Sadhu Singh Attwal, Father of our sewadar Trustee UK S. Ranbir Singh Attwal, Mother Gurmej Kaur and brother Naresh Singh Attwal visit Guru Ki Kashi – Damdama Sahib!!
About Guru Ki Kashi – In reverence to the tenth Master, Guru Gobind Singh’s prophecy, the Kalgidhar Society has endeavored to establish an International Center for Comparative Religious Studies as a part of AKAL UNIVERSITY, Guru Ki Kashi with special emphasis on the Teachings of Guru Granth Sahib and establishing center to translate Guru Granth Sahib in original ragas in different languages of the world.
Also, following the message of Guru Nanak to establish Permanent Peace in the World, this place – Sri Damdama Sahib will create corps of Messengers of Peace, who will spread the message of Universal Brotherhood of mankind throughout the world. Read more here –http://goo.gl/31jroV
The students of Akal Academy Jhandiana performed Kirtan at Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj, Village Salina, Moga. The participating students were honoured by Sant Gurjant Singh ji.
The Kirtan Darbar was organised in the wake of promoting the message behind academic and spiritual studies at Akal Academies among the Sangat present to experience the mesmerizing Kirtan. Sant Gurjant Singh Ji was too impressed with the performances that he has yet again invited the students from the Academy to perform Kirtan during Baisakhi celebrations at Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj.
The staff and the teachers were honored with Saropas to appreciate the kind efforts and to train the students upto this level of great performances.
The founder of Royal family of Malerkotla was Shaikh Sardar ud-din Sardar-i-Jahan, a Sherwani Afghan originating from Daraban. He received a jagir of 58 villages near Ludhiana and three lakhs of rupees as marriage gift, after marrying a daughter of Sultan Bahlol Lodhi of Delhi in 1454. The ruling family descends from Shaikh Salar ud-din […]
The founder of Royal family of Malerkotla was Shaikh Sardar ud-din Sardar-i-Jahan, a Sherwani Afghan originating from Daraban. He received a jagir of 58 villages near Ludhiana and three lakhs of rupees as marriage gift, after marrying a daughter of Sultan Bahlol Lodhi of Delhi in 1454. The ruling family descends from Shaikh Salar ud-din the issue of this marriage.
The founder of the Malerkotla state was Bayazid Khan, who rose high in rank in the Mughal army. Saving the life of the Emperor Aurangzeb from an attacking tiger, he received high honours and recognition as an independent ruler. He was granted the right to construct a defensive fort, which he named Malerkotla, from which the state took its name. According to family tradition, he summoned Shah Fazl Chishti, a Sufi saint, and Damodar Das, a Hindu sadhu, to place the foundation stone, thereby also laying the foundations for the spirit of communal harmony and religious toleration that characterise Malerkotla.
Nawab Sher Muhammad Khan, Bayazid’s grandson, earned the undying gratitude and honour of the Sikhs. He had interceded with the Emperor in an attempt to stay the execution of Guru Gobind Singh’s two young sons, after their capture at Sirhind. Guru Gobind Singh on learning this kind and humanitarian approach profusely thanked the Nawab of Malerkotla and blessed him.
The spirit of communal harmony that pervaded the history of this little state endured even through the most difficult period during partition in 1947. As the rest of the Punjab went up in flames, and hundreds of thousands perished at the hands of their neighbours, Malerkotla remained an oasis of peace.
In the loving memory of her Late Husband Choudhry Raminder Singh and Late Son Choudhry Dalip Singh; Mata Rajbans Kaur of Patti Ganga, Village Dhamot Kalan has donated land for the 126th Akal Academy at Dhamot Kalan (District Ludhiana, Punjab, India), to be run by The Kalgidhar Society, Baru Sahib (H.P).
The Foundation Stone was laid by #BabaIqbalSingh in the presence of Gurpreet Singh Gill from Amritsar, Dr. Khem Singh Vice-President, PhD (California), Former Vice-Chancellor, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana and the Gurdwara Sangat at Gurdwara Sahib of 6th Guru, Patti Jetha, Dhamot Kalan.
