What Do You Want To Do With Your Life?
Author Richard Florida identifies three questions that each of us struggle with over the course of our lives.
1) What do I do with my life?
2) Who do I spend my life with?
3) Where do I want to live?
Obviously, all three are interrelated in many ways but for most of us growing up in North America the...
Canadian Election 2011 Analysis: On Context, Comments, and Critiques
And I was worried that no one was going to read my post J.
Over the past week, I’ve read through all the comments in detail and have had many conversations with people in person. The dialogue has been supportive as well as critical, eye opening, challenging but most importantly always respectful....
UPDATE: Canadian Election 2011 Analysis – Sikhs: Kingmakers in Our Own Mind
UPDATED: Picture added on bottom.
UPDATED 5/11 – Maple Leaf Sikhs responds! View here!
My fellow Sikh-Canadians, its the morning after the big party. How does it feel? You must be a little hung over? Why wouldn’t you be? You’ve been drunk on power over the last 5 weeks. You’ve had every...
One Step Forward
We often lament the state of our gurdwaras but we should just as often stop and think about how much we have accomplished.
Tonight I had a chance to visit the famous Ontario Khalsa Darbar (aka Dixie) Gurdwara in Mississauga/Brampton, Ontario. On a frigid Friday night in December, the place was packed...
Sikhi Sidak Na Javai – Bhai Taru Singh Reviewed
Posted by Maple Leaf Sikh in Film on 10 17th, 2009 | 17 Comments
Bhai Taru Singh
Sir Javai Te Javai, Mera Sikhi Sidak Na Javai
If I lose my head, so be it. But I must not lose my Sikhi.
After 16 months of tremendous effort and hundreds of thousands of dollars in spend, the Vismaad team brings us their fourth animated Sikh film, Bhai Taru Singh. We’ve blogged...
Every Time We’ve Had Our Babies, People Have Almost… Commiserated
Toronto Star reporter Raveena Aulakh, posing as an expectant mother, is handed bags of pills in an industrial area in Mississauga by Kanwar Bains, news editor of a Punjabi-language newspaper.
Just in case the rest of the world didn’t know what a sorry state Punjab was in with respect to its gender...
Who needs Spiderman when I have Bhai Taru Singh?
babania kehania put saput karaen ||
The stories of one’s ancestors make the children good children.
(Guru Amar Das, Raag Raamkalee, Page 951 of Guru Granth Sahib)
The American writer Muriel Rukeyser once said that the universe is made up, not of atoms, but of stories. This especially holds true...
Why We Remember 1984
Posted by Reema in Sikhi on 06 9th, 2009 | 93 Comments
Joint post by Mapleleaf Sikh, Sundari, Jodha, Camille, Phulkari, RP Singh, Reema
It has been 25 years and we remember.
On this day we remember; in this week we remember; in this month we remember; in this year we remember. On June 6th we stopped to remember the recent chapter in the history of the Sikhs.
When...
When Lions Roar: The Kids Are Going To Be Alright
Posted by Maple Leaf Sikh in Activism, Art, Canada, Events, Human Rights, Law, Media, Music, Sikhi on 06 7th, 2009 | 15 Comments
It is often said that a revolution begins not with the sword but with the pen. However, last Friday night in a packed banquet hall in the Toronto suburb of Malton, I witnessed a revolution begin with the microphone.
At an event entitled “When Lions Roar”, fantastically organized by the Sikh...
Sikhi by fear, guilt or love?
Posted by Maple Leaf Sikh in Canada, Education, Film, Literature, Media, Music, Sikhi on 05 26th, 2009 | 31 Comments
Please upgrade your browser
He locked the washroom door, unravelled the nine-metre turban, took a pair of scissors and started cutting. Ten minutes later, three feet of hair lay in a pile and Charanbir Singh sat down and cried.
Outside, his parents and grandmother were in tears. Two friends persuaded...
Lose you turban and I’m outta here
The crisis of Sikh identity was once described to me in very simple terms; most Sikh males no longer want to look like Sardars and most Sikh girls don’t want to marry Sardars. In fact, I distinctly remember several Sikh guys that I went to school cutting their hair for the simple reason of “getting...
Enjoy The Show But Leave Your Kirpan At Home
Posted by Maple Leaf Sikh in Bhangra, Entertainment, Europe, General, Human Rights, Law, Musings, UK on 05 4th, 2009 | 98 Comments
Vaisakhi in the diaspora usually brings two things to those living in cities with large Sikh communities: Nagar Kirtans and Vaisakhi concerts. Unfortunately, if you were an Amritdhari Sikh in London this year and you wanted to partake in both, you would have been out of luck. Tickets for the recent...
Sikhs Sing National Anthems at Raptors Vaisakhi Game
Its been a good year so far for Sikhs and Canadian sports. First, we’ve had NHL regular season and playoff games broadcast in Punjabi. We’ve also the first NBA game broadcast in Punjabi. And this year, at the annual Vaisakhi game for the Toronto Raptors, four good looking Sardars sang the...
Blame Canada(‘s Sikhs)
Canada’s problem with its Sikh minority should be of concern to Americans not just because Vancouver borders on the US, but for the broader lessons this story of ethnic conflict teaches. When a country imports an alien population, it often brings in all of the conflicts that bedeviled the immigrants...
India’s Shoot-Out Cops
Posted by Maple Leaf Sikh in Activism, General, Human Rights, India, Law, Punjab on 02 15th, 2009 | 30 Comments
We recently posted on Ensaaf’s new report that studies the all too common practice of extra-judicial killings (usually referred to as ‘encounters’) and the mass cremations that followed by the Punjab police forces during the 1980s and 1990s. Well it looks like these practices were...
The Power of Toy Planes
Posted by Maple Leaf Sikh in Humor, India, News, Picture of the Day, Punjab on 02 6th, 2009 | 13 Comments
Stuck in Punjab? Want to go abroad? Just buy an airplane.
Not a real one of course, that would be silly. A toy plane will do. Buy one, donate it to a gurdwara and wait. All your vilaiti dreams will soon come true. If you think I’m pulling your leg, just ask the people at Tihan gurdwara near Jalandhar....
She Was The Ticket To A Better Life
Posted by Maple Leaf Sikh in Canada, Economy, India, Law, Punjab, Punjabi on 02 4th, 2009 | 227 Comments
Pawandeep holds a framed photo of her sister. In the photo, Amandeep is wearing a pink salwar-kameez, a Punjabi dress. “She dreamed of a better life for herself and her family. All she wanted was to live happily with her husband and son like any other woman.”
I don’t even know where...
Sikh Raptors Fan Gets Roughed Up By Security At Toronto’s Air Canada Centre
Just when you think that everything is hunky-dory for Sikhs in Canada, you hear of an incident like this that makes your cringe. Here’s a first-hand account of an incident that took place at the Toronto Raptors game last Friday night.
My brother, Gagandeep Singh Saluja and I, Simran Kaur Saluja...
Trafficking In False Promises
Today’s Toronto Star has another article on the sad but all too frequent cases of immigration fraud. In this case, a Sikh family was swindled out of tens of thousands of dollars but a crook that promised the son a $450 a week job as a cook in a Toronto hotel.
One morning in February 2007, Harvinder...
Turbans and The Home Depot
A Sikh gentleman has been involved in a Ontario Human Rights Tribunal matter relating to alleged discrimination against him for wearing a turban at work.
The case centers around treatment that this gentleman received at the hands of a Home Depot employee while posted by a third party security company...
