Pashaura Singh Dhillon

Dr. Mamta Joshi Live in Concert

Dr. Mamta Joshi, a Sufi singer with a Ph.D. in music, contacted me through FaceBook after listening to my poem “Umber Di Shehzadi: To the Princess of the Skies” set to images and my voice on the you tube. She is a young woman with a lot of passion and tremendous talent. She wanted to sing my poem at her upcoming concert in Surrey, Canada on October 10, 2010.  As many of you know, I have no classical training in singing, so I am very excited to see, how Dr. Mamta Joshi brings out the soul of a poem I wrote 41 years ago, with Sufi Music.

I am constantly amazed at just how small the world keeps getting. I wrote “Umber Di Shehzadi“ 41 years ago, when I guess the world was still too large and communication not so fast. The poem was published in Punjabi magazines and newspapers and I sang it amongst friends, certain party gatherings and local functions. It was only recently when my son Navdeep Singh Dhillon, a NYC based writer and English instructor, helped me to modernize the poem by creating Moving Images: setting the original poetry to images and my voice (as well as translating it into English), which we then posted on the you tube (subscribe to my you tube channel)

Although I received numerous phone calls, emails, as well as wonderful comments on the you tube worldwide, the world really started to get smaller when this happened:  Devinder Singh Saroya, Director North Zone Cultural Center (NZCC), Ministry of Culture Government of India, who shares an interest in other cultures, art, lalit kala, human rights, and happens to be from the same area of India I am from, found me because of this you tube video. He wrote this on my face book a couple months ago, “It is a pleasant surprise that human beings like S. Pashaura Singh Dhillon with such pious feelings and universal appeal can be found on Planet Earth in our times! Discovered him today from the page of an intellectual who in turn was found by sheer chance after two decades… “(Courtesy FB Suggestions).

And somehow, Mamta Joshi, the rising Sufi Maestro herself came to know of it. I still don’t know how she found me. I was logged onto face book one day and Dr. Mamta Joshi got hold of me in the chat box one night, a place I didn’t know even existed before she approached me to chat! During the conversation, she told me that she had watched my poem on the you tube and hadn’t seen anything like it before. “The poetry is so close to my heart,” she said before asking if she could have my permission to sing “Umber Di Shehzadi“ with classical taans for her forthcoming concert in Canada.”  I am very selective sharing my poetry, but for some reason, I immediately gave Mamta Joshi permission. Perhaps it was her enthusiasm or the way she spoke about music and poetry that gave me the confidence to let her have a go at a poem I have held in my heart for over 40 years.  I was immediately impressed and even more confident of my decision as soon as I heard her sing on the youtube. In addition to videos on you tube,  she has performed at venues all over India and abroad, with many articles written about her in various newspapers.

SD Sharma, a reporter for the Chandigarh Tribune writes about Mamta Joshi, a young lady passionate and learned in Sufi music. He writes, “Blissfully unaware of the lyrical connotations and deep philosophical and spiritual content of songs, child prodigy Mamta preferred to sing Heer Waris or the utterances of Bulleh Shah and other Sufi saints while her class mates relished popular filmy songs at her school functions at Jalalabad in Punjab. As ordained, Mamta kept achieving excellence in the realm of folk, classical and sufi  music in academics and performances. She was rightly hailed as a golden girl at the GNDU (Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar), winning six gold and silver medals each in various national music competitions. She also won the HRD (Human Resource Development) ministry (Govt. of India) scholarship of Rs. 50,000.”