It was a warm, summer Monday morning. My dad was driving to the University of St. Thomas (St.Paul, MN) campus for my first day at journalism camp. My dad was looking for ways to get me out of the house to do something productive, and he found out about the ThreeSixty Introduction to Journalism Camp, […]
It was a warm, summer Monday morning. My dad was driving to the University of St. Thomas (St.Paul, MN) campus for my first day at journalism camp. My dad was looking for ways to get me out of the house to do something productive, and he found out about the ThreeSixty Introduction to Journalism Camp, a four week camp promoting diversity by teaching teenagers journalism. At first, I was incredibly reluctant to go. I wasn’t a big fan of writing, and I would rather do anything else than spend an entire day in a classroom learning how to write, especially after a long freshman year. However, I really didn’t have much of a choice, so I dragged myself to the classroom. When I first entered, I was pleasantly greeted by the three adults who I would be working with, including my editor for my first year with the program.
We spent the first half of the day introducing ourselves to our peers, talking about journalism and its role in the world, and talking about how journalism practiced. The first skill we were taught was the art of the interview. The only way to really learn interviewing was to actually do it, so we were asked to go out onto the college campus and ask anybody a list of questions. This, without a doubt, was one of my more nerve-wracking experiences. After wandering around a little, I finally managed to get myself to ask a normal looking guy for an interview. Honestly, that first interview did not go so well, but my interviewee was nice and made it a lot easier. And that was the beginning of a lot of amazing experiences.
During that four-week camp, I wrote two stories, a reported story and a personal essay. My first reported story, was about a church pastor, who worked to try to pull young people off the crime-ridden streets of North Minneapolis by using devotional Hip-Hop music. In addition to this, I started an essay about an experience of hatred that I had endured, post 9/11, as a young, eight-year old child and its effect on me and my understanding of people. After working through several drafts, and spending five or six hours editing that piece with my editor, Annie, my essay was submitted to the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s Better Newspaper Contest, where it won a third place award, while competing with other papers. The hard work had been rewarded and my days with ThreeSixty would keep improving.
I’ve written many articles for ThreeSixty on a wide range of topics from the seriousness of religion and politics to lighter topics like sports. My new editor, Tom, helped me hone my skills furthermore and he developed me into a better writer. The year after the intro camp, I participated in the faster paced advanced journalism camp. And, then I took a 20-hours per week paid internship with the program, in which I was able to interview women’s basketball star Seimone Augustus. The highlight came in January 2014, when I won a first place award at the Better Newspaper award, thanks to the wonderful help I received from my journalism mentors, the staff at ThreeSixty.
In my time with ThreeSixty Journalism, not only have I enjoyed myself, but I have learned a lot about the world. I reported about experiences I never would have imagined of, and I interviewed people I thought I would never talk to. I learned many skills such as being able to write fluidly and being able to talk to people without being too intimidated. In the end, my experiences with ThreeSixty has been a valuable life lesson about how we as individuals are so small compared to the immensity of the world.
2 April 2014, CHANDIGARH: India centre of Sikh American Chamber of Commerce (SACC) has started inviting applications from young entrepreneurs to develop digital apps for social development and make a difference in the lives of people, said Manipal Dhariwal, president, SACC, India. The World Summit Youth Award (WSYA) is a unique global contest which brings […]
2 April 2014, CHANDIGARH: India centre of Sikh American Chamber of Commerce (SACC) has started inviting applications from young entrepreneurs to develop digital apps for social development and make a difference in the lives of people, said Manipal Dhariwal, president, SACC, India. The World Summit Youth Award (WSYA) is a unique global contest which brings together young developers and digital entrepreneurs — under 30 years of age — who use internet and mobile technology to put the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) into action and make a difference, he added.
SACC India, he informed, has also recently been appointed as the networking partners for the UN’s World Summit Youth Award (WSYA) supported by the Unido, Unesco, and UNDP. Mohali-based IT entrepreneur Maninder Singh Bajwa, holds the distinction of being the India ambassador for WSYA programme for 2013-14, having been selected through similar global competition for his iScula educational platform for parents of school children.
We have the next two-and-a-half weeks to figure out the best player in the NCAA Tournament. Perhaps a bunch-scoring senior such as Creighton’s Doug McDermott or Louisville’s Russ Smith. Maybe a lottery-ticketed freshman such as Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins or Duke’s Jabari Parker. But there’s no question who’s the biggest: It’s 7-foot-5, 355-pound New Mexico State […]
We have the next two-and-a-half weeks to figure out the best player in the NCAA Tournament. Perhaps a bunch-scoring senior such as Creighton’s Doug McDermott or Louisville’s Russ Smith. Maybe a lottery-ticketed freshman such as Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins or Duke’s Jabari Parker.
But there’s no question who’s the biggest: It’s 7-foot-5, 355-pound New Mexico State center Sim Bhullar, hands (the size of dinner plates) down. Bhullar, a native of Toronto who is of Punjabi heritage (the “Slammin’ Sikh” nickname doesn’t seem like it will get off the ground), isn’t just an oversize curiosity.
