It is early morning on Sunday, November 4, 2001. My family is getting ready to go to Gurdwara. As always I am warming up our Dodge Durango a few minutes before and honking to make them hurry up. Finally my mother and sister come; my brother of course has an excuse to stay home. It is a beautiful, clear and sunny day but chilly. Traffic is moving well as we get onto Grand Central Pkwy. There is a Sikh temple close to our home but my mother prefers to go to the one in Richmond Hill because there is more activity there. .
As we arrive we find parking only a block away from the temple. We walk north towards 118th street and 95th avenue and start seeing people with different color turbans. Some are walking towards the temple and some walking away. As we turn right towards the entrance, there is "1869" carved in the corner of the building. On the left side before the entrance is a shelter with numbered shelves inside. There are three men, two wearing turbans and the other wearing a yellow bandana doing voluntary service of putting people's shoes in the shelves and giving out tokens.
After taking off our shoes, we walk up the steps swarming through the crowd. On the left side, the hallway leads to the main hall. I stop in the hallway with other people to take a bandana from the racks and cover my head as my mother and sister proceed to the chapel. There are fluorescent signs with famous quotes from the holy text "Guru Granth Sahib" written along the hallway walls. At the end of the hallway, on the left side some people are getting change at the cashier's desk, which reminds me to take out a dollar bill from my wallet which I will give as donation when I pray. There is a line of people in front of me which turns right towards the chapel where Guru Granth Sahib, the Holy Text is kept in beautifully decorated clothes and special furniture made of gold. There are no benches to sit on. While in the line I observe men and women sitting on alternate sides from the line.
The word 'Sikh' in the Punjabi language means 'disciple', Sikhs consider themselves the disciples of God. ... Sikhism has a very rare formation. ... Sikhs believe to worship in temples known as Gurdwaras, also meaning Gateway to the Guru. ... They reject the militancy of the Sikhs. ... They must look and act like a Sikh before welcomed into the Sikh Community. ...
One of these secondary religions is called Sikhism. ... (McLeod, 1968) Among Sikhism practices are: prayers, worship, temples, and "The Five K's". ... Sikh temples, shrines, or holy places are called Gurdwaras, and there are more than 200 in India alone. ... Sikhism does not believe in fasting. ... "Sikhism is both modern and rational. ...
When the composer, Jessie Thandi travels to the home of Sikhs Punjab and joins the special occasion, she then knows a bit of history about the Sikhs, that it is the war with Indian Moslems. ... Apart from this, she is also proud of being one of the Sikhs. ... Jessie's one of the most desirable places to visit is the Golden Temple. ... And when she sees that people are cleaning the temple area and preparing meals for other people, working for nothing, she was pleased and impressed. ... Even though she was brought up with the Sikhs community and feels proud of being a Sikhs, she could n...
This operation was a "code name given by the Indian government to an attack on golden temple", which is Sikhs holiest place. This attack on Golden temple was ordered by the Indian government and Indira Gandhi herself because they wanted to arrest Bhinderanwale and his followers. ... He was demanding the rights of Sikhs as "One of the Indians constitution refused to recognize the Sikhs religion as a distinct and does not recognize Sikh marriages". There are many reasons why Indian government attacked Sikhs, they wanted to get rid of Sikhs. ... It is widely believed that the two Sikh bo...
The most recent atrocity against the Sikhs includes a government planned attack on the Golden Temple on the day when the most Sikhs were expected to be in attendance, June 4th 1984. The Golden Temple has similar significance as the Vatican does for Catholics and is their most cherished place of worship. On that day the government tortured and murdered thousands of Sikhs, brought the destruction of 37 other historical Sikh shrines, and looted and destroyed the Sikh reference library which contained all of the most valued Sikh historical items. ... Each of these events in addition to others h...
There have been many different types of religious conflicts in India in the last century, the brutal violence can go back more than five hundred years, but more recently tensions were built up in Delhi after Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for the attack on the Sikh holy shrine in Amritsar, Harimandar Sahib (Golden Temple). ... Many of the victims were Hindu, an almost equal amount were Sikhs. Indian newspapers which were government run were not helping the cause by slandering Sikhs and reporting only the deaths of Hindus by Si...
There are four religions practiced commonly in India; Hindu being the most common, Sikhism, Islam, and Christianity. ... The prime religion of India has been Hinduism from which derived Sikhism the two most closely related and most widely practiced. ... However, for The Sikhs, The Diwali festival took place during the life of the sixth Sikh Guru Hargobind Sahib. ... The Guru and the Hindu kings were also freed at Diwali, Sikhs were very happy when their leader was released. ... In America, the books are worshipped in a special ceremony by Indian priests, usually in a Hindu temple, or a Sik...
Bend It Like Beckham is a movie about Punjabi Sikhs daughter who is 18years old and lives in London. ... "Sikh women wear a "Kada," a steel bangle which is a religious symbol. Many Sikh women say it is against their religious tenets not to wear the Kada.... Another aspect of Sikh culture that shown in the movie was the tradition of arranged marriages. "The Sikh wedding ceremony itself consisted of either just the registry marriage or a small religious ceremony at the temple with a few guests" (Bhachu, 1991). ...
They smashed numerous temples of worship and killed a number of Indians. ... Kossak and Watts inform, "Hindu temples are themselves objects of worship" (34). The Muslim invaders destroyed temples with valuable and respected Indian idols (Knapp par.1). ... To make it worse, those defending the temples were not spared in the process. For instance, Sikh Bahadur faced death together with his two collaborators due to his refusal to convert the Kashmiri Hindus (Khan 199). ...
