Interview

[Hardeep_Sengh]

Interviewer: Harmeet Singh (Wembley)

Interviewee: Tarnjeet Singh (Coventry)

About Tarnjeet Singh:

Well I’m from good old Coventry!! and my name is Tarnjeet singh Aka Tj. There is ALOT of chardikala sangat in Coventry which if you get to know you will want to be part of everyday. The sangat is probably what made me want to keep my kesh about 3-4 years back. There is always something happening in Coventry.

There is a keertan darbaar at cross Roads gurudwara on the first Saturday of every month, its a program that everyone always looks forward to as its always good with amazing keertan, and whenever there is a smagam or rainsbhai in Coventry its always amazing, lets just keep doing ardaas that we don’t ever have to use the smaller hall for a rainsbhai again as im sure people don’t want to be sat on again, im sure all of you lot who went to December smagam 2006 know what im talking about, but still it creates a nice packed atmosphere.

If you’re in sangat you know what it feels like and you don’t want to leave it. When you sitting at home bored out of your head you think I wish I could be with sangat right now doing something, so this is one of the things that made me really look forward to Khalsa camp 2007

har har naam milai thripathaasehi mil sa(n)gath gun paragaas ||2||

Obtaining the Name of the Lord, Har, Har, they are satisfied; joining the Sangat, the Blessed Congregation, their virtues shine forth. ||2||

Harmeet: Vaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Vaheguru Ji Ke Fateh.

Tarnjeet: Vaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Vaheguru Ji Ke Fateh.

Harmeet: First of all, where was the 07 Camp's Venue, dates and Cost?

Tarnjeet: The venue for Khalsa camp 2007 was up north near Preston. This was the third year they had Khalsa camp at this same location, but I don’t think that made too much of a difference as everyone still looked forward to it. The location was like a sports college which was good for activates time as there is an astro turf pitches there for football, there’s a grass pitch for football, volleyball and there is a golf course too, so it’s a good place for the sports.

There where quite a few blocks on the campus with rooms, each floor had 12 rooms with each block having 3 floors so in total about 1..2..3..4..36 rooms all together (I promise I didn’t use my fingers to calculate that one). There are two sides to each floor with each side having 6 rooms and a kitchen. Ahhhh... kitchen that gives alot of memories, maybe because quite a few of us Singh’s camped out in there during the 5 days of camp haha, but it was always fun because you had to look out for night security.

The showers in each room...man they’re like power jets. P.S if you’re not quick, and you just want to test out to see if the shower works, you’re doomed.

We where at Khalsa camp for the duration of 6 days, between Saturday 18th August to ermmm Thursday 24th August. The Saturday and Sunday felt as if you have been there for agessss and then when it came to the weekdays they went so fast, from Monday to Thursday it felt like one day, which is not good.

The costing of Khalsa camp was CLEARLY not enough. If you were at Khalsa camp you would probably agree that for an experience like this you

Paid hardly anything and it doesn’t really make you feel good about it as most of the sevadaars kindly put there dasvand in. Each head at Khalsa

Camp should have paid roughly about £130, but we paid £75, so you Can just imagine how cheap it actually was. In this ‘£75’ we got loads out

of the experience, we got lovely langar, activities within the campus, Activities outside such as go karting or horse riding, trip to the

Beach, your own room with your own dodgy shower, and loads more, you Have to be there to experience your £75’s worth. Im sure that MOST

people at the camp would pay more to go Khalsa camp, remember I said MOST, you always get some typical Punjabi’s with tight pockets.

Harmeet: What age groups were there?

Tarnjeet: Well there were only meant to be 16 year olds and above, but you could

obviously see that there were much younger kids, most came as families

but some just came with their friends. There was one sevadaars kid that

practically everyone got to know, sometimes he would just come from

know where and just sit on your lap and other times you would turn around and have a littlewater gun spraying you in the face haha… those who went to Khalsacamp probablykno who I am talking about.

Harmeet: How many children participated?

Tarnjeet: Let me just get my notebook out and tell you…… haha I don’t know but

there were quite a few. There were more teenagers as it’s obviously

a 16+ camp and then there’s the elders as in mums and dad’s etc.

Harmeet: How many sevadaars were there?