The 21-year-old sophomore behemoth — who was 6-foot-5 by the sixth grade, and now has size-22 feet and an 8-foot wingspan — can play a tiny bit. He put up 10.3 points, 7.9 rebounds and 3.4 blocks while averaging 26.2 minutes per game for the WAC champion Aggies. No. 13 seed New Mexico State opens against No. 4 San Diego State on Thursday night in Spokane, Wash.
“He’s so vastly improved,” San Diego State coach Steve Fisher said of Bhullar, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “He’s a force.” His not-so-little brother Tanveer, who stands only 7-foot-3, is a freshman at New Mexico State.
PANJA SAHIB, GURDWARA, at Hasan Abdal in Attock (or Campbellpore) district of Pakistan Punjab, is sacred to Guru Nanak, who briefly stopped here on his way back to the Punjab from his western uddsi or journey which took him as far West as Mecca and Baghdad. According to tradition popularized by Bhai Santokh Singh, Sri […]
PANJA SAHIB, GURDWARA, at Hasan Abdal in Attock (or Campbellpore) district of Pakistan Punjab, is sacred to Guru Nanak, who briefly stopped here on his way back to the Punjab from his western uddsi or journey which took him as far West as Mecca and Baghdad. According to tradition popularized by Bhai Santokh Singh, Sri Guru Nanak Prakash, Guru Nanak and his Muslim companion of long travels, Mardana, halted at the foot of a hill. On the top of the hill lived a Muslim recluse known in those parts as Wall Kandhari.
Feeling fatigue and thirsty and seeing no water in the vicinity, Mardana climbed up to the Wall`s hut and begged him for water to quench his thirst. Questioned as to who he was and what had brought him to that place, Mardana said that he was professionally a musician and had come in the train of a great saint, Baba Nanak. Wall Kandhari refused to give him water and quipped instead that if his master was so accomplished a saint, he should not let his follower go thirsty.
Mardana walked back disappointed and told the Guru what the Wall had said. Guru Nanak asked Mardana to go once again and supplicate the Wali with humility. Mardana obeyed, but returned only to report the failure of his mission. Guru Nanak there upon touched the hillside with the tip of the stick he was holding. Instantly, water spouted forth from that point and Mardana drank his fill. But simultaneously Wali Kandhari`s reservoir on top of the hill began to ebb and soon dried up. The Wali, blind with rage, rolled down a big boulder towards the travelers.
Guru Nanak gently raised his arm and the rocky mass, as goes the tradition, stopped in its downward career as it came in touch with his palm, {panja, in Punjabi). The impression of his palm was left on the stone which is still shown to the visitors to the place, now famous as Panja Sahib, the Holy Palm. A Gurudwara was built at the site during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh to which he made a handsome land endowment and which he visited more than once during his lifetime.
He’s a few days shy of 103, and still lacing up for his daily run. It’s the closest you can come to immortality!
Fauja Singh is so light on his feet that he could be treading on air. He runs past mustard fields, a gentle breeze making the bright yellow flowers bow to him. He runs past shimmering wheat fields, sentinel lines of poplars, and tight little mango groves. As he enters a gnarly brick lane that runs through a warren of two-storey houses, Singh slows to a trot, then comes to a stop in front of an old house in yellow and blue, now being refurbished. This is Beas Pind, a village near Jalandhar, with the Jalandhar-Pathankot highway running past.
“This is where I was born,” he says, a gleam in his eyes. “And this is where my children were born. It’s changed a bit now.”
No doubt. It’s been almost 103 years since Singh was born. His ancestral house has been rebuilt many times since then, but Singh is still standing here, his silver and grey beard blowing in the wind, the sharp shafts of sun, filtered through black clouds, giving it a preternatural wizard-glow. Singh’s not just standing, he is still running.
“Seven to eight kilometres every day,” he says. “I walk some, jog some, and run some, but I am slowing down a little.”
By slowing down, he means that he is not going to run a marathon again. He ran his last race, a 10K, on 24 February last year in Hong Kong, just a month short of his 102nd birthday. He finished it in 1 hour, 32 minutes and 28 seconds, on a muggy day with a light drizzle.
“I was nervous because it was my last race,” he says, sitting on the terrace of his house. “I asked my coach, will I finish this one? And he said, ‘Of course you will.’ But there were so many people, so many flash-bulbs going off, that at first I could not even figure out if I was running in the right direction.”
