Balpreet Kaur, Sikh Woman, Proudly Sports Facial Hair In Accordance With Her Faith
09/25/2012: A picture snapped surreptitiously and posted to Reddit's r/funny thread has drawn attention to a little known tenet of the Sikh faith.
"Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair," Balpreet Kaur, a college student, wrote in response to her picture.
Kaur, an Ohio State University sophomore studying neuroscience and psychology, is a baptized Sikh, and as such follows the so-called "5 Ks," or five physical symbols that date back to the creation of the faith by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699, according to BBC.
One of the tenets is kesh, or uncut hair.
"Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will," she added to her response on Reddit.
The photo was also picked up by Cracked.com, which lauded the student for her "graceful and fresh" response.
The poised student, who is also president of the Sikh Student Association and plans to be a neurosurgeon, also said that she believes that by not worrying on her outward appearance, she is able to better focus on actions that matter.
"When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away," she writes. "However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can."
While not alone in her adherence, Western culture's standards of beauty -- which involve all sorts of waxing and shaving -- have made many Sikh women disregard the rule.
According to Gurinder Singh Mann, a professor of Sikh studies at UC Santa Barbara, more and more women have begun to treat the religious requirement as flexible.
"The winds of all this modernity and secularism are growing," Singh Mann said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
For Kaur, however, there's nothing to be ashamed of.
"I’m not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positive] that this picture is getting because, it’s who I am," Kaur wrote. And, she added, if you're out and about on the OSU campus, by all means come by and say hello.
To read Kaur's full response, visit [–]balpreetkaur
After going viral on Reddit’s ‘Funny’ section for being odd-looking with facial hair, the girl above gave the following graceful and fresh response:
Hey, guys. This is Balpreet Kaur, the girl from the picture. I actually didn't know about this until one of my friends told on facebook. If the OP wanted a picture, they could have just asked and I could have smiled :) However, I'm not embarrassed or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positive] that this picture is getting because, it's who I am. Yes, I'm a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn't reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying 'mine, mine' and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a separateness between ourselves and the divinity within us. By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. So, to me, my face isn't important but the smile and the happiness that lie behind the face are. :-) So, if anyone sees me at OSU, please come up and say hello. I appreciate all of the comments here, both positive and less positive because I've gotten a better understanding of myself and others from this. Also, the yoga pants are quite comfortable and the Better Together t-shirt is actually from Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that focuses on storytelling and engagement between different faiths. :) I hope this explains everything a bit more, and I apologize for causing such confusion and uttering anything that hurt anyone.
And then, THEN, something even more miraculous happened—the original poster apologized:
I know that this post ISN'T a funny post but I felt the need to apologize to the Sikhs, Balpreet, and anyone else I offended when I posted that picture. Put simply it was stupid. Making fun of people is funny to some but incredibly degrading to the people you're making fun of. It was an incredibly rude, judgmental, and ignorant thing to post.
/r/Funny wasn't the proper place to post this. Maybe /r/racism or /r/douchebagsofreddit or /r/intolerance would have been more appropriate. Reddit shouldn't be about putting people down, but a group of people sending cool, interesting, or funny things. Reddit's been in the news alot lately about a lot of cool things we've done, like a freaking AMA by the president. I'm sorry for being the part of reddit that is intolerant and douchebaggy. This isn't 4chan, or 9gag, or some other stupid website where people post things like I did. It's fucking reddit. Where some pretty amazing stuff has happened.
I've read more about the Sikh faith and it was actually really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense to work on having a legacy and not worrying about what you look like. I made that post for stupid internet points and I was ignorant.
So reddit I'm sorry for being an asshole and for giving you negative publicity.
Balpreet, I'm sorry for being a closed minded individual. You are a much better person than I am
Sikhs, I'm sorry for insulting your culture and way of life.
Balpreet's faith in what she believes is astounding.