INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

audiocassettes and distributed worldwide. 369 Accompanied with ragi groups, Maskin
used to deliver katha over the whole India for ten months and for the remaining part
of the year toured abroad. In an interview I had with him during a two-day program
in Varanasi in 2001 he gave a personal account of the motives for choosing the
kathakar career:
I am from the Western part of Punjab, which today is in Pakistan. The
Tahsil was Lucky Marwat, district Bhanno near Peshawar. I was in
school when the partition took place. There was a big massacre in my
village. Only two families survived. My family was one of them. I got
separated from my parents when I arrived in India by train, but could
meet with them later. I have seen massacres and killings. Wherever the
train stopped I saw the same things over and over again. I saw trains
that were full with dead bodies…
[...] In school we had been given religious education (dharm viddaya).
After seeing these things, I felt something. I was also a poet. Poets are
always emotional and my emotions went to the side of God. I met with
my parents but did not stay long with them. I left the house for almost
ten years. I met Sant Balwant Singh and followed him for about ten
years, and came back to my family in 1956. From that time I started to
do katha. When I got back to my family my father expired and my sister
got married. My mother was very sad. She had been crying for ten
years. She decided to arrange my marriage. I was the only son of my
parents…
[...] It is like this. Without the experience of suffering no one will come
on the path of God. That was my experience at that time. It still is. I
know how heavy sorrows (dukh) can be. This is the world of sorrows.
After realizing this, a person will start to go on the path of God. There
is a shabad of Guru Nanak ji, which says “this is the world of sorrows
(dukh)”. When you are born with that, then you will walk towards
God.
His early religious disposition, in combination with the deeply imprinted traumatic
experiences of the partition in 1947, resulted in the vocation to dedicate his life to
religious teaching. The two above examples illustrate how personal experiences of
loss became emotional turning points that incited spiritual quests and drove individuals
into religious professions. They experienced a strong vocation to pursue
knowledge and teach others of the Guru’s teaching.
Far from all performers, however, have had similar experiences of instigation
but simply seek the religious professions to combine devotion and services to the
Guru with career opportunities. Younger ragis especially said their early interests in
369
His cassette company Shabad Sagar has become a main supplier of audio-recorded Sikh kirtan.
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008