After he had gone past the 5km mark, Singh says he felt confident that he would finish the race, but after another kilometre, he fell badly, bruising his knees. “People rushed to help me, because every time I fall, I think people are scared that I will not get up again,” he says, laughing with uninhibited glee. “But my time has not come yet. People tried to make me drink some water, but I refused. I got up on my own, and began running again. And then while I was running, someone came and sprayed something on my knees, and the pain went away.”
For a moment, he hallucinated—he thought there were pretty women in traditional Punjabi clothes dancing the bhangra and the giddha—but they were young local girls who were cheering him from the sidelines.
“When I crossed the finish line, I felt so light, so painless,” he says. “I thought, God was running with me.”
“When I crossed the finish line, I felt so light, so painless. I thought, God was running with me.”
And there it was, the end of the most extraordinary long-distance running career that can be imagined: first marathon at 89, and nine more since, and a half-dozen lesser distances; the oldest man to run a full marathon, when he completed the Toronto Waterfront Marathon at 100; and a fantastical timing posted in 2003, 5:40:04 at the Toronto Marathon, at the age of 92, prompting Adidas (which sponsored him) to include him in their Impossible Is Nothing ad campaign, alongside David Beckham. The tag line of the ad said: 6:54 at age 89. 5:40 at age 92. The Kenyans better watch out for him when he hits 100. Since then, Singh has had tea with Queen Elizabeth II, a woman he is impressed with: “Maharani England di tagri hegi-ae” (the queen of England is a strong woman); run with the Olympic torch during the London Games in 2012; developed a serious fetish for suits, ties and shoes (he has over a hundred suits, colour-matched with nearly that many pairs of shoes—“a strange thing,” he says, “considering I spent 90 years more or less wearing the same type of white kurta-pyjama”); and of course, run more marathons.
The year Singh was born, the British Imperial capital was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi, and Elizabeth II’s grandfather, George V, was crowned the emperor of India. Singh is a time machine. How the world has changed since his birth would make a fascinating book—two world wars, the discovery of penicillin, stainless steel, short-wave radio, electron microscope, ad infinitum. Through most of this time, Singh was just a simple boy born to a family of farmers, unschooled except in farming, born emaciated and with weak legs which did not allow him to walk till he was 5. When he did walk, he quickly gained a reputation for being the most active boy in the village, always climbing trees, jumping into ponds, and running after kites (he’s still fidgety and garrulous, and hardly ever sits still). But running as a sport, or just for the joy of it, was forgotten as the child turned into a man, took over the farm, married and had six children—three daughters and three sons. One by one, his children migrated, to England and Canada, and Singh and his wife Gian Kaur worked their ancestral farm with their fifth child, Kuldip. Occasionally, the family would visit their children in England, and that’s how, in the early 1960s, Singh’s date of birth was registered as 1 April 1911 in his passport—birth certificates were not common in India till 1969.
In 1992, Gian died, Singh was 81. “She had a good life,” Singh says, “and I thought, surely my time is near, and I was at peace with that.”
Two years later, Singh’s peace of mind was shattered in the most gruesome of ways. It was July, the monsoon had arrived, and Kuldip and he were fixing an irrigation ditch next to an outhouse on the periphery of their farm, when a storm hit them. As they were hurrying back to their house, the corrugated metal roof of the outhouse was wrenched out by the storm and came flying at Kuldip, slicing his head off as Singh watched.
Everything changed after this. His youngest child, Harvinder, says that Singh began losing his mind. He would not speak for days, and when he did, it was to pick a fight. He would wander aimlessly around the village, crying, at all times of the day and night. The doctors advised his family to take Singh away from his village, and this is how, towards the end of 1994, he found himself living with his eldest son in London. He visits his village in India once a year.
“I was there to forget, yes,” Singh says, looking listless for the first time in the day. “But I kept coming back here. Nothing seemed right.”
Then, slowly, he began making friends with fellow Sikh expats in London, many of whom were of his vintage. He found out that they often went running in the morning, and desperate for any kind of distraction, he joined them one day.
“I found out that I could run faster than all of them,” Singh says. “And I could run on and on.”
His first major run was a 20km charity event in London, and he loved it so much that everyone in his family, and all his new friends, began encouraging him to take part in more such races.
“And that’s how I began running,” Singh says. “And that’s what keeps me alive. One day I will be running, and the earth will claim me back and it will be wonderful. How can you be scared of something like that? But that day is still a little further away.”
