Puratan Taksali Jatha

[Bijla Singh]

This is during the time when Amritdhari Gursikhs were very rare, when people would stand aside and bow upon seeing an Amritdhari Gursikh. Sikhi was very alive in the Indian army gursikhs. Taksal was almost never heard of outside of Punjab but it was in chardee kala unlike today.

Taksal had a very strict rule. Jatha would never go to anyone’s house uninvited. Sant Gurbachan Singh Ji was once invited by someone to have “jall paani”. So Sant Ji went with jatha of few gursikhs. The family was very religious so they did seva with pure heart. Sant Ji said the jatha will have smundar (milk) and then they will leave. So they put milk on the gas and after few minutes one girl put salt in the milk instead of sugar. No one knew about it. They served the milk to everyone. Sant Ji and all the singhs drank the milk, one singh did ardaas. No one complained, no singh was upset. The jatha left. After couple of minutes, one of the family members tasted the milk and could not even get one sip down his throat. All the family members ran after Sant Ji, caught up and asked for forgiveness. Sant Ji asked “why are you asking for forgiveness?” The eldest man said, “Sant Ji, one girl mistakenly put the salt in the milk. Please forgive us.” Sant Ji said, “I did not taste any salt. The milk was very sweet.” The man said, “how can that be? There was too much salt in it.” Sant Ji replied, “Your seva made it sweet. Jatha came to your house because of your love not milk.” Then the jatha left.

Sant Kartar Singh Ji started many Nagar Kirtans after he became jathedar of Taksal. At one nagar kirtan, sangat stopped in one village to rest a little. Few men standing at some distance were talking among themselves and were trying to recognize who Sant Ji was. Sant Ji never dressed any different than jatha singhs so they couldn’t really figure out. Sant Ji came running to them and said “Khalsa Ji, this body’s name is Kartar Singh.” And then Sant Ji went back to his vehicle. They were really surprised at this but true gursikhs know everything.

Sant Kartar Singh Ji treated jatha singhs like his family. He loved each and every Gursikh very much. Every gursikh used to say that Sant Ji loved him more than others. Sant Ji would get new clothes for gursikhs first and then for him. One time a rich man brought new blankets and jackets to Mehta for all gursikhs. Sant Ji called a singh whom he had hardly spoken to before and said, “Your blanket is very old and you don’t have a jacket in these cold days. You do Aasa Di Vaar in the morning and you feel very cold. So here, pick one blanket and a jacket of your choice.” Gursikh was surprised at how Sant Ji knew all this so he picked one from the top of the pile. Sant Ji told him to put those away and took one blanket out from the middle of the stack and one jacket and gave ‘em to Gursikh and said, “These are the best ones. You do seva and kirtan so you deserve to have the best ones.”

Jatha was divided into many groups of kirtanis, kathavachaks, tabla players etc. and each group had a jathedar. One time Sant Ji woke up in the middle of the night and woke up one of the group jathedars and told him to count his students. After counting he said all were present and sleeping. Sant Ji said, “No, one is missing. Count again.” So he counted again but all students were present. Sant Ji told him to count again. Then the jathedar looked in his notebook and verified that one sevadar of that group was in fact missing. Sant Ji stayed awake until the singh came back. When singh came back he was searched and a movie ticket was found in his pocket. Sant Ji punished him first then told him to pack up his stuff and leave the jatha as jatha was only for serious gursikhs who wanted to follow gurmat.

Baba Thakur Singh Ji would always prepare smundar for Sant Kartar Singh Ji every night. He would always have two glasses of smundar (full garvee), one for Sant Ji and one glass for any other Gursikh sitting with Sant Ji. One night Baba Ji prepared two glasses of smundar and was sitting with Sant Ji. One Gursikh sitting near was reading Bani. Suddenly, four gursikhs came in the room. Sant Ji told Baba Ji to serve smundar to gursikhs. Baba Ji covered the garvee with a cloth and started filling up the steel glasses. All four gursikhs drank smundar and after a while all left. Sant Ji then said “Baba Ji, please give me and this Gursikh some smundar too”. Baba Ji filled two glasses and gave ‘em to Sant Ji and the Gursikh. Then Baba Ji left and Sant Ji told the Gursikh to leave. As the Gursikh was leaving he looked in the garvee and there was still some smundar left. Six glasses came out of a garvee of two. This was the power of true Gursikhs.

