Turban - A Universal Symbol

It is often difficult to live as someone who cares, nurtures, gives, protects, sacrifices and who fights for a cause. It is though really easy to talk about someone's heroic deeds but actually it's really tough to live as one.

Our Guru, Guru Gobind Singh ji made us such heroes and called us his Singh who would care, nurture, give, protect, sacrifice and fight for a cause. Though, it's really easy to find a cause to fight for but it's tough to actually fight for one. I'll just try to ignite some fire in the fellow community-men to fight for the honor of our Turban, many news about whose dishonor we painfully come across every day.

Being grown up as a sikh, I've always considered turban as sacred. I've always worn it gracefully with pride. I'm known for my turban and when I imagine myself at the place of a fellow sikh who just came across turban-frisking, my heart bleeds.

There might be many verses in Sri Guru Granth Sahib which refer to turban as an important symbol but being a Punjabi sikh, turban has been very much into my blood and my culture. I feel very hurt when I see people around criticizing and abandoning it in the name of universality and oneness with the whole humanity. Actully, those friends of mine might be forgetting that it is not just the sikh community which is known for its turban but many other communities like Rajputs and Pathans also used it as a vital part of their attire which clearly shows a wide acceptability of turban making it a universal symbol representing pride, honor, integrity, self-esteem, patience, audacity and royalty.

Though it's really strange to see that Turban is rarely visible only in Hindu weddings and has almost vanished from the urban Muslim culture but it also gives me a sense of pride and I feel the triumph of being a sikh when I realize that it is only and only my community which has URBANISED it and is fighting for its integrity in the present time.

Though, it is not just the Global Terrorism (or the phenomenon of so called Islamic fundamentalism) which forces our youth to abandon and indirectly disrespect it but in many parts of India, especially Punjab which is undergoing a phenomenon called modernization which gives our youths a delusion that abandoning their turbans will make them modern and actually bring them on a universal platform.

Though, the grief-struck present Punjab, unlike the Punjab of olden days can be easily rated as backward and way behind times where people aren't mush aware of the phenomenon of post-modernism which not only revitalizes the olden traditions but also establishes perfect harmony between the traditional values and modern social norms. The phenomenon of post-modernism needs to gain more strength within our community to make our people realize the glorious heritage that we're blessed with.

We generally love to talk about our real life heroes like - Bhagat Singh, Banda Singh Bahadur, Bhagat Puran Singh ji, Master Tara Singh, Kahn Singh Nabha, Dr. Manmohan Singh etc. Though it's really tough to generalize and find something common between all these great personalities but one thing is for sure that they've all dedicated their lives to their calling, their sacred work, which they've always considered bigger than themselves.

With sikhi being blessed to us, we're all gifted with a purpose to dedicate our lives to and turban is a concrete manifestation of that purpose, that calling.

Many other lame excuses are given by our youth to advocate their apostasy and abandonment of turban to catch-up with the latest trends in fashion but such boys of ours don't realize that turban itself defines a perfect style statement. Tying a turban doesn't take more time than meticulously shaving-off your beards and styling your haircut using a hair-gel. Boys putting up in hostels, PG's or shared accommodations can easily make an observation on this.

Now, keeping aside all these real life experiments, one thing is sure that ultimately it all depends upon the choices that individuals make to shape up their destiny and I just want the youth of our community to make choices which not only benefit themselves but also our community and by keeping their Turbans in tact, our youths will not only project themselves as bold individuals(who believe in their individuality) who've dared to give away their heads to their GURU, but they'll also make sure that our community and its glorious heritage will last long and our SARDARI stays intact for ages.