Meharban Singh is a prominent Sikh living in Singapore. In the decade of 1970’s, I was also living there and Meharban Singh narrated to me a very interesting incident. He said that he, along with his family, had gone to Pakistan for paying obeisance at the Gurdwaras over there. General Ayub Khan was the President […]
Meharban Singh is a prominent Sikh living in Singapore. In the decade of 1970’s, I was also living there and Meharban Singh narrated to me a very interesting incident. He said that he, along with his family, had gone to Pakistan for paying obeisance at the Gurdwaras over there. General Ayub Khan was the President of the country in those days. He invited us to his residence over a cup of tea. When we entered his drawing room, I was taken aback on seeing the front wall of his room. It was painted with the words Ik Onkaar Satgur Parsaad, with two frames hanging underneath. Mool Mantra from Ik Onkaar Satnaam till Gurparsaad was inscribed in Punjabi in one frame and in Urdu in the other.
As I felt curious to know the background of these frames with Mool Mantra, I did not take much time in exchanging the initial pleasantries and said, “General Sahib, if you kindly permit me, then I would like to know about these lines of Gurbani over there (pointing my finger towards the frame with the Mool Mantra)”. For a moment he became emotional and then poignantly replied, “It is indeed Guru Nanak Sahib’s Kalaam (verse) because of which I am able to reach this highest post of the President of Pakistan.”
General Sahib went on to narrate his childhood experience connected with the Mool Mantra, with the following words: “I was studying in a school in Abbotabad and was very weak in my studies. As a punishment, I invariably used to get bashed in the class. One day, I thought of bunking the school simply to save myself from the daily ordeal and instead went to the Gurdwara Sahib, falling in the vicinity, to take shelter.
The Baba Ji (head Granthi of the Gurdwara Sahib), who was known to me, noticed my actions and enquired, ‘Ayuba, where are you loitering, is it not the time for you to go to school?’ I said, ‘Baba Ji, I will not go to school today. The teachers beat me up daily, I am unable to take it anymore.’ He took me fondly into his arms and said, ‘Henceforth you will not get any bashing. Recite this Kalaam continually on your way to school.’ I did the same and went to school. It was the first day, I did not get any bashing and it so happened that I never got any punishment after that.
“I started feeling a lot of change in my life and became more serious towards my studies, work and duties. The final exams approached and I went to the same old man again to request him to pray for me so that I get through the exams. Baba Ji said, ‘Ayuba, Guru Nanak’s Kalaam of Mool Mantra is with you.
Understand it, meditate on daily basis and never leave it wherever you go. Whatever you wish for, you will get.’ Today, I have reached this highest post of the country by the grace of Baba Nanak’s Mool Mantra and shall ever remain thankful to him for his blessings.”
In the year 2000, I got an opportunity to visit Pakistan. I was taking a round of the market in Lahore when I suddenly recalled the above narrated incident of President Ayub Khan. I went to a book stall and asked for a biography of the General. The shopkeeper showed me a book titled Friends not Masters. I went through the pages of the book hurriedly and verified the incident narrated by Meharban Singh. Eminent historian Principal Satbir Singh has also referred to the above incident in one of his books.V.P. Menon, former Foreign Secretary and India’s Ambassador to Russia, in his autobiography, shares a memorable experience during a visit to England to appear for an exam: “I visited the Southall Gurdwara to spend a night.
The Head Granthi of Gurdwara Sahib welcomed me. In the morning, when I was leaving for the examination center, I requested the aged head Granthi to pray for me so that I am able to pass the exam with good marks. He gave me a piece of paper by writing Ik Onkaar Satgur Parsaad and advised me to remember these words of Guru Nanak Sahib in my heart all the time and recite the same in case of any problem during exam and said, ‘Go and Guru Nanak Sahib will help you out.’ I don’t know what magic was there in his saying. His words entered my body in such a way as if I had an electric shock. I felt electrified when I reached the examination hall to appear for the exam. On reading the question paper, I started sweating. Then I remembered the advice of the Granthi Sahib. I took out that piece of paper from my pocket, recited the name of Guru Nanak and read those words Ik Onkaar Satgur Parsaad and started writing the paper. The result was astonishing and beyond my expectation. I went to thank the Granthi Sahib and asked the old man ‘Baba Ji what magic is there in these words?’
Granthi Ji said, ‘Never part with this mantra and always remember and recite these words. You will never fail in your life and succeed in all your ventures.’ Till date, whenever I start any work, I start it with Ik Onkaar Satgur Parsaad.”