Dr. Mamta Joshi, Canada Tour

In addition to holding a doctorate in Indian classical and vocal music, she also has a gold medal in her MA (Music) and a silver medal in MA (Kathak dance). SD Sharma continues, “Mamta Joshi emerged as a female sufi singer of eminence. After hearing her, acclaimed sufi maestros Wadali brothers Padamshri Puran Chand and Pyare Lal blessed and extolled in their inimitable style saying ‘If Pakistan has Abida Praveen, we have Mamta Joshi to emulate after she attains that age and experience.’ The prophecy proved true as Mamta Joshi became the first Indian female sufi singer to give solo performance of Sufiana qalams at the India Nehru Centre, London in June 2006. She repeated her tradition of excellence to perform at the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Hall later. Earlier, as student artiste she toured UK under Heritage cultural exchange programme giving live performances in Glasgow, Wales, Chester, Cardiff, and Ludlow Castle in 2003 . “The exposure was a good learning experience. I remember that my recital of ornate sufi poetry enlivened the Shiv Kumar Nite at Birmingham in Septmber of 2008,” claims Mamta. Decorated with prestigious awards by legends like Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai, Amrish Puri and Indian High Commissioner in London, Mamta still has her feet firmly rooted to the ground. Mamta owes all the credit to her guru Arun Mishra ji for imparting the best nuances of music and DS Saroya for her promotion in the realm of musical arts”.

And now Dr. Mamta Joshi is going to pay a tribute to “Umber Di Shehzadi“ after 41 years of waiting, bringing out its grandeur and soul with Sufi Music. Her first concert is scheduled in Surrey, Canada on October 10, 2010. Mamta wants me to be there so that she and her husband Chetan could meet me and ask how I decided to write ‘Umber di Shehzadi.’ I am still debating if I should cross the Canadian border!

Sikh Pioneers at Stockton Sikh Temple, 1912

Although the Sikhs have lived in the United States for over a century, many people are still unaware of who the Sikhs really are and where they originally come from. Following the 9/11 attacks, many Sikhs were targeted in cases of mistakenly identity; Sikh children continue to be harassed and bullied both during and outside of school hours. And the reason is not because of any ill will, but ignorance. People simply don’t know who the Sikhs are. And the reasons appear to be a lack of public education and media awareness in our multiethnic and multicultural society. And even within the Sikh Community, our own self created illusions and pre-occupations with non-issues made to be major issues have all coalesced and resulted in being detrimental to the Sikhs as a community. Because of our internal bickering, there has not even been a mention of Sikhi or Sikhism in the California school books although it is now the 5th largest religion in the world and almost 200,000 Sikhs made California their home by making valuable contributions right from serving in the American Armed forces, farming fields, and everything else in between for over a century now. Having said that, there have been many Sikh organizations who have made strides to educate people about Sikhs, but the point I am making is that we all need to join forces and do what is best for the Sikh Community as a whole.

Along with many other individuals and Sikh organizations, I have been working with the Sikh Council of Central California (SCCC) to set the records straight in the school curriculums and content standards which ensures inclusion in the classrooms. The Yuba city Sikh Community, for example, has been paving the way in getting Punjabi classes started in their school districts and also getting the legislation to pass the resolution to make November 2010 Sikh American Awareness and Appreciation Month starting in California. Under the leadership of some selfless individuals and with the support of the Sikh community, I am delighted to report that this endeavor is bearing fruit on both of these fronts.

While the November 2010 Sikh American Awareness and Appreciation Month is great news for the Sikh Community, November is just around the corner and there is a special message for the American Sikh community: Unite and create awareness of who the Sikhs are in your respective communities. Also, please listen to KBIF 900 AM this Sunday to listen to Dr. Jasbir Singh Kang, M.D. of Yuba city’s interview with Punjab News and Views.

A friend of mine, former professor and alumni of U.C. Berkeley- Dr. Onkar Singh Bindra – just sent me the details of resolution No. 181 (California Sikh American Awareness and Appreciation Month), introduced on August 2, 2010 by Assembly Member Daniel R. Logue, at the request of Marysville-Yuba City Sikhs. Remember to pass along the message of who the Sikhs are through your words and most importantly, through your actions:

November 2010 Has Been Designated Sikh Awareness & Appreciation Month in California.
Written by Dr. Onkar Singh Bindra

California legislature has unanimously approved the Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 181 (California Sikh American Awareness and Appreciation Month). Introduced on August 2, 2010 by Assembly Member Daniel R. Logue, at the request of Marysville-Yuba City Sikhs, it designates November 2010 as California Sikh American Awareness and Appreciation Month. His press release in appealdemocrat.com states, “This is the first time in state history that Sikhs are receiving recognition for their outstanding contributions to California. He added, “month’s designation should serve to honor one of the state’s notable and accomplished communities.”

Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate thereof concurring, the resolution reads “ That the Legislature hereby designates the month of November 2010 to be California Sikh American Awareness and Appreciation Month; and be it further Resolved, That the Legislature recognizes and acknowledges the significant contributions made by Californians of Sikh heritage to our state, and by adoption of this resolution, seeks to afford all Californians the opportunity to better understand, recognize, and appreciate the rich history and shared principles of Sikh Americans, their monotheistic religion and the tenets of their faith, and the important role that Sikh Americans play in furthering mutual understanding and respect among all peoples; and be it further Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution to the Members of the Legislature, members of the California Sikh American community, and other interested persons.”

The resolution, it is hoped, “would recognize and acknowledge the significant contributions made by Californians of Sikh heritage to California and afford all Californians the opportunity to understand, recognize, and appreciate the rich history, shared principles, religion, faith, and role Sikh Americans play in furthering mutual understanding and respect among all peoples.”

The following provided a justification for the resolution.

1. California and our nation are at once blessed and enriched by the unparalleled diversity of our residents;
2. Among this unprecedented diversity in California, there reside an estimated 200,000 Americans of Sikh origin, comprising nearly 40 percent of the nation’s estimated Sikh population;
3. Sikh immigrants have resided in California for more than a century, with the first Sikh immigrants believed to have labored on railroad construction projects, in lumber mills, and in the agricultural heartlands of the Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Imperial Valleys;
4. The first Sikh temple (Gurdwara) in California was established in Stockton in 1912, and Sikh temples have since been established in communities throughout California;
5. While Sikh Americans have distinguished themselves in numerous areas of endeavor, they have demonstrated particular success in the areas of agriculture, trucking, medicine, and in the creation of small, family-owned businesses;
6. Yuba City, California, boasts the largest population one of the largest confirmed populations of Sikh and Punjabi Americans in the nation;
7. Dalip Singh Saund was the first Sikh American and Asian American member of the United States Congress;
8. Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind struggled and fought for Asian Indians to be allowed to become American citizens;
9. Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany of Palo Alto is acknowledged by many to be the father of fiber optics;
10. Sikh Americans have served as mayors of California cities, including David Dhillon in El Centro, Gurpal Samra in Livingston, Amarpreet “Ruby” Dhaliwal in San Joaquin, and Kashmir Singh Gill in Yuba City, and numerous Sikh Americans have served as council members of California cities;
11. The Sikh and Punjabi American communities of California continue to make important contributions to our state and nation;
12. Sikh Americans City throughout California celebrates the coronation day of Sikh Scripture as Guru Gaddi Divas, along with parades in cities across California, the largest being held in Yuba City on the first Sunday of every November.

There is not much time left before November 2010. I urge all Sikh organizations in California (Gurdwara Managements, Cultural Associations, Sikh Students Associations in California, Jakara, Sikh Foundation, SALDEF, Sikh Coalition, United Sikhs, World Sikh Council – America Region (WSC-AR), Punjabi American Heritage Society (PAHS), Sikh Council of Central California (SCCC), KBIF900AM PunjabNewsandViews other Sikh organizations, and Sikh intellectuals to consider it their duty to arrange functions for awareness and appreciation of Sikhs in November 2010 throughout California. Museums, Libraries, School Districts and Media (TV, radio, print media, internet media – Blogs, twitter, Facebook) can all help. I recommend the use of PBS Sikh videos like “Meet the Sikhs”, “Sikhs in America”, and “A Dream in Doubt” etc., and Kaur Foundation’s “Cultural Safari”. Further, we need to hold open houses, exhibitions, seminars etc. and invite neighbors and teachers, and to hold teacher appreciation functions.  Furthermore, we must participate in Veterans Day Parade on Nov. 11 (Displaying a life-size picture of Bhagat Singh Thind, when he was in the United States army during WWI) and in other neighborhood parades, and distribute a brief leaflet about Sikh identity, religion, culture and history in California.

I am not aware if each kahani has a kavita behind it, but each kavita appears to have something to do with some kind of a kahani. Below is the Moving Image of “Umber Di Shehzadi de Naa: To the Princess of the Skies,” a kavita I wrote 41 years ago and which I recently set to images and my voice. This is the story of that kavita.

