INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

mon title used for a female equivalent ‒ a woman graced with spiritual knowledge
and powers ‒ is Mata ji, or “respected mother.”
MOTIVES AND EDUCATIONS
The decision to go into any of the above mentioned vocations may be prompted by a
range of motives. Most of the Sikh performers employed in the gurdwaras have had
other employments and work experiences before they decided to go into the religious
field. The head granthi at Nichibagh Gurdwara, for instance, earlier worked as a tailor
in his home village in Bihar and maintained his skill as a side line by sewing Sikh
drawers (kachhaira) – one of the five symbols initiated Sikhs should wear ‒ to community
members. The assistant granthi was originally a Hindu who worked as a photographer
before he converted to Sikhism and moved into the gurdwara. Similarly, a
musician and member of a ragi jatha in Varanasi said his attraction to devotional Sikh
music motivated not only his choice of career but also his decision to become a Sikh.
He was brought up in a Hindu family and converted to Sikhism against the consent
of his family. The majority of paid sevadars in the gurdwaras originated from the
lower strata of the Hindu caste hierarchy and had been engaged in caste-determined
occupations, like carpenters (tarkhan), leather workers (chamar), washer men (jado), or
ironsmiths (lohar), before their formal adoption of a Sikh identity. The gurdwara often
functions as a haven for people who have been exposed to discrimination or outcast
from the social network of their families.
As the way of living and working inside a gurdwara requires a high degree of
morality, responsibility, and discipline, those who make the final choice to dedicate
their lives to religious professions are often driven by strong emotional forces,
whether these are of a purely spiritual character or evoked in response to personal
experiences of social injustices. A kathakar from Rajasthan who visited Varanasi in
2000 related he was a businessman in Bihar from the 1970s. He recalled how his life
changed drastically in 1984 during anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira
Gandhi. His shop was set on fire by the mob and all his capital resources were
destroyed within a couple of hours. In his own wordings, this moment signified a
“change in his heart”. Explaining his personal loss from a broader political perspective
he said, “Two Sikhs did wrong and for that people tortured a whole community.
This is not justice.” The experience made him leave the trading occupation. Impoverished
he resorted to the local gurdwara, at which he lived and did service for almost
ten years. The personal tragedy impelled him to study religion and to earn his livelihood
he became a traveling expounder and propagandist of Sikhism.
A similar story about how experiences of loss and suffering turned into a vocation
was told by the venerable Giani Sant Singh Maskin, who worked as a kathakar for
almost fifty years and gained world fame before his death in 2004. The private TV
channel ETC used to televise his katha performances daily to over eighty-six countries
‒ thirty minutes in the morning after the program from Harimandir Sahib in Amritsar
and thirty minutes after sunset. Most of his kathas are today mass-produced on
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008