INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

y the Sikh Anand karaj ceremony or the Vedic fire ritual, and observe both Sikh and
Hindu festivals. In Sindhi homes one often finds popular bazaar posters of Guru
Nanak hanging beside images of Vishnu, Jhulelal, Buddha, and Jesus.
The major part of Sindhis who I met in the city would confirm their devotion to
Guru Nanak and the Sikh scripture, even if the majority would not subscribe to the
institution of Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh. One Sindhi family especially had gained
a local reputation for contributions to the Sikh community and was reckoned by the
Sikhs as premis, or true “lovers” of the Guru and the Guru’s place. The late father of
the family had arrived in the city shortly after the partition and came to establish a
retail business in textiles and sarees. He and his wife had a daughter but for some
reasons were unable to have any more children. After eighteen barren years the wife
went to Nichibagh Gurdwara to pray for a son to maintain the family lineage. As her
sons retold her experience, she “got darshan of the Guru in sound”; she heard a voice
telling that if she would “donate” her future children to the Sikh religion she would
be gifted with many sons. The woman made the promise to do this, and in the years
to follow she gave birth to three sons who were raised to be Sikhs. The couple established
a gurdwara in their private house which was named Guru Nanak Bhawan, or
the “the house of Guru Nanak”. In gratitude to the Guru's place the woman offered
her golden bangles as a secret donation (gupt dan) to Gurubagh Gurdwara on her
deathbed to be used for the reconstruction of a garden within the gurdwara complex.
The sons remained keshdhari Sikhs until the 1980s when they, due to the anti-Sikhs
riots and the political turmoil, decided to have their hair cut. At that time the oldest
son of the family was a retailer of Sikh calendars imported from Singapore. When the
police discovered that the day of Operation Blue Star was marked as a memorial day
in these calendars they searched the family house, confiscated tapes and other media
related to Sikhism, and put the oldest son in prison for seven months. The police
searched connections with separatists in Punjab, but the proceedings were withdrawn
when no damning evidence was found. In response to these events, all of the
three sons sheared and ceremonially donated their hair (kesh dan) to Ganga by immersing
it into the river at the three major Hindu pilgrimage centers: Varanasi, Allahabad,
and Haridwar. They remained active in the Sikh community and arranged
religious programs, at the same time as they followed particular Hindu and Sindhi
practices in the family. When I revisited Varanasi in 2005 the younger son had decided
to observe the Khalsa vows again and let his hair grow out.
Characteristic of the Sindhi identity and worship in modern times is the cult
and veneration of the patron saint Jhulelal. Earlier the cult of Jhulelal was associated
with a group called Daryapanthis in Sindh and after the partition became the popular
patron saint or God for all Sindhis. 161 According to Falzon, Sindhis in Bombay rein-
Hindu Brahman within one and the same temple (Thapan 2002: 163 ‒ 170). Ramey (2007) provides
another example of how Sindhis in Lucknow are worshipping the Guru Granth Sahib at
their temple Hari Om Mandir.
161
Thapan and Falzon mention that Jhulelal also was a saint of waterways and travellers for
Muslims, who called him Khwaja Khizr (Thapan 2002: 17 ‒ 18; Falzon 2004: 58 ‒ 59).
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008