californiasardar1

I agree with you that Sant Ji had a special personality that allowed him to be critical and still be welcoming/embracing. I want to add this: he was obviously capable of making a more spiritual and cerebral appeal to Sikhs to keep their kesh. But he knew his audience of pendus, and he tried to make more emotional appeals that involving shame. Perhaps it worked somewhat back then. But I doubt such appeals would work nowadays. As I said before, our community has no sharam anymore. You make interesting observations about the parallels between the political situation today and that of the 1980s. Ironically, Sant Ji foreshadows what would happen in the video I posted (a bit earlier than my time stamp). He basically asks the audience whether they want to save themselves from a beating now or whether they wanted to sit around getting beaten for 6 months - 1 year and then take the right path. You can just change his "6 months - 1 year" to a different timeline, and it continues to apply. If the Sikhs had united and won their rights in the 1980s, we would not be in a precarious situation today.

I am going to have to push back on this. If anything, I think the Punjabi monay are even worse than the NRI mona. When I went to Punjab, I was ridiculed many times for "looking like a baba." Punjabis like to use the term "modern Sikh" as a Sikh who cuts hair and/or trims their beard (I'm sure most of them don't know what the real definition of "modern" is).

You hit the nail on the head. Not all monay are disrespectful to singhs. Some are quite nice. But the vast majority of monay think it's amusing to mock and ridicule singhs. In fact, I think mona "sikhs" are generally more disrespectful to singhs than your average white or mexican or black person. Mona "sikh" women are perhaps even worse than the men when it comes to ridiculing singhs. So, to everyone here, please try to be understanding. I tried to give monay the benefit of the doubt for most of my life. But with a few exceptions, they have done nothing but give me reasons to have contempt for them. It's one thing to just refuse to identify as a Sikh (i.e. refuse to stand with people like me through the difficulties we face). It's another thing to claim to be a Sikh and then think it is ok to ridicule someone for trying to practice Sikhi.

That is probably why I don't have gray hairs. I am a very undistinguished person.

Sorry, but I do mind you asking. We are a tiny community. I am not going to release personal, identifiable details online.

I am not sure what to think of Deep Sidhu. Some people are saying he has ties to the RSS and has bad intentions, some people are saying he has good intentions, and lots of people are saying everything in between. Okay, I won't push anyone away. I don't have the power to push anyone away anyway, since I have no influence. As the angry mona guy with the kharkus in his profile pic said, I am a "nobody." Was Sant Ji pushing people away by suggesting that if monay have a problem keeping their beards, they should do ardas to become women? Perhaps Sant Ji made the miscalculation of trying to appeal to a sense of shame that he assumed we had inside of us. Sadly, the Sikh community has little sharam left. Cutting kesh used to be viewed as a shameful, traitorous, cowardly act. Now it is normal. No shame in dressing up as pretend singhs for anand karajs. No shame in putting on sloppy parnas to pretend to be singhs whenver it is convenient. No shame in choosing to look like Hindus.

Okay, I am a nobody. You win. That doesn't change what Sant Ji said. Me: "2 + 2 = 4" You: "F you, you are an embarrassing loser! You are a complete nobody! You have no right to say that! Maybe if you were C.F. Gauss you would have the authority to say that! But you've put zero work in! F you!!!" Me: "Okay, fine. I am a nobody. That doesn't change the fact that 2 + 2 = 4." How many monay have risen to the occasion? For every mona you can name, hundreds of singhs can be named. You are probably one of those revisionists who likes to pretend that a majority of 1980s kharkus were monay.

Who says I won't?

Why are you resorting to an ad-hominem attack on me instead of addressing the content of the video? Whatever you think of me, that doesn't change what Sant Ji has to say. Sant Ji made it clear what he thinks of monay. If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with his words. You are saying all kinds of things about me without knowing anything about me. You called me an embarrassment to sardars, yet you are praising people who are not singhs because they find the thought of being a singh embarrassing.

I hope the person who downvoted this took some time to listen to the speech.

Since people here have a problem with me stating the truth about monay, forget about me. Here you can listen to what Sant Ji has to say about monay. Are you going to accuse him of being "divisive" and "judgmental"? Or chastise him for "hating on Sikhs with haircuts"? Will you continue to heap praise on clowns like Deep Sidhu who pretend to hold him in high regard but take time out of every day of their lives to shave? Will you finally realize that monay with khanda tattoos and monay posting sant ji's photos on their social media pages are shameless and spineless?

