West London Singh

I pretty much disagree with everything thats been said by balait da sher and the poster above. It might be common for weddings to be performed late afternoon and evenings among the bhatra community in India but it certainly isn't something that would ever be tolerated by the jatt sikh community both in India and abroad. Remember, we're not talking about the reception and other side meaningless ceremonies ; We are talking about the actual anand karaj. Never in my life heard the term 'janj' before yesterday, but even in other sikh communities the bharat is nearly always late.....but no other community deliberately sets out to have the anand karaj as late as possible and is so proud of it even advertises the fact on the wedding invitation card. Secondly, I fail to see why bhatra such as balait da sher think its perfectly normal in sikhi for men and women to be totally seperated and segregated.Leaving aside the fact that it certainly should not occur in social gathering settings, even from the point of the gurdwara my wife, myself and my child always make a point of sitting together. In every village gurdwara in Punjab as well as Harmindar Sahib itself there is NO segregation. And that segregation is the main thought I came away with at the weekend. Fropm what I saw, in that community, sikhi is seen as purely a male thing, and even then the only requirement is for the male to wear a pagh. The women, if I'm totally honest, made me feel like I had wandered into a gypsy convention by mistake. I had never seen so much tacky jewellery. As a sikh, I have been to muslim Punjabi and Hindu Punjabi weddings and felt more at home. These bhatras are sikhs......But not as we know it Jim.

OK. Just to let you know how it was : The bharat arrived in coaches, except that they don't call them bharat....everybody referred to them as the 'jang'. Only men. No women at all. We were told that women were not allowed. Everyone made their way into the Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara on St. Marks Road in Southampton. This gurdwara has only just taken down the 'bhatra sangat' sign from its sign. We went past the langar hall into a seperate hall next door which is also owned by Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara. There....we had the bhatra version of cha and somasas. Ok. Lets all take a deep breath before I tell you the next bit : Yes. There was cha. But there were no somasas. Instead, there were people from the girls side, doing seva with heads covered, of giving each and every person a full english breakfast. There were sausages, bacon, fried tomatos, eggs and beans. After this full english, everyone made their way into the gurdwara. The common scene, both at the ceremony and the reception was the complete and total seperation of the sexes. At the reception, which was held at the function hall of the Hampshire Constabulary HQ, there was a virtual parda......where women could not under any circumstances step foot in the mens section. I learn't alot this weekend. I learn't that these kind of anti-sikh practices are thriving because we sikhs are consumed by political correctness. We're so scared of saying anything about people of other 'backgrounds' to ourselves that we're actually burying our heads in the sand, pretending that differences don't exist. Thats a shame.

My sister who lives in Southampton, received a wedding invitation card from a friend of a bhatra sikh background. The card reveals the fact that the elder females of the family tend to have very hindu names such as 'kamla devi' revealing the fact that sikhi is seen as very much a male thing among people of that background. The wedding is to take place at the bhatra gurdwara in Southampton and the card quite proudly states that the anand karaj will take place at 3 pm in the gurdwara. I find this a bit strange. Perhaps its myself who needs educating a bit more of sikhi but I was under the impression that our anand karaj should be done by noon...at least in an ideal situation...and certainly shouldn't be deliberately done in the late afternoon. Am I wrong in thinking this ?

Funny? :T: Yes, very. But true? <_< Not exactly. 1) The British are more famous in Europe for loving to sing...especially their national anthem. Brass band?....I've yet to see one. 2) You'll never hear a Brit talking about or even mentioning the word soccer, because the only three countries in the world that use that word are America, Canada and Australia. The British, along with 99% of the world will talk about 'football'. 3) The majority of Brits have at least 200 channels on their TV, but only pay a 'tax' to watch one of them (The BBC) and even that because they want to and insist on it remaining a public serving advert free informative channel. 4) The Brits are a 30 minutes ride and drive away from France and Belgium where most of them go and do their 'cheap' shopping, and whole new communities and towns have been built just to accomodate the 'english' shoppers or 'bruise cruisers' who come to shop in their hundreds of thousands. But other than that, it was well funny. :TH: