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Ragis?! Why Do We Give Them Money?!


Zindagi
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Fateh Ji

Saadh sangat please forgive me for my ignorance and lack of knowledge

But in a conversation with quite a few people I dont understand why we the sangat give raagis money,

Gurus Kirtania are suppose to be on a higher level, but by giving them money to me it feels like we are taking pity on them and giving them money as we would do to a beggar

Furthermore i have come to know that ragis are so money minded these days, they ask about money before anything else.

the sharda has gone now it seems who ever pays the higher price gets the program

So what i want to know is there a reason why money is given?

and when people say that these ragis are putting a value on gurbani? do they have a point?

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Fateh

They dont work, and they devote their lives to Kirtan and they also have families to support, therefore its not charity, its their Kirat. However, demanding extortionate amounts of money before programs etc is not right and seems greedy.

Fateh

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its all for the respect of gurbani they recite, and awesome skills they have got by practicing, respect for music, to encourage them, sometimes they really help some people to concentrate and man jod in gur shabad and therefore some people who feel blissful they respect them.

sometimes its like a trend to present money in family programs or wedding functions to show off for some people.

its not bad to present money to guru ke kirtanees.

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But why is it that people put all these ragis on pedestals thinking that they are so great, just because they have nice voices and vaaja skills, but shouldnt they have a good jeevan as well, my friends have been close to some of the top ragis, but when you get to know them on a personal basis that they are nothing like they are on stage

so is it becoming a farce?

as we seem to rush me included to the gurdwaras when a top ragi is there but otherwise we have to push ourselves to go! its like we are going for religious entertainment and not for the Guru who is always there!

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Fateh Ji

Saadh sangat please forgive me for my ignorance and lack of knowledge

But in a conversation with quite a few people I dont understand why we the sangat give raagis money,

Gurus Kirtania are suppose to be on a higher level, but by giving them money to me it feels like we are taking pity on them and giving them money as we would do to a beggar

Furthermore i have come to know that ragis are so money minded these days, they ask about money before anything else.

the sharda has gone now it seems who ever pays the higher price gets the program

So what i want to know is there a reason why money is given?

and when people say that these ragis are putting a value on gurbani? do they have a point?

This is a ridiculous topic. How about those haramkhor morally corrupt "kirtanniyas" who dont take money but use the kirtan popularity to date girls, to get nri rishtaa, to get kirtan visaa ?????

In some jathebandis, u have parents fighting with each other over the time given to their daughters for kirtan. This kirtan done by their daughters is a way to get a NRI or a rich mundaaas rishta.

These people are much worse in my dictionary.

If a kirtanniya is taking JUST MONEY to feed his family, IT IS THE DUTY OF THE PANTH TO TAKE CARE OF SUCH A KIRTANNIYAA.

People like Bhai Pinderpaal Singh jee, Bhai Anandpur Sahib Vale, Bhai Balbir Singh jee(he does great kirtan of Sri Dasam Granth), Giani Sher Singh jee Nihang(has very good knowledge of Sri Dasam Granth and Sarbloh Granth) shud be taken care of by the panth.

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erm well how much money do u think raagis in the uk get?

i can tell you...£70 maybe £80 if they are lucky....they have families to support....girls to marry.....i do know of kirtanees who refuse to do kirtan cos they dont get paid enough...that is wrong...but can u imagine living of £80 a week???even if the money is being sent back home it still aint enough....kirtan is all they do for a living...if ur going to moan about giving kirtaniya money then why dont u try doing kirtan for nothings....have u seen they ways in which gyanis are forced to live....some of them (for e.g. slough singh sabha), the gyanis are cramped into one small room with duvets on the floor...and u reckon they're put on pedestals?....they did offer them a house but this house didnt even have heating...they have to spend the majority of their lives away from their families

they should be put on a pedestal...i mean they have devoted their whole lives to singing Gurbaanee....and they should sit higher then the sangat....because anyone who was reciting Gurbaanee was put on a higher platform then the human Guroos themselves

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Gurbani is priceless and you someone who reads or sings it to you should be rewarded accordingly. Just read what Guru Ji says about those who read Gurbani and do Katha for us to listen to.

If anything, we should be more generous than we are. Some of the living conditions in Gurdwarey are really bad, Granthis and Kirtaniye are treated like servants when they should be treated like kings. Paathi Singhs during Akhand Paaths also get paid very little (less than the legal minimum wage in the UK at most Gurudwaras), yet they also have families to raise etc.

We complain about the quality of parcharaks, Granthis etc - there is a saying in English that goes: " Pay peanuts, get monkeys." There are a few excellent ones who have given up everything for the sake of doing Kirtan and Parchaar but there would be far more if the conditions were better.

It is true that there are many money-minded people these days, but there are just as many good ones.

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There is a rehitnama, I dont remember the exact words but it says that if a sikh is a pujaari(granthi, kirtanniyaa), he should take only that much money which is just enough to live an ok normal life.

If a kirtaniya lives in gareebi, he is a gem. If a kirtanniya lives an ok normal life, well.. thats fine too. If a kirtanniya is greedy, he is

1. harming the panth.

2. harming the image of fellow kirtanniyaas.

3. harming his own spiritual avastha.

These days in punjab, granthi has become a gall due to the greedy nature of many granthis.

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Its ok for us to be greedy, ask for promotions, look for better paid jobs etc, but until a granthi starves to death and cant provide for his family, I dont think people will be satisfied.

If you go and speak to bhai Balbir Singh, Prof Kartar Singh etc, they will tell you it takes over 20 years to get vidiya and then over 20 years to perfect it. If you started learning when you were 10 years old, you will be 50 until you can be anywhere near reaching the level you should be. Should all those years of hard work be rewarded with bad accomodation, rubbish wages and then complaints that ragis are greedy? If we lived the lives they were living we would not survive one day, no tv, playstation etc...

There are some raagis who have not at the standard they should be, but just as another veer jee said: Pay peanuts, get monkeys." Our gurdwaras are running and open from early in the morning to late at night because these so called greedy people...so whether they have the vidya or not, we can attend gurdwaras because of them.

I takes about 3-5 years to do a degree (depending on your subject). compare that to a raagi, yet the person with a degree would not work for a company even if they gave 4 times what a Ragi gets. Yet the raagis are greedy? maybe if we put in 20 years of learning kirtan (and forget the years in perfecting the vidya because that will total 40) sacrificing a career (like Bhai Kultar Singh jee has done) and see what its really like being a raagi with such vidya.

Our lack of respect for raagis and calling them greedy and questioning why should we give them money is why our tanti saaz and all our heritage is almost lost. We have lost so much because of this attidute. Go and find out how much it costs to buy a tous, saranda, sarangi, rabab etc... most of them will never be able to afford one. IF you dont like what the raagis are doing, tussi kam chakoo tanti saaja di nal.

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