INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

ecited after the Guru Granth Sahib has been formally installed. Individual Sikhs will
start their day by reciting Sukhmani Sahib in addition to the prescribed nitnem, or
incorporate readings in their daily domestic duties or at work. An elderly man who
ran a furniture store in the busy shopping streets of Varanasi had established a routine
of reading parts of Sukhmani Sahib between visits from customers to complete at
least two to three readings within a working day. He used to sit at the office desk
reading from a gutka, reverentially placed on velvet cloth. As he alleged, through the
daily business activities he earned the livelihood in this life, but readings of Sukhmani
Sahib were to support him in the life after. When a relative or a friend becomes seriously
ill individuals make a promise to recite the text either five or twenty-one times
daily for a period of forty days. While some would argue that Sukhmani Sahib has the
capacity to grant peace to the troubled soul, even if recoveries are always dependent
upon the divine will, others will attribute the text with healing powers. 459 Readings
are also believed to succor a person at the time of death. In colloquial speech a person
will be granted a “good death” if he or she dies while reciting Sukhmani Sahib. When
life is drawing to an end old people will therefore retreat to recitations, just as family
members recite the composition beside the dying.
FEMALE READING CLUBS
Collective recitations of Sukhmani Sahib have become intimately associated with
women, even regarded as a female activity. Men are certainly not prevented from
attending these ritualized readings of the text, but it is women who organize and
constitute the bulk of participants. In Varanasi Sikh women have arranged several
clubs and societies of various degrees of formality for weekly or monthly recitations
of Sukhmani Sahib. In addition, women occasionally set up these performances in
private houses for specific purposes related to Sikh festivals, ceremonies, or just for
the their own enjoyment. Community members residing in the vicinity of Gurubagh
Gurdwara have organized a club called Istri Sadhsang Samuday, “The Association of
Female Holy Company”, only for the purpose of reciting Sukhmani Sahib. At the time
of my fieldwork, the members gathered in the gurdwara every Wednesday at 4 pm to
complete a full reading of the composition. Normally these programs would extend
over little more than an hour and a half, and attracted about thirty women of all ages.
Correspondingly, about ten to fifteen Sikh women who lived nearby Nichibagh met
in the gurdwara or at a private house for Thursday recitations. In the small colony
gurdwara of Ashok Nagar women used to organize recitations of Sukhmani Sahib
every Monday at 6 am and afterwards serve tea, snacks and sweetened rice to all
participants. Sikh women belonging to different neighborhoods (mohallas) of the city
also arranged local clubs for readings of Sukhmani Sahib.
459
The female Sikh healer (ojha) in Varanasi, Mata Narinder Kaur, used to prescribe a chilla, a
daily reading for forty days of Sukhmani Sahib to exorcise bad spirits and other mental and
physical problems (See Chapter 4).
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008