I first came up with the idea for Umber Di Shehzadi during the dead of the night in the rented front room of BDO, a friend and class fellow from Khalsa College, Amritsar, who was living in Southall, London.

Khalsa College, Amritsar

There were about half a dozen of us, all classmates from the same year of Khalsa College Amritsar, who by the quirk of fate immigrated to the UK in a span of a year or two of each other during the late 1960s. We all found our first jobs in factories or bakeries. And we were all single. That meant that over the weekends, we had no other obligations, and would often get together at each other’s  rented one-room accomodation. (none of us, fresh arrivals from India, owned homes yet).

That particular evening, we were all there to witness a historic moment: to watch the first human walk on the Moon. The Apollo 11 space flight landed the first humans on Earth’s Moon on July 20, 1969. The mission, carried out by the United States, was considered a major accomplishment in the history of exploration and represented a victory by the U.S. in the Cold War Space Race with the Soviet Union.

BDO’s real name was Surain Singh Sandhu belonging to Dibbi pura, a village on the border of Pakistan in district Amritsar, but we all called him BDO because before moving to England, he used to work as a Block Development Officer in Punjab. And this designation stuck (and he liked it) even though, after moving to England, he worked as a machine man in a factory making steel ropes for the shipyards in Middlesex and then as a postman in the main  Post office in London.

On this special evening, BDO entertained us with a deliciously cooked chicken served with English Cream Sherry and as usual his Punjabi landlady prepared the rotis for us. Wise desi landladies in those days used to let us single people cook our own daal, sabzi, and meat, but would not trust us with making rotis in the shared kitchen. They would politely offer to make and supply rotis free of charge because as much as we thought we were quite the experts in the kitchen now, we would make such a mess by spilling and spreading wheat flour all over the shared kitchen during kneading the dough. So they figured it took the same amount of effort to cook the rotis as it did to clean it all up later, especially from the hidden spaces around the cooking area.

As we sat glued to the BBC, an announcement came on telling us that the program would be delayed by a few hours from the time originally stated by the U.S. network, CBS News. We tried unsuccessfully to take a little nap in between, but remained very excited as the moment began to move closer to midnight, the expected landing time in London.

Neil Steps on the Moon

When it finally came on the television screen, we were mesmerized and hung on every word: Launched from Florida on July 16, the third Lunar Mission of NASA’s Apollo Program was crewed by Commander Neil Arden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the spot they named ‘Sea of Tranquility’. Identifying themselves as having landed at the newly made up name ‘Sea of Tranquility’ Neil Armstrong baffled the CBS News broadcaster back in the USA momentarily, who I think was Walter Cronkite, before he could fully comprehend what was going on. From a small one-room apartment in Southall, my friends and class fellows of Khalsa College, Amritsar and I watched Armstrong and Aldrin become the first humans to land and walk on the Moon. The magnanimity of what we had just seen is still fresh in my mind.

As soon as their space ship, “Eagle” touched down, we sat there speechless. Then we saw Neil Armstrong setting his first footsteps on the moon’s surface, the ‘Sea of Tranquility’. I wasn’t sure how everyone else felt about this electrifying moment as they watched this with jaws dropped; for me however, I was in a different universe now. It was a bigger magic or miracle than any religious or non religious stories tell us about our respective belief systems and which the respective followers may or may not fully believe. But this spectacle was the mother of all miracles, no less divine to say the least, as it was for the whole mankind to see for themselves what was happening before their very eyes.

This was kind of like a new religion which transformed my human experience enabling me to see and feel the universe in a different way. This was a miracle which no one, believer or non believer could deny had occurred.

Planting the U.S. Flag on the Moon

For a moment I forgot that Armstrong and Aldrin were busy collecting the soil samples, noting down the size and colors of the strewn off rocks and planting the American flag staff into the Moon’s surface in haste, in case the mission’s landing there was cut short for whatever reasons and the crew was ordered to return to Earth immediately.

