fi­ant. Let me be one of those many?

And above all the num­ber of horses is lim­ited. Hence every­thing can­not be trans­ported. I may have to leave my most ad­mired pos­ses­sions too, things, that I cared, val­ued and cher­ished most. It’s a dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion, it’s not or­di­nary. It’s some­thing be­yond.

We are go­ing to win, cre­ate his­tory and not be a part of his­tory. The house of Nanak is clear- it’s now or never- we make things hap­pen and not wait for things to hap­pen.

There may be thoughts tra­vers­ing the folks there. Yet the choice was made. The Mas­ter was clear- what needs to be done must be done. Noth­ing ever can stop one to achieve the un­fath­omable. I along with you all Sikhs, have been be­stowed with this re­spon­si­bil­ity to rewrite his­tory in the next 7 days. The odds are stacked un­favourably, yet we have the will, courage, de­ter­mi­na­tion, pas­sion, and per­se­ver­ance to make this un­think­able, un-per­ceived hap­pen in the now.

We are go­ing to win, cre­ate his­tory and not be a part of his­tory. The house of Nanak is clear- it’s now or never- we make things hap­pen and not wait for things to hap­pen.

Cer­tain am I that at this hour team­work would be hap­pen­ing, The Mas­ter would be en­gaged with his tested com­man­ders in de­vis­ing strate­gies to keep the power-in­tox­i­cated op­po­site camp sol­diers at bay, us­ing their mea­gre re­sources in an op­ti­mal man­ner, bat­tle tac­tics be­ing firmed up while vi­su­al­iz­ing what can pos­si­bly hap­pen.

Lo and be­hold! He is not a gen­eral only, he is a poet, a wis­dom be­ing, and he di­rects his fel­low be­ings to pack up all the wis­dom books, lit­er­a­ture which needs to be car­ried out as he be­lieves that this rich her­itage would be their guid­ing light.

Lo and be­hold! He is not a gen­eral only, he is a poet, a wis­dom be­ing, and he di­rects his fel­low be­ings to pack up all the wis­dom books, lit­er­a­ture which needs to be car­ried out as he be­lieves that this rich her­itage would be their guid­ing light.

At 1430 now, they may be hav­ing their last meal now, and we can imag­ine what thoughts would be go­ing through their minds. Not the best of the en­vi­rons, in which they are hav­ing their stom­ach filled. And it’s rightly said when you are in a zone of cau­tious­ness and tense, ap­petite evap­o­rates.

I am hav­ing my lunch in a cosy en­vi­ron­ment, sans any ten­sion, at a place which I be­lieve is my own, where I have no fear of an­ni­hi­la­tion. I am se­cure and yet when the first morsel was be­ing put in the mouth, my hand stopped be­cause I got trans­ported to the place and time where our Tenth Mas­ter is right now.

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.