INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

had witnessed and confirmed that I paid due respect to the Guru Granth Sahib. To
pursue studies in the Sikh religion was, in his and others’ view, primarily to engage
in the Gurus’ teaching and congregational activities, from which I would morally and
spiritually progress. Lay people would similarly judge my presence and identity in
the community on my behavior in the gurdwara. On several occasions visitors would
come up to tell me they had seen the devotion “white” (ghora) Sikhs, or followers of
Yogi Bhajan, were expressing at Harimandir Sahib in Amritsar. This, I interpreted,
was their way to pay compliments and connect with a new “disciple” not born into
the Sikh religion. The studentship also resulted in social incorporation into kinship
structures of a few families. A common strategy in India to verify pure intentions
with close and trusting relationships, especially friendship with the opposite sex, is to
address friends with kinship categories used in social life. Gradually I became the
grand daughter, daughter, sister, and aunt to friends who provided me personal
support and guidance besides teaching religion.
To participate in the same conditions as the people of study implies that the
documentation of religious practices cannot always follow the systematic pattern one
sometimes wishes would enfold. The daily liturgies in the gurdwara, festivals, and
other communal programs are fixed events and fairly easy to schedule, but life-cycle
events like birth, marriage, and death, one must necessarily take as they come. Yet
most Sikh ceremonies related to the life stages are conducted in the gurdwara. I was
therefore able to partake in a large number of weddings and death ceremonies of
both known and unknown individuals just by dwelling within that space. After I had
made friends in the community families also began to invite me to engagement parties,
weddings, turban ceremonies, memorial services to ancestors, and other family
arrangements. Another strategy to learn about life-cycle events was initiated by the
granthis, who invited me to accompany them and document their religious duties at
the cremation ground, hospitals, and homes. The only event I was not allowed to
partake in was the Khalsa initiation (khande di pahul), since the ceremony is open only
to neophytes who intend to live by the Khalsa discipline.
CONVERSATIONS AND INTERVIEWS
During a field work the ethnographer continually interacts, speaks and exchanges
ideas with diverse people in various types of conversations. Most of the conversations
on religion and culture which I had with different Sikh interlocutors emerged
more spontaneously at a motley variety of places ‒ inside the gurdwara after a religious
program, at the railway station while waiting for train, after a death ceremony
at the cremation ghat, in the shop drinking tea, or at a reception party for a newly
wedded couple.
In general, field workers categorize interviews after the degree to which the interview
situation and the structure and standardization of the questions are organized.
Ordinary conversations conducted in the different situations can be termed
“unstructured interviews” as the ethnographer may steer the conversation into a
certain topic of discussion, but both parties develop dialogues freely within the
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008