Tarnjeet: I think there can never be enough sevadaars, but as a camp sevadaars, there where the lecturers, night security (hahahahahaha), langar cooks, and the rest were just voluntary campers who wanted to do some seva. A lot of the seva was done in the langar hall; everyone (sevadaars) would queue up at the front where the food is and all the other campers who wanted to eat would have to sit down.

There was this one elderly sevadaar that made sure everyone sat down quietly and screamed ‘satnaam vaheguru’ while waiting for the langar to be served, haha and if you did not say it he would come up to your face and shout it, which is good…I suppose. This same sevadaar had brought a lot of things with him to sell such as kanghe (there was even gatre made out of kashera material), gatre, kirpana cd’s everything which was good.

sukh hovai saev kamaaneeaa ||

you shall find peace, doing seva (selfless service).

Harmeet: How did you get to know of the camp?

Tarnjeet: Ermmm word of mouth. A lot of people I know would always say to me come to Khalsa camp in the summer it’s wicked and its good 5-6 days away from home. So I thought I should try begging my mum and dad to let me go (this is 2006 im talking about) and they let me go and I had a amazing time last year so there was no doubt that I was going to miss 2007.

Harmeet: How did the day pan out from waking up to going to sleep?

Tarnjeet: Well everyone would get up at about 3 – half 3 in the morning plus you had no choice you had sevadaar coming round to your block and smash your door down while shouting ‘ VAHEGURUUUUUU UTHOO WAKE UPPP VAHEGURUUUU’ and everyone would just be like ‘OKKKKKK’ and still be half hanging of your bed. So then after you finally got up you would try get into your dodgy shower and get power jetted down, and then once you have had your ishnaan and got ready, you would make your way down to the divan hall at 4 where campers did simran on vaja till 5. At 5 nitnem would start which would take you to 6 followed by ardaas and hukamnama.

kar eisanaan simar prabh apanaa man than bheae arogaa ||

After taking your cleansing bath, remember your God in meditation, and your mind and body shall be free of disease.

And then after nitnem there would be a rest period between 6-8 where ‘MOST’ people would sleep, some would go do some seva in langar hall to get breakfast ready, some would do asa di //. After rest period everyone got together in langar hall for breakfast at 8 and then a hour later a lecture would start in the lecture hall by a sevadaar.

The talks were very good, but a bad thing about the lecture hall is its too warm and cosy, and the seats are too comfortable to you end up falling asleep, but you try so hard not to but the harder you try the more you want to sleep, and that stalling thing sometimes happens when you’re sitting upright and you’re about to fall asleep and your head drifts forwards or backwards and everyone blatantly knows your falling asleep so what does the person do? Suddenly wake up as if nothing has happened haha, or if you are at a kirtan darbaar you start ‘head banging’ after suddenly waking up… you know you’ve all done it.

Anyway… after the lecture there is a Q&A between the campers and the lecturers, I particularly liked this bit because you get to know what sort of questions are on peoples mind and they could be thinking the same question you are. After the Q&A there would be workshops. There we many different workshops such as:

Different sikhi talks, sikhi talk in Punjabi, Wing Chun (martial art) keertan tradition, dastaar tying, Guru Sahib Di Seva, female discussion and youth and social issues.

I always went to the youth and social talk done by Bhai Manvir Singh, not because I had issues myself... but because it was a very one on one sort of discussion. Manvir singh would make the discussion funny with his stories, but also he would inspire.

Then after the workshop there is lunch for an hour. The langar was always very nice, my compliments to the chef(S).

After langar there would be another big lecture in the lecture hall. Then a half an hour break. After the break it would be fun time, Activities time.

Activities time was about 2 and half hours of good use, some people would go get ready into their sporty clothes to get ready to play football, volleyball etc in the fields. Others would get precious sleep time, others in bhagti mode in the divan hall i.e me….yeah right!

I personally played football in the courts with the singhs, which was good!

There were also trips out to either go karting or horse riding everyday during activities time. I went to go karting with fellow singhs on a Tuesday and man was that an experience! Not because of the go karting because that itself was not really that good (for me) the trip TO gokarting itself was a experience, we had left about 2 from the campus, 2 hours later we still were not there because the driver did not know where he was going, first he stopped at some random place then went to the wrong go karting place and then finally go to the indoor karting place where we were meant to be ages before. But the driver was not to happy and I’ll tell you why, simply because the sangat in the coach were getting annoyed that their activities time was being taken up so they made a few slogans up to encourage the driver:

‘ Drivers got egoooo’, ‘Bus driver don’t get angryyyy’, ‘discoverrrr …. The spirit within’ and many more. Once we got there everyone got one go on the go kart for about 7 minutes and the track was basically a eight.

