Ragis?! Why Do We Give Them Money?!

[Papi]

^^ WAH !!!

[Bundha]

Agree wtih ghorandhar,

also wosrt still we now have committees who will pick up all the maya placed infront of the Kirtanees and give them a nominal fee, and the attitude is take it or leave it. All the Gurdwaray seem to have banded together and will not let the kirtanees keep what is donated to them, it is a real scandal.

We should give as much as we can, they leavethier families, live in terrible conditions, are made to do menial jobs , we need to give them as much support as we can.

[xHarinder_singh]

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.

I doubt ur post was directed to me but just to clear I wrote that the panthic kirtanniyas shud be given enough money to live an ok normal life. Now what this ok normal life is can be decided by the local sangat. I live in Ludhiana and I feel that if there is a panthic kirtanniya here who is doing full-time good parchar, he should be given around 15-18,000 per month.

[Degh-Tegh-Fathe]

Im gonna be painfully honest here.

Kirtanis here in canada especially in the south are making much more then they need. i mean they have portable dvd players, each one has there own laptop, ipods, and i mean ive herd them say straight up, we just come here to make money. iv even herd one saying that if they dont make the money somone else will. I think that its true raagis that are doing kirtan for the panth should be taken care of properly but i also believe that they should be doing kirtan not for money but for themselves and the panth. ive herd raagis say, never come on this path if your not sure u cant become famous because theres more money in different jobs, and im like WHAT THE HELL? thats why i think its better to live your life and earn your money but also do kirtan as a niskam seva. look at bhai sahib bhai randheer singh ji, your gonna tell me he wasnt a good kirtani??