By Serving Veterans during Veteran day Parade 2012
Phoenix, Arizona: "Jabay Baan Laagay, Tabay Raus Jagay," thus stated Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth master Prophet of the Sikhs. It implies that "Only on being hurt deeply, the spirit to fight it back rises up " In keeping with this fundamental fact, the Sikhs of Arizona truly rose up and started to work for Sikh awareness when one of their very own, S. Balbir Singh Sodhi of Mesa Arizona was fatally hurt four days after 9-11. It was first ever fatal and serious hate crime against the Sikhs.
Starting from a highly attended and meticulously arranged memorial a few days after his death, the local Sikhs have been devising ways to spread the message about Sikh identity whenever and wherever they had been provided with an opportunity. Meeting with Diversity Groups, becoming prominent members of Inter-faith congregations, joining ADL for their yearly fund-raising efforts as well as serving Dinner to the 250-300 homeless people in a shelter on monthly basis for the last 12 years, have been their humble but successful efforts. Furthermore serving traditional Langar during "Experience Interfaith" assemblies every year is routine for them. Being a board member of Arizona Interfaith Movement this year, the author was able to motivate about 50 young turbaned Sikhs, much more than usual, to serve traditional annual Langar to about 350-400 people from 25 different faiths in Heritage Square downtown Phoenix.
On educational front, frequent and regular visits are arranged for other communities in groups ranging from 15 through 350 to visit newest Gurudwara Sahib to learn about Sikh faith. A specially prepared Power point talk by author followed by a 15 minutes documentary from SALDEF is showcased.
But the latest and the most significant event turned out to be the Veteran Day Parade on November 12th 2012. About 40 turbaned Sikh men, women and children dressed in Kesari (Orange yellow) T-shirts prominently displaying "SIKHS IN SERVICE OF VETERANS" on front and back, with Royal Blue turbans, stood en-route. They handed over bottled water, soft drinks and potato chips bags to those in the parade or parade watchers on the sides. Accolades of gratitude were common from the Veterans and their families.
This effort was undertaken not only to thank U.S. Veteran for serving their country but also to make them and public aware about Sikhs, Sikh identity and their past contributions as uniformed servicemen for this country. The most prominent among them was Bhagat Singh Thind who served U.S. army in WW I but later was denied citizenship. The major role of Sikhs as Indian soldiers, both in numbers as well as in laying down their lives, much more than their relative proportion in India, who joined U.S. allied forces in WW I and WW II to fight back Germany and Japan, was show-cased through framed pictures and banners. The Sikh Sevadars kept on offering water and snacks to the passing by parade throughout the event.
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*Author of 1. "Square Pegs, Round Holes" www.SquarePegsRoundHolesBook.com and 2. "Sikhism: Points to Ponder; Perspectives of a Sikh Living Abroad," as well as a recently published masterpiece about the cross-cultural dilemma of Indian subcontinent diaspora, 3. "One Coin, Two Sides," For details of the this new book, please go to the LINK http://inkwellproductions.com/one-coin-two-sides.htm