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What should everyone know about Sardars (Punjabi Sikhs)?
Answer by Gurjot Sidhu:
Alright I will do this. I didn’t wish to, but anyway, here it is. I am gonna do it in a Stereotypes and Myths style if you don’t mind.
Background
Sikhism is the “latest” of all religions in the world, coming into proper existence only in 1699 after the tenth Guru formally established the Khalsa Panth. Sikhism is NOT the amalgamation or “lite” version of Hinduism and Islam.
Sardar, no englees, no engleesh.
The fact that I am writing this answer in English should blow this myth apart into smithereens.
Some true stereotypes.
- Sardars are fun loving, happy-go-lucky people. I may have denied it before but it is true. It just runs in our blood or something.
- Sardars are proudy proudy people. We kinda are, though we are jealousy jealousy people too.
- Sardars can Bhangra on just about anything. Yes. Yes, we can. We can even dance to the sounds of a generator.
- Sardars are brave. Matter of fact, we are. I wasn’t a brave child (which should be evident from the attached picture below), but as I have grown I have become way more bolder and braver than I ever was. You don’t mess with ze sardar!
- Sardars are loud. YES WE ARE.
- Sardars love food. Aaloo de praunthe, rajmah-chawal, butter chicken. Yumm.
- Yes our names follow this matrix.
Courtey- Rajesh Gupta
- Sardars (or Punjabis) are overtaking Ontario, Canada. Recently Toronto’s first Punjabi Film Festival took place, the anthem? “Saada Punjab Ontario”. (translates to - “Ontario is our Punjab.”)
- We like to make fun of ourselves. (but have double-standards on this)
- We are romantic. I think we are, maybe.. Although we have pretty unconventional ways of expressing our love.
- We all want to go ‘baahr’ (out). You see in Punjab ‘out’ means abroad. So yes almost every one of us wants to go ‘out’. (See factoid 8 above)
Now for some myth-busting.
Firstly, Punjabi is NOT equal to Sardar/Sikh. Punjabis are people who live in the Indian political state of Punjab and Sardars and Sikhs are the followers of the religious sect Sikhism.
Let’s begin.
Myth 1: Sikhs are very religious and are a martial race who are all trained in one-on-one combat.
The best part about Sikhism was that it actively abolished all prevalent nonsensical beliefs and practices like the Sati practice, Fasting etc and it also vehemently broke the Muslim hegemony prevalent in Northern India at the time. They are not meant to engage in any illogical practices. Sikhs are ideally meant to be “saint soldiers” or badass - not withstanding any unjust oppression both on self and others.
The reality
Nah. We aren’t any of that. That’s all too idealistic. We are barely human just like any one else from any other religion. We are meant to do a lot of stuff but we don’t. Of course I am being all too unjust here, there are a lot of Sikhs who sing their prayers and go to the Gurudawara and engage in all other religious activities. We are not all martially trained to fight as a cavalry troop. The only real badass ideal Sikhs are the Nihang Sikhs. As for the illogical practices part, oh we do a LOT of them, despite what our scriptures ask us to, we still do it. I guess it’s human nature.
But of course we are badass at times, like this -
Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh
Myth 2: Sardars are tall and strong and they work in fields all day. They like to beat up random people because they are angry young men.
Ideal sardar
The reality
That is me, 7 years old. I still look the same. No we are not all “hatta katta”.
Yes we do all work in fields, like Science, Literature, Politics, Sports, Economics, Military, Agriculture etc.
Although the angry young men part which most Punjabi songs dictate these days is half-true. But I blame these very songs for this mess up.
Myth 3: Sardars are dumb dumb people.
They are those kids who wear the dunce caps in class.
The reality
Three words - go fuck yourself.
Your broadband runs today because of a sardar - Narinder Singh Kapany. India’s most badass journalist ever is a sardar - Khushwant Singh. India’s most badass Economist is a sardar - Manmohan Singh. The only officer of the Indian Air Force to be promoted to a five-star rank is a sardar - Air Chief Marshall Arjan Singh. India’s best athlete ever is a sardar - Milkha Singh. Owner of India’s top drug making company, Ranbaxy, is a sardar - Shivinder Mohan Singh. World’s oldest and most badass marathon runner is a sardar - Fauja Singh.
Just stop being stupid.
Myth 4: (for you Non-Indians reading this) Turban = Sardars = Muslims = Middle-East = Terrorists = Jihad = 9/11 = Everything wrong in this world
The reality
Sikh
Middle Eastern guy
Muslim
Osama
NOT SAME
Myth 5: Sardars live on Makki di roti, Sarson da saag and Lassi
This
The reality
No matter how tasty that might be, no we don’t live on that. We like other vegetables, pizza, pasta, Thai food and Chinese food as much as you do.
And uh saag is a winter food. Seasonal vegetables, heard of them?
Myth 6: Sikhs don’t eat meat or smoke or drink alcohol.
The reality
Eh heh heh. Like I said, we are humans, just like you. Rum, Butter Chicken, Whiskey are all staple diets in Punjab. But please don’t generalize this, there are a lot of folks who don’t do any of this stuff.
Myth 7: Bhagat Singh was the most badass Sikh of recent times.
The reality
Bhagat Singh was an anarchist and an atheist. He was born in a Sikh family but did not identify himself as a Sikh.
Myth 8: ‘Sardar ke 12 baj gaye’ is a joke which came into existence because Sardars are potatoes.
The reality
When Muslims ruled Northern India they would abduct Hindu women and girls and use them. Sikhs would raid Muslim strongholds in the middle of the night and bring these kidnapped women back to safety. Which led to Muslim women asking their kids to go bed ‘or the Sardars will come.’ You know, to scare them.
This is where this joke comes from. All Sardars find it offensive. (except me, I find it very funny and interesting how things lose their actual meaning over time)
I thought maybe I had add a bit or two about some general things relating to Punjab too. Hope you don’t mind.
Myth: Punjab is a land full of farms and dhabas (where Sardars do stuff from Myth 2 above)
Perceived image of Punjab.
The reality
Wrong, sir. Punjab is a majority semi-urban land. Of course there are farms and dhabas but they are not everywhere. Go visit Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala, Jagraon, Ferozepur or Bhatinda and you’ll see. We’ve got (potential) Asia’s largest city center (shopping complex types) in Ludhiana for Chris’ sake! (The fact that it hasn’t gotten constructed due to a pending lawsuit against the former Chief Minister is a different matter)
Myth: If your surname is Sidhu then you are a relative of Navjot Singh Sidhu.
The reality
I could go into deep details here, but no, we aren’t all related like that. However, if you go back a few generations we probably (almost surely) are. Stands true for almost all surnames.
Myth: Every Sardar from Punjab is a Jatt.
The reality
No. Wrong. Very wrong. I won’t go into deep details because it could hurt sentiments but I will leave you with a little knowledge. Jatts are immensely proud of their Jatt-ness. It’s a runs in the blood thing - I am too. They get a little condescending towards other Sardars however - I do too.
If you want to know more about this, PM me.
Will add more, later.
View Answer on Quora
Will you voluntarily and