Happy Vaisakhi - Monday!
What is good, man? Happy Vaisakhi to all those celebrating! So, what is Vaisakhi, you might ask? Well, technically, Vaisakhi, it’s kind of like the Sikh New Year. It’s not! Don’t get at me! I don’t know where these kinds of things start from. Someone, I’m sure well-intentioned, was trying to describe Vaisakhi to their white friend, and then they said, “Sikh New Year,” and everyone kind of just went along with it. Then, all of a sudden, everyone’s like, “Vaisakhi is the Sikh New Year.” And then this carries on for years until someone’s like, “No, it’s not!” And then you have this like re-education thing happening.
I remember there were signs one year that said, “Happy Sikh New Year.” And then all of a sudden, they’re like, “Don’t ever use those signs again!” We did this with Diwali, too, where we were like, “We don’t celebrate… we celebrate…” And then it’s like, “No, we do celebrate Diwali! So, maybe stop telling people that, Sikhs!” I don’t know; it became this whole weird little thing, and I’m sure it all means well. I’m sure it all came and started from, you know, a place of love and heartfelt interest, but it gets distorted, and all of a sudden, we have these mismatches of history that all propagated on Sikh forums that people adopted and started saying to people in real life, and all of a sudden, it became real life. Then, on the Sikh forums, it’s like, technically, art imitating life or something. I don’t know, there’s some sort of recursiveness in that nature.
Traditionally, Vaisakhi was like the harvest festival in Punjab, and then in 1699, the great Guru Gobind Singh Ji created the Khalsa, so it became a really big religious event for Sikhs. We have big Nagar Kirtans that are going to happen in the next few weeks, which are always fun with the family, man. I took the kids to the Gurdwara yesterday. All the Gurdwaras here were packed! Someone was commenting like, “Yo, I don’t think I remember Vaisakhi Gurdwara programs being this packed in the past.” There have been other programs like Diwali and Gurpurab, which get pretty rammed, but he’s like, “Vaisakhi, usually it’s the Nagar Kirtan thing they did that everyone shows up for, but not Vaisakhi itself.” Maybe because it happened on a Sunday that it all coincided, but it was beautiful to see, man. Our kids, we did Naam Simran at the Gurdwara close to us, which was their first time, and they had a blast seeing it all, man. It’s cool.
One of the things about Toronto is because the Sikh scene gets so big, like it’s all-encompassing. We’re all over the place, so now it’s kind of spread. I know it used to be like everyone reaches the same program, but now it’s so many Gurdwaras, everyone… I don’t know if I like that or not, but at the same time, it’s necessary because how the hell are you going to fit everybody at one place? Do I miss that small community feel, or is it just, you know, you got to go with the times? You got to appreciate that there’s just so much Sikh here that you need all these Gurdwaras, and they’re all packed. So, that’s all saying something positive and beautiful.
Anyways, man, hopefully, you guys had a dope ass Sunday and are ready to have a dope ass week and are ready to have a dope ass day! But hey, till the next one!
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