Puratan Jatha was full of true gursikhs. Sant Kartar Singh Ji used to send many gursikhs to Rampur Khera for chaleesa (40 days simran in bhora). After coming back from chaleesa one Gursikh said “First two weeks were very hard but then I don’t know what happened and I never felt like coming out. I wanted to stay there forever.” It was these gursikhs who did lot of naam simran and gave sacrifices during 1984. It was like they were being prepared for this specific task. When puratan gursikhs used to visit jatha, all new gursikhs would surround them and request them to tell sakhis of puratan mahapurash. All gursikhs would speak truth. One time, in langar hall all students were sitting in pangat and ready to eat langar. One sevadar came and started asking every Gursikh if they had done their daily nitnem and other banis. Some students got up and confessed that they had missed some banis. Students never lied. Langar was not served until everyone had done their nitnem. Seva, Simran, bani, and gatka was everywhere in the jatha which kept it in chardee kala.

I met a singh who was at Mehta when the army attacked Darbar Sahib. According to him, the army surrounded Gurdwara Sahib and cut the electricity and phone lines. There were few singhs inside and they all did ardaas together and then kamar kassay to fight back. Surprisingly the army never attacked and did not try to enter the Gurdwara. Singhs did not know what was really going on outside until the news broke out. After the attack singhs came out and decided to go to Darbar Sahib. On their way they met many Akhand Kirtani Jathas, doing kirtan and walking to Darbar Sahib. There were army men all around and they stopped Sikhs from going any further and threatened to shoot them. At that time there appeared no difference between Sikhs, they all helped each other. Many people drilled big holes into their walls and let the sangat go through from house to house. Panth was awake at that time. The way he described Darbar Sahib after the attack just pierced through my heart. Many gursikhs who went to Darbar Sahib became shaheed. Puratan taksal jatha basically ends here. After 1984 Taksal’s downfall started just like every other jathebandi of Khalsa Panth. May Guru Ji bring back chardee kala of Khalsa Panth.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

[Bijla Singh]

A person (gupt name) used to suffer from epilepsy from childhood. His parents were very concerned about him and it was hard to control him. After thinking for some time they brought him to Sant Gurbachan Singh Ji and request to cure him. Sant Ji told them that the only cure for him was seva and simran. If they leave him in the jatha, he will have the chance to do seva and learn Gurbani. So they left him with Sant Ji. Sant Ji told him to never leave the jatha without getting permission first.

He took Amrit and became Singh. He learned Gurbani santhiya from Sant Ji, did seva of gursikhs and practiced naam bani. Within few days he became very healthy and stooped suffering from epilepsy. After couple of months he thought he was very healthy and his ill was cured so he decided to leave the jatha without telling Sant Ji. When he reached home, his parents and other family members became upset that he left without telling Sant Ji but he did not care. The same night he started suffering just like he used to before his parents took him to jatha. His parents told him to go back but he thought it was only once in a while thing since he hadn’t suffered for couple of months. Next day he started suffering more and more. After two days, his parents took him back and asked for forgiveness. Sant Ji told him again to not to run away. Just like before he agreed.

He started staying with the jatha 24/7 and did the regular duties given to him in the jatha. Many years passed by. One day he asked Sant Ji to let him go visit his parents. Sant Ji asked him for how long he wanted to go and he said for couple of days. Sant Ji let him go and told him to come back within a week. So he goes back to his house, meets family members and returns back to the jatha. After returning back a sudden thought came to his mind that he has not suffered from epilepsy for a long time not even when he returned home. After few days he gets the message that one of his family members was sick and called him to come. He gets permission from Sant Ji and leaves. He stayed with his family until the family member got well. Then his parents told him he could go back to the jatha but he refused. He said he was healthy, feeling good and there was no sign of epilepsy. His parents were little upset but they let him stay. The next day, it was the same old routine of suffering just like his childhood. After suffering for couple of days his parents took him back to Sant Ji, asked for forgiveness again and told Sant Ji to keep him there forever and to never send him back no matter what happens.

After that he never left the jatha. He stayed with Sant Gurbachan Singh Ji, Sant Kartar Singh Ji and Sant Jarnail Singh Ji. When Sant Jarnail Singh Ji became jathedar, his parents came to Sant Ji and requested to take him back to get him married. Sant Ji agreed and let him go. Unfortunately, the girl refused to marry him because Singh had a disability and was little shorter in height. After so much argument both families came to Sant Ji. Sant Ji asked the girl why she did not want to marry the Singh. She said, “He is little shorter which I can deal with but he is also disabled. I do not wish to marry a crippled person.” Sant Ji kept quite for few minutes and then said, “It is in your karmas to marry a crippled person. If you don’t marry him in this life then in your next life you will have to marry a blind person. The choice is yours.” After hearing this she apologized to the family members and married the Singh. Then Sant Ji told him to settle down and helped him to buy a house for his family. The Singh never left the jatha and always stayed in the company of Sant Ji until 84. Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

[jivan]

:umm: :cool:

wahegurooo

[S1ngh]

things that we never heard off.. Really cool post !

[Dhan Teri Sikhi]

Waheguru Waheguru Waheguru

[no_one]

Bump! :umm:

[GuruManeyoGranth]

Thanks Jee, amazing post

things that we never heard off.. Really cool post !

The olden day Gurmukhs had so much Bhagti, and as a result Shakti, but such was there Nimartaa, that they never showed it off. May Waheguroo give us the blessings of Naam and Simran, as the Puratan Singhs had.

Waheguroo

[Jagjit Singh]

amazing, brought tears to my eyes

[Bijla Singh]

When Sant Kartar Singh Ji went to sachkhand and Sant Jarnail Singh Ji became the next jathedar many of the puratan Singhs formed groups to do parchaar all over India. One group of about 25 singhs (parcharaks, ragis and students) went to south India. I don’t remember the name of the state but it was a place where Sikhs were only heard of but never seen. Jatha stayed at one of the local small Gurdwara. Due to weather change and living conditions many of the singhs became ill. Few singhs maintained good health. One of them was the head ragi who was really tough on students all the time. He used to keep a big stick with him and whenever any student made a mistake he would hit the student with his stick. Sometimes he even hit innocent students. Many elder singhs told him not to do it. They told him to treat all students like his own family just like Sant Kartar Singh Ji used to but he never listened. He always considered him “the head” and because he did not get ill, haumai came to his mind. Since there was no work to do, he decided to go out for walk with some other singhs. Wearing Taksali bana and kirpans over the top they left the Gurdwara Sahib.

As they walked through the streets public became furious. Nobody had ever seen anyone like that. Some people called the police by saying that some foreigners wearing weapons had come to the town. Police came, arrested those singhs and put them in jail. Back at the Gurdwara rest of the singhs were very concerned. After couple of hours they received the phone call from the police asking them to come to police station to identify the arrested singhs. Some people went and bailed them out. Upon reaching Gurdwara some singhs taunted the head ragi by saying “why didn’t you hit the policemen with your stick? Where was it then?” Some elder singhs told the head ragi that this was a lesson taught to him for beating the innocent jatha students. After that incident he softened up and stopped being hard on students.

Then the jatha went to Takhat Hazoor Sahib. They stayed there for days. One day a hindu man came to one of the jatha singhs and requested him to do ardaas for him. The Singh asked what his wishes were. The hindu man said that he had been coming to Takhat Sahib for years to receive blessing of a son but his wish had not been granted. He said he had many gursikhs and granthis perform ardaas but nothing happened. The Singh said he would talk to the elder singhs and see if anything could be done. After discussing with elder singhs the jatha picked five most naam abhiyaasi singhs to decide what to do because many had done ardaas before but nothing happened. Panj singhs told the hindu man that if he wanted a son he would have to promise to make him a Sikh of Guru Gobind Singh Ji. The man agreed and Singhs did ardaas to Guru Ji bless him with a son. After few days the jatha left.

Many years passed by. Some of the singhs went back to Takhat Sahib. They wanted to meet that same hindu man. After asking around they went to his house, knocked on the door and surprisingly a Gursikh taller than 6 feet with glowing red face opened the door. They thought they had come to the wrong house but after asking they found out that the gursikh was born after a year the jatha left. They were very happy that Guru Ji had heard their prayers. They met hindu man and he said “vekho babayeo, Sikh of Guru Gobind Singh Ji just life yourself.” He further told that after two years he went back to Takhat Sahib and did ardaas to Guru Ji to bless him with another one of his Sikhs and Guru Ji did. His both sons became Amritdhari Gursikhs and very successful businessmen. After spending some time with them Singhs left and went back to Punjab. Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

[Harjit_S_Banga]

Bijla Singh ji WGJKK WGJKF,

Very interesting and never heard stories of taksali singhs. Thanks alot!!

WGJKK

WGJKF