A WORD (OR TWO HUNDRED) FROM THE EDITOR

Growing up in Bangalore, I recall my father’s visits to the gurdwara some Sunday mornings. He’d cover his head with a white handkerchief and go in for a few minutes, emerging with kada parshad – the sweetest, most ghee-loaded halwa we had ever seen.

A medical engineer and a naval officer, my father was spiritual but not religious. He found the few minutes he spent at the gurdwara very peaceful. He also had a great respect for the concept of seva that was manifest in the way people acted and were treated at the gurdwara. The richest, most senior person in the community would stand in line to receive blessings one day and the next, could be seen serving others. There was no hierarchy, no one pulled rank.

Listening to my father, a Bengali Hindu by birth, describe this, was my introduction to the concept of seva.

As I grew older, I read of young cash-strapped tourists in India being welcomed to a freshly-cooked hot vegetarian meal at gurdwaras. I watched news coverage of teams from the nearby gurdwara feeding political protesters at Janpath in New Delhi. There were repeat performances at Shaheen Bagh in the same city. During the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19, migrant workers making their way back to their villages faced terrible hardship. They travelled thousands of miles, sometimes on foot, pregnant women, ailing parents, and babies in tow, carrying a few possessions in a bundle, without recourse to food or water. There, again, people from gurdwaras provided a caring touch. I’ll never forget the face of a young man on a news clip. He was holding a bottle of water and a bunch of bananas. Asked by a reporter where he got those from, he replied, “Sardaron ne diya (the Sikhs gave us)”.

In downtown Toronto, too, I have seen young Sikhs distributing food packets from a van to the homeless on frigid winter mornings.

They all do, as Rasheeda Qureshi, the executive director of Seva Food Bank in Mississauga, says, God’s work.

And for those who question the need for food banks, I have another story.

When our sons were in school, we encouraged them to set aside a portion of their pocket money to pick up groceries for the food bank. At each grocery run, they got to pick what they wanted to go in the bag we then dropped off at the fire hall. Thinking that volunteering at a food bank would make the connection more real, we spent a few mornings helping sort items at a food bank with our sons. Tejas, not yet a teen, was reluctant to tag along. He had a new game on his Gameboy that he had to master. We took him along anyway. On our way back, he was unusually quiet. 

“They had tins of baby formula at the food bank,” he said. He hadn’t realized that babies could go hungry.

They can.

See our cover feature this month for ways in which we can all help.

Merry Christmas!

Shagorika Easwar