Khalsa Day Parade Toronto

[Guest SatwantBeantKehar]

I had the chance to attend KDP at City Hall this sunday and it looked more like a Mela - There were lots of non sikh people who were very happy having all the free food but didnt look like anyone was interested in educating the visitors about the beautiful message of nanak.

Also tons of food was being wasted. Overall a great opportunity down the drain - reduced to a socio cultural thing. What does the sangat think ?

[Jaspaul Singh]

You are right jee. Most sangat that do come, come for the enjoyment of getting together with their friends, family, or even for the free food. I agree with you completely. But there are some individuals that come out to do seva.

There were many many sevadaars that spent days/nights to plan out the nagar kirtan. Many had stalls, tables, information booths. Many were involved in Bus seva organization, float organization, gatka, and other. The bus seva this year was taken over by the guru gobind singh children foundation. Not many know this. In the past years the bus people have been very annoyed with the lack of organization by gurdwara committees so this year the youth stepped up and did a great job for their first time!

Many organizations were there, Sikh Activist Network, Various Gatkai Akharai, KaursUnited, Gurudwara organizations and many others. I think they did a decent job in taken advantage of drawing in sangat.

Then there are also those that come out to meet sangat. I brought a friend, not much into sikhi, and he made a bond with the gatka crew and he is definately interested in coming out and learning.

What im trying to say basically is that if we see these little details in the back, small in numbers, but still could be very effective. We should definetely bring out our own friends, ones that are not into sikhi, push them forward.

Are there any nagar kirtans around the world that the full organization is done by youth? I believe maybe then we would be seeing some positive changes!

But yes jee, i fully agree, nagar kirtans sadly are not portraying the true message as much and people do see it has a hang out place. I also believe that instead of having all those guest appearances of political figures and their looong speeches, why not educate more on sikhi, have gatka going on and someone explaining the importance of that, maybe some presentations on a screen. Just my two cents.

And btw, here are some sangat pictures from the nagar kirtan: CLICK HERE

[Jaspaul Singh]

Some say that trying to change elders 'mindsetting' is very hard, and it is tru in some ways. The way they have been taught all their lives can not be changed by ones that they think dont know what the real world is all about. They think we are only kids and dont know nothing. Which could be tru as well.

This is our future, we need to keep kids active and upfront in sikhi. Sangat, seva is all important in this. Here is a great shot of some kids in the YUDH gatka akhara:

[dalsingh101]

I had the chance to attend KDP at City Hall this sunday and it looked more like a Mela - There were lots of non sikh people who were very happy having all the free food but didnt look like anyone was interested in educating the visitors about the beautiful message of nanak.

Also tons of food was being wasted. Overall a great opportunity down the drain - reduced to a socio cultural thing. What does the sangat think ?

I don't agree with you entirely. These days I think it is people from Sikh backgrounds who need the most education about Guru Nanak's beautiful message. What such events will do is give a positive impression of Sikhs to many outsiders. I think we need this more than ever as western media seems to be portraying Sikhs in a bad light globally these days with endless "controversies".

[torontosikh]

The tradition is started by Gurus, so we gota respect that. Plus we walk with our Guru.

I say there definately more pros than cons off the Nagar Kirtan, its great so let it keep happening, its helping the kids from all Sikh families and portrays our strength.

My suggestion would be: focus less on advertising, stop distributing thousands of flyers and killing trees, people know about the Nagar Kirtan, its happening from years at the same place every year, so we dont need to distribute flyers about it and waste money.

Lets use the same money to help various charities e.g. Sick Children Hospital and various others. The media does cover it but not to the extent we deserve. If we are handing a big cheque to these charities every year, all of them will be trying to get that money and media will also we give it front page.

[Shaheed Singh Khalsa]

WaheguruJiKaKhalsa WaheguruJiKiFateh

Paaji I think you should learn some respect and help the Non Sikhs who visit this forum to understand why we refer to Nanak as Guru Nanak Dev Ji

WaheguruJiKaKhalsa WaheguruJiKiFateh

[SaRpAnCh]

Why throw out Khalistan floats stupid dumb commitee well at least we can rely on Surrey people to get Khalistan and the movement in the headlines POWER TO SURREY!

[Guest SatwantBeantKehar]

Jaspaul, I stand corrected - getting people started into gatka was maybe one achievement but while i was there gatka team was just standing in a corner - As you said it'd have been great if they'd have had constant gatka in rink - also newbies like me and non sikhs should have been invited to try the sword/lathi a little bit - sort of a quick

Shaheed Singh,

Dont get me wrong veer I am not opposing the tradition of nagar kirtan - all I am saying is organizers could have done a better job by trying to reach out to English speaking visitors. Also some money should have been spent towards ciruclating Sikhi 101 pamphlets among the visitors - highlighting things such as Sikhi is the world's only religion that recognizes men and women as equal

and all the other great things.

Sarpanch,

I agree in a free society everyone has a right to speak their mind and khalistan floats which'd have brought India's torture to public view should have been allowed.

[Akaali]

SatwantBeantKehar veerjee, you are complaining organizers should've tried to reach out to english speaking visitors more, how many visitors did you reach out to? Were you able to hand out flyers of what Vasakhi is and educated others of its importance? Its easy to point fingers and blame others but we should also make the effort of educating others at nagar keertan by all means possible.

[not important]

I heard from one singh that they weren't allowed to do gatka

while they were doing it in front of the stage

the management guys were like yelling at them too stop and let them do speeches

and then when they went to the rink thing

the security guys came over and told them too stop and hes like

u cant do gatka

messed up man

:6