I did not castigate anyone. Monay castigate themselves every time they shave, every time they visit the barber. Monay are so pathetic that they can't even take responsibility for their own actions. Do I force anyone to go get a haircut? No. As Sant ji has stated over and over again in his speeches, if one does absolutely nothing, kesh grows automatically. Monay actively choose to move away from Sikhi. They exert themselves to distance themselves from Sikhi. They could choose to be visible Sikhs bit doing LITERALLY NOTHING. But instead of doing nothing, they would rather make an effort to avoid being identified as Sikhs.

These two separate statements do not contradict each other: 1. Being keshdhari doesn't mean someone follows Sikhi properly 2. Being mona means that that person has renounced Sikhi

I have zero gray hairs

Not amritdhari and too old

Where did I defend keshdharis who do puthe kam?

Those older ladies are still waiting for Brad Pitt to walk through the door.

I was just waiting for someone to come in and say something along these lines. Perhaps we can still pursue spiritual growth on our own and forget about marriage. But if well all just accept being single, our community will come close to vanishing very soon. Virtually all of the problems that the Sikh community faces (that are discussed every day on these forums) are connected somehow to the fact that we are a very small community. And yet some of you are content to let it become exponentially smaller.

It's hard not to let resentment consume me. All I want is the most basic thing: to get married and have a family, and to be able to raise that family (as proper Sikhs) in a community/environment that can accept and support them for who they are. But that is not possible when the "community" that you come from is on the path to extinction. Every child is born into a family and virtually every child grows up assuming that, just like their parents, they too will one day have a family. Accepting that that will probably not happen is a tough pill to swallow. On the other hand, there is a bright side: I won't have to worry about a wife who doesn't want to raise kids as Sikhs, or worry about having children who decide to cut their hair, or worry about having children who decide not to cut their hair but then deal with all sorts of problems trying to fit in and establish themselves. Despite my bitterness, I still believe that things happen for a reason. This must be for the best.

The "long guth and chunni" females are indeed virtually extinct.

Sure. But, considering that there are probably 10-20 keshdhari male Sikhs for every 1 keshdhari female Sikh, it's not a huge problem. There are still more amritdhari male Sikhs (seeking amritdhari partners) than amritdhari female Sikhs

Sure, if you go to the extreme, a Singh with prospects and assets will not be viewed as unfavorably a mona with no job and no assets. But the universe of potential partners for a woman doesn't consist of two people. She doesn't HAVE to marry one of those two guys. If a typical "Sikh" woman came across two men described as above, she would probably not want to be with either. Instead, she would keep looking for someone who is closer to her ideal (i.e. a mona with decent assets/prospects). There are lots of women who are very far from catches who turn down Singhs with decent careers/assets. That doesn't mean they are prepared to marry a mona with a mountain of debt either. Most women want to "marry up" in terms of financial status AND social status. Social status includes whether someone is considered to be conventionally attractive by the majority of mainstream society. Needless to say, Singhs don't meet this description. Most women think they deserve a "prince charming." That is why there are so many punjabi kuriyan who are relatively old and unmarried. Go to shaadi.com sometime and look at how many of the profiles are of women in their mid-30s and 40s. There are woman who are too old to have children, look like aunties, have no career to speak of, and yet are completely delusional and think that a high-status man is out there dying to be with THEM. I have attempted to work within this system. I am sure you or others will just say there are too many things wrong with me and it is my fault. But why should I have to be near-perfect just to get consideration from women who are VERY FAR from perfect (to put it kindly)? You said one can work with the system or reject it outright. I reject it outright.

The vast majority of "Sikh" women already choose mates in this way. You say it is not a big problem in Punjab yet, but it is. Most "Sikh" women in Punjab will only marry "Sikhs" with haircuts and/or trimmed beards. Whether it happens to be a "mona Sikh" or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or whatever makes no difference to me.

We need to stop making artistic depictions of our Gurus What is important is their teachings. The way these paintings are put up in gurdwaras with people bowing to them etc., we are descending into idol worship

A good post