kcmidlands

What you said, it's a term of agreement. True, but have you seen the state of people running the Gurdwara's, some of them haven't got a clue about Sikhi.

What he said, people need to focus on their own journey instead of trying to fault others, if they want to dress like that then that's up to them, if your offended, don't look, you can make all the assumptions you want but you don't know them or who they are, also, take a look at Indian history and what women (and men) used to wear throughout the ages.

The most difficult part of parenting for me is accepting that at some point my children will do what they want, as parent's we can only guide them in a way that we feel is right, at some point we have to let go and hope we've done a half decent job. You sound as though you've done a good job of raising your lad but when they find a little independence sometimes they go off on one, your son is earning for himself to he feels he doesn't need anyone and can make his own decisions, the plus side is he's living with family. If he's going out with someone from a different religion that adds another lay of complexity, especially the religion you mentioned, one thing i will say is not to abandon him, when people try to convert you over to Islam the first thing they do is try and isolate the person and portray their family as the bad guys, he's been going out with this girl for 4 month's, you've known him his entire life, remind him of that and how much you love him, anger will only drive him further away.

I remember before i got married i questioned why the man walks in front of the woman at the time of Anand Karaj, the answer i got from many people was it's nothing to do with Sikhi but more to do with culture and out way of thinking. My grandad said something along the lines of " Being in front doesn't always make you superior, look at a horse and cart, the more intelligent one is behind, when we take Guru Sahib somewhere, there is always someone in front clearing the way, that doesn't make them superior to our Guru". Completely agree with what @Redoptics has said, the Anand Karaj isn't about who's in charge, it's about connecting our souls to waheguru.

Solihull is nice and you won't find a lack of Gurdwara's in the city, there's a new one opening every other month.

He probably is intelligent but just not in the way we think, he's been banging the whole "NRI's support Khalistani terrorism" for year's now, it's probably ingrained into him that he has to leave a legacy, the whole "Royal family" thing is all but defunct now so he's finding a different way to leave a mark, his is to make things difficult for NRI's (look at Juggy) so none of them come to India and mention Khalistan and pump up the locals. Ravi Singh runs an aid organization, they do work in India (currently the floods in Punjab) so you have to say things to get your foot in the door. He's a product of a bygone age of Maharaja's who have a certain "I'm better than you" mentality, I've always been fascinated how maharajas would keep a dastaar and full beard yet most of them were anything but Sikh and only ever looked out for themselves and if they helped the locals they would constantly remind them of it like they were doing them a favour.

The Captain really is a special kind of stupid.

I used to live in Guildford and had the same issue, there were plenty of South Indians but very few Sikhs, I'd end up driving to Southall to go to the Gurdwara, I moved just outside of Oxford after that and had the same issue there. Have to tried the local Uni (probably Kent University), they usually have Sikh societies that put on events, might be worth a shot.

It's a case of a few bad apples plus it's grown in size but still run the way it was when it started and there were only a few people, many groups suffer from this kind of thing and if you don't keep on top of it stuff can get out of control.

I don't have an axe to grind, if they're protecting Sikhi, good stuff, but attacking your one isn't protecting your own. Anyway, cheers for the judgment fella, much appreciated, alway's nice to be judged by someone you've never met.

They, SYUK, were harassing a Sikh girl by throwing things at her her on the way back from a Sikhi camp,this has nothing to do with "you people", this whole thing has nothing to do with "going to other religions", it has to do with their behaviour towards their own.

Two sides of the same coin fella, whether it's intentional or random the end result is the same.

What's the difference?

I would have agreed with you about WMP had Deepa not gone running to them at the first sign of trouble, he tells everyone else to sideline them yet doesn't take his own advice. At the end of the day SYUK are a minor organisation who use thuggish behaviour to justify their means, where it works, great but then they end up behaving like that with everyone and it becomes a problem. They decided to pick on someone's daughter on the way back from a BOSS camp, that not childish, that's just plain stupid, if your going to join an organisation of any kind you need to remember everything you do represents said organisation.

Outside Barclays wasn't it.

From what I've been told they were amongst the people that were responsible for what happened. I really don't know what goes on in the mind's of some of our people, don't know if it's ego or just a twisted version of Sikhi.

I'll take your word for them helping girls from other communities, I've never seen either Deepa or his group say anything like that. I don't have any axe to grind against them but when you look at their track record and their penchant for violence especially against their own kid it kind of negates what they do. Go do a search on Facebook, it won't take you long before you find out what happened last weekend and to find the video from the Father who's daughter SYUK were harassing.

They won't, double standards and all.

I remember when Bhai Mohan Singh went around Mandirs doing anti-grooming talks, SYUK criticized him and called him Pandit Awareness Society, they seem to forget Sikh history is full of instances where we have helped women and girls who weren't Sikh, how times have changed.

I don't agree with your first point, to me it goes against the principles of Sikhi (that's my personal opinion, i'm not here to thrust it upon anyone else neither to debate it). There was a Smagam held in Birmingham last week, some organisations didn't wan't it to go ahead due to it's location, SYUK turned up and became violent and attacked a few sewadaars, they were kicked off the premises (it was private property) and they decided to have a scuffle with the police outside. Another incident, Deepa had an issue with some Singh, decided it was a good idea to throw a milkshake over the Singh's daughter, he got beat. To me he's like the Tommy Robinson of the Sikh community (who he had no problem associating with). Edit: As to the incident with the Singhs daughter, it wasn't milkshake but an ice cream thrown at her amongst other things on a coach on the way back from a Sikhi camp, it was instigated by member's of SYUK sat at the back of a coach, as a result, Deepa boar the brunt of the fathers anger.

I don't disagree with what you've said in principle, but Deepa and his organization have a very narrow field of view in what they do, I think it's great that they want to protect Sikh girls from groomers, but what about the rest of the young girls out there, they seem obsessed with Muslim grooming gangs, what about the rest, if your gonna deal with stuff like this you need to go all in and not be selective about it. A fair few things have happened over the last week which has changed my mind about their group, before all I used to hear was rumors but last week my parents witnessed how disruptive and violent they can be to those who they disagree with. Being passionate doesn't mean you attack your own because they disagree with you, speak to the kid who had his jaw broken by him last year at a Sikhi camp because they had differing opinions.

Karma has a way of coming back to you, but as I said, he'll make it all out to be a conspiracy and the sheep that follow them will carry on following them.

That's one way of putting it, people need to have a look at the kind of stuff Deepa and his cohorts get up to, they're not creating harmony but making divisions, don't worry though, he'll post a video soon saying it was all a conspiracy and some government is out to get him.

From what I remember they are a very London-centric work in the city type of group, every time one of them pipe's up on twitter they don't seem to get a lot of love from the general Sikh diaspora especially Param Singh (the fella with the white-framed glasses, you may remember him from a few years ago when he made an absolute <banned word filter activated> of himself on an ITV dating show). They do come across as self-serving in the kind of stuff they do though.

I learnt tabla from Ustad Matlashi Ji for 15 years, he's an amazing font of knowledge when it comes to classical Indian music and instruments. As already mentioned, this is a livelihood for those who teach it, they've spent years learning themselves, we need to respect that, I think you can probably learn the basics for free but then to push it further you'd end up paying because it takes up more of the Ustads time (which is how i learnt).