Turbaned Sevadars

[SanmukhKaur]

Turbaned Sevadars

Service with Pride

Thislast week I was involved in a process to start a youth group with my Punjabi classand it made me realize that it takes but one person to make a difference. Havingarrived late in class I missed the lecture explaining the youth group, I had toget a special explanation from the teacher during break. After a scolding forbeing the oldest and still being late, I was told another perk of being eldestI would have to work extra hard to help pull this off. Intrigued but notentirely sure that the youth was up to the challenge; I went back to my seat.The next few days the youth, parents and the opportunities all blew me away.

Theyouth whom I had doubted turned out to be confident enough not only to inspireeach other but anyone they come in contact with. I had barely made it back tomy seat that the guy next to me started talking about the youth group and doingseva. He declared that since we were a Sikh youth group all seva we do will bedone while wearing dastars on our heads, so people would know that we areSikhs. That if we are doing seva as Sikhs, we will look like Sikhs while doingit. I couldn’t help but laugh, I was the only person in the class that wore adastar and I am a girl. I knew the other girls will not wears dastars becausethey didn’t even understand why I wore one. And the boys, even when we forcedthem to wear dastars on the occasional Sunday, they can’t get them off fastenough. He said that he was not one of those boys and he wore his dastar prideand the boys will wear them. I looked back at the other boys and once againsaid no, not possible. He turned to each of the boys and confirmed that theywould wear a dastar while doing seva because he asked. That’s all it took, onedetermined kid to get all the kids to step out of their comfort zones.

Thenext challenge was the parents and getting them on board. We planned a meetingto be held at my house in 3 days to talk to the most active parents in the Punjabischool. The plan was to run over a few ideas with a smaller group of people,before making our plans clear to the Sangat so anyone that wanted to be part ofit, could be. It was intriguing to listen to the parents give their input onthe youth group and the youth. We all sat as equals in a circle; the men, womenand the kids. Though we sat as equals to no one’s surprise most of the menwanted the adults to make all the decisions and the kids do all the work. Butto my surprise one man spoke up for thekids and our right to lead as the future of Sikhism. The parents convinced wecould do it, advised us not to make any presidents or a leader for our groupbut instead listen to our Guru Sahiban and have a group of 5 (like punj pyara)with equal responsibilities. To not worry about politics or stepping on toes aslong as we did the right thing for Sikh and for the community. That as ourparents they would always be there to help us, when we need it.

Withthe kids and parents on board, we decided to plan out some seva we could do toget us started. The parents wanted to help back home in India and the youthwanted to do something more hands on and local. It was decided that the bestway to do seva was to do it with our hands and since the money was going to bethe parents, the kids wouldn’t get much out of just sending money to back homecharities. Now, once a month with turbans on our heads, we are going to beworking at the community kitchen. That for Christmas we will provide gifts anddinner for the very low income local families. Because Christmas might not be aSikh holiday but Sikhs are respectful of all religions and these people deserveto have some happiness on their holiday. For Guru Harkrishen Ji’s birthdaylater on we will help sick children. We will do whatever seva Waheguru Jiblesses us with and we will do it while being humble.

Withturbans on our heads, Sikh in our hearts we are ready to do seva. It took oneyouth that believed it was possible; we could pull it off to convince theyouth. It took one parent to convince the rest that the youth could pull itoff. And there is only one Waheguru Ji that blesses us to be good human beings.It takes but one. Stop doubting, start doing.