The poet in me was looking beyond what we were seeing. In my mind’s eye, I was seeing a proverbial fairy tale . A magnificently beautiful magical fort like palace standing proud amidst this ‘Sea of Tranquility,’ where the human from the Earth has just landed. In this appearing and disappearing whimsical palace, living all by herself is the Earth’s sister, the untouched virgin Princess of the Planetary system who I called ‘Umber di Shehzadi’ (Princess of the Skies). Man has never asked for permission from the places or, in this case, the planet it wants to colonize. But if he did, I imagined what the Earth would tell her sister, the Moon, about the Man who had come to her planet.

The human from Earth walks to the palace and knocks at the palace doors. Soon the princess answers the door and gets wonder struck by what she sees standing in the door before her. Himself dazzled by her serenity and indescribable beauty, the human falters momentarily. Controlling himself the very next moment, he wastes no time in seeing her dilemma of being uncomfortable by his unannounced tresspassing and his completely camouflaged strangers’ looks. Before the door slams shut in his face, he quickly hands her the letter of introduction, which he takes with him as a sealed reference written by her planetary sister Earth; Written on the condition that only the princess and not the human should break open the seal to read it.

It was as powerful a moment as it was divine. The moment was a spectacle equivalent of imagining the Big Bang only in reverse. In millions of years, the violently separated planet Earth, for the first time had made contact back with one of its other planetary family members, describing her own fate as well as inquiring the wellbeing of others through a human!

In a far fetched and strange sort of way, in my heart it felt as though this was also about me. I had left my mother and my motherland, perhaps feeling the same way, behind in India. Looking for greener pastures, I had just landed here in England. A far distant strange land.
The princess, Umber di Shehzadi holds the letter in her delicate fingers, breaks open the seal and reads the letter silently to herself.

I was invited to share a poem I wrote at the closing banquet of Jakara Movement. Jakara began in 2000 with a mission to call the next generation of Sikhs from all places, backgrounds and points of view to reflect on their past and prepare for the future. In 2009, they came together as the next generation of Sikhs to continue the process of empowering, engaging , and educating the Sikh community.

They came together to commemorate the 1984 government attack on the Golden Temple Complex, and the “riots” in Delhi. At the same time and in another country, there were a series of seminars and papers being presented by other Sikh scholars at the University of Ottawa and elsewhere in Canada.

Without its meaningful closure, where a deliberate genocide of the Sikhs by another community was portrayed and allowed to be passed as a simple riot, this is how painful its legacy still is even after 25 years of its happening. A well known Psychologist Sudhir Kakkar described the 1984 attack on the Golden Temple Complex as a ‘Great Shock’ to the Sikh psyche. A Great Shock as he describes it may be summarized as a major happening which reminds one section of people the helplessness against the atrocities committed in a selective way by another. The psychological impact of this Great Shock impinges on the collective identity of that section and that Great Shock comes alive again and again. In spite of all these atrocities and excesses, the memories of preserving and reasserting itself in such difficult times, fosters kinship and makes that section stronger. This is what I saw that day in Jakara at Fresno and also as being reported from Canada and elsewhere, wherever the Sikhs reside in the new global community.

I thought that 9/11 and its aftermath was telling humanity that big or small, a sword alone cannot protect you in this day and age. September 11, 2001 took place in New York, and 10,000 miles away Operation Blue Star happened in Amritsar, 1984. These tragedies are not restricted to any specific nation, religion, or ethnicity. Although in different countries, in different contexts and at different times, at their core, these are human rights issues. These are common issues.

Kanwar Anit Singh Saini (Sikh Knowledge) and Kanwar Singh (Humble the Poet), two Canadian rappers and participants of 2009’s Jakara said it best. “1984 is all around us. It is happening in Rwanda. It is happening in Palestine. We should try to find connections with people who are also victims because then the minority becomes the majority.”

But I was not there to repeat what had already been reported or was going to be reported on this subject. As a poet I wanted to invite them to a different plane, whereby they not only take the message of what happened to the Sikhs 25 years ago but also what is happening all around the world today and how it relates to us all. A big picture where these compounded atrocities and excesses not only of humans on humans that are happening everyday but also collectively of humans on this planet Earth, which threatens its very survival. The victim of human’s inhumanity the Earth pleads with the princess of the Skies whose domain the fugitive from Earth is now so impatient to intrude. Without further adieu, here is “Umber Di Shehzadi De Naa: To the Princess of the Skies” :