After activities everyone would go to have a shower freshen up etc… and then the evening divan would start, first there would be simran then rehraas sahib then kirtan then samapati.

After the divan there would be langar…yummmmm, then after the langar there would be a evening discussions which were basically the workshops. Manvir and surjit singh were really good in these discussions.

After the evening discussion everyone would go of to sleep…yeah right! The sleep time was during the lectures on them nice comfortable seats.

saadhhasa(n)g oudhhaar eihu man aat(h) pehar aaraadhh ||

In the Saadh Sangat, the Company of the Holy, redeem your mind, and adore the Lord, twenty-four hours a day.

Harmeet: What was your favourite day of Khalsa camp 2007?

Tarnjeet: There was no day better that the other! You just simply wished that the day carried on forever and that tomorrow didn’t come simply because it would be one day close to Khalsa camp finishing which is a sad thought.

Simply from just closing your room door and getting together with everyone in your block ready to go to amritvela or and lecture etc… to going to the beach with everyone, it all was a experience in itself, you basically have to be there to experience it!

Harmeet: Was there any important people attending the camp?

I think its important to say that no one was more important than any one else, yes there were many chardikala lecturers but no one is more important than the other. But there were really good lecturers such as Bhai Surjit singh who had came from India, one thing that really stood out to me was when he said that when someone asks a Khalsa where they are from the answer should be from Siri Anandpur sahib!

There was also Bhai Joginder singh from Leicester who is quite local for the Coventry sangat because Bhai sahib comes to cross roads gurudwara every Friday 7.30-9.30, Bhai sahib is very knowledgeable in Sikh books and bani.

There was also Dr Dapinder singh Aka dr.d who did good lectures and Dr. Daljit Singh.

There was also Bhai Manvir singh who made everyone laugh but at the same time taught us loads.

And many more...

sabh eaek dhrisatt samath kar dhaekhai sabh aatham raam pashhaan jeeo ||

They look upon all with equality, and recognize the Supreme Soul, the Lord, pervading among all.

Harmeet: Was the camp a success?

Tarnjeet: Oh yeah definitely, it was really good, every thing went well. You have to be there to experience it I can’t give you the experience through this interview all I can do Is slightly explain to you what the experience is like. With Maharaj’s kirpa hopefully I will go next year too!

Harmeet: What was the general feeling between the campers after day 5 getting ready to go?

Tarnjeet: saddening, very saddening. If your in sangat for about a week non stop you don’t want to go out of it! I’m sure everyone would agree with me on that. There is so much love between the sangat while your there so you don’t feel like leaving.

maerae maadhho jee sathasa(n)gath milae s thariaa ||

O my Dear Lord of souls, one who joins the Sat Sangat, the True Congregation, is saved.

Harmeet: How would you describe Khalsa camp to others to inspire them to go to Khalsa camp 2008?

Tarnjeet: AAAAAAMMMMMAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZIIIIING…AMAZING.

If you have the chance to come PLEASE DO I promise you, you will not be disappointed. It doesn’t matter if you have not kept you kesh (hair) or if you’re a different religion and what not, just come and you will see the true love in sikhi. There were many people who had not kept there hair or very new to sikhi but by just like 2 days into the camp they were wearing dastaara (turban) which was amazing to see and I hope they still have guru sahibs crown on there head.

Hope to see you all at Khalsa camp 2008!

Harmeet: Thanks Tarnjeet for your time and this interview

Tarnjeet: No problemos, thanks for letting me do this.

Harmeet: Vaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Vaheguru Ji Ke Fateh.

Tarnjeet: Vaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Vaheguru Ji Ke Fateh.

[Techno_singh]

ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

[lowest of the low singhni]

The showers in each room...man they’re like power jets. P.S if you’re not quick, and you just want to test out to see if the shower works, you’re doomed.

Too right.

[Ekankar]

P.S if you’re not quick, and you just want to test out to see if the shower works, you’re doomed.

haha so true that was a big mistake of mine

Coventry