Punjab Doesn’t Have An Alcohol Problem, Just a Drug Problem…
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Activism, India, Musings, Pakistan, Punjab on 04 22nd, 2012 | 36 Comments
About ten years ago, I was in Amritsar, Punjab, visiting family and had been invited round for dinner at a relative’s house – a member of the Punjab Police. He told me about a man he had to have a stern talking to earlier that week, but did not arrest because it was a “family matter.” The man,...
Reprezent: Bollywood Does it Again with “I am Singh” and Trailer for South African “Material” Movie.
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Entertainment, Film, Humor, Media, Musings on 12 4th, 2011 | 3 Comments
My Mamaji, a very well known Punjabi writer in India, has penned loads of best-selling novels, won numerous awards, and has some incredible stories about his experience of being in the Indian Army during the 1980s, but he has never once written about 1984. Nothing. Not even a short-story. He has written...
Quiet and Loud Revolutions, Street Theater, and the Death of Sardar Gursharan Singh
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Activism, History, Human Rights, Punjab, Sikhi on 10 5th, 2011 | 8 Comments
Gursharan Singh at his home Guru Khalsa Niwas in Putli Ghar Amritsar. 1986 (photo by Amarjit Chandan)
During my last year of graduate school, we were reading “Lyrical Ballads,” for a seminar on British Poetry written by Wordsworth and Coleridge. This collection – published in 1798 – challenged...
Speedy Singhs/Breakaway Movie: A Thinking Man’s Fillam
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Canada, Entertainment, Film, General, History, Media, Musings on 09 28th, 2011 | 12 Comments
For the past few months, I have been inundated with information about the much-hyped Canadian-Bollywood venture, Speedy Singhs, also called Breakaway. As of September 3o, the film is available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and India.
It’s interesting to note that, in the comments to another post...
Strategies for Raising Multilingual and Bilingual Babies
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Education, General, Musings, Punjabi on 07 26th, 2011 | 31 Comments
There have been a few posts on TLH (link) that talk about the merits of having children exposed to other languages, but none that discuss actual strategies. So, I thought I’d add my thoughts on the subject.
Over the past month or so, our 18-month-old daughter, Kavya, has started connecting words to...
Sikh Women Speak Out on Faith and Feminism in NYC
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Activism on 06 13th, 2011 | 18 Comments
From left: Neesha Meminger, Tejpreet Kaur, Simran Kaur and Dr. Mathangi Subramanian
Last Thursday evening, I attended what was technically a panel, but ended up being an intimate discussion on a topic I never thought I would have willingly gone to: “Sikh Women Speak Out on Faith and Feminism.” Before...
The Digital Revolution for 1984?
Ajeet Singh Matharu (left) facilitating a class at Jakara 2009
Two years ago, I attended the 2009 Jakara Youth Conference with my wife, Sona Charaipotra, where the theme was “1984: Reflect. Respond. React.” Jakara has managed to do what many Sikh organizations, camps, and Gurdwaras have failed to...
Ding Dong, Osama bin Laden is Dead.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past three days, you’ve all heard the news: Osama bin Laden was killed in a hail of gunfire, his body buried at sea in a well orchestrated CIA operation over the weekend. Moments after the news was official, it was a very bitter sweet moment when...
Media and the Sikhs
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Education, Entertainment, General, Musings, Sikhi on 04 25th, 2011 | 21 Comments
In the 1990s (that seems so long ago!), I was a linguist and photographer for the U.S. Navy and the aircraft carrier I was on stopped for a few days in Romania. Me and a Nigerian friend decided to deboard our ship and go explore the town. Don’t worry, we didn’t get kidnapped and become reluctant...
Ik Si Chiri, Te Ik Si Kaan: The Slow Death of Punjabi Folktales
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Education, Entertainment, Literature, Punjab, Punjabi on 04 18th, 2011 | 6 Comments
My father reading to my daughter
I don’t know if telling stories is part of the DNA of Punjabis, but virtually every member of my immediate and extended family can spin a good yarn. From the educated to the uneducated, city folk to rural farming stock, all of them can take a mundane story and turn...
The Sikh Coalition Denounces the King Hearings and Stands Up for Human Rights
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Activism, Events, Featured Articles, Human Rights, Law, News on 03 16th, 2011 | 18 Comments
A week and a half ago I posted a blog entitled, Anti-Muslim Hate Comes to Orange County. In it, there was a video showing Muslims attending a fundraiser for homeless shelters being viciously screamed at by members of a local Tea Party group. Racial epithets and a horrific display of disrespect towards...
Anti Muslim Hate Comes to Orange County, California
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Activism, California, Featured Articles, General, Human Rights, Musings on 03 4th, 2011 | 75 Comments
The above video took place on February 13, 2011 in Orange County, California in protest of the ICNA, an American-Muslim Relief Organization, holding a fundraiser towards money for women’s shelters, homeless shelters, and other such terrorist activities. While it is disturbing that the incident took...
Sikh Turbans, Designer Dahris, Bollywood, and Salman Rushdie?
Posted by Navdeep Singh Dhillon in Bhangra, Education, Entertainment, Punjab, Sikhi on 02 13th, 2011 | 7 Comments
The Penguin Book of Indian Journeys
It’s been a couple of years since my wife and I returned from our six-month shoe-string budget backpacking trip (I am very romantic) through India. In every city we visited, from Srinagar in the North to Thiruvananthapuram in the South, we made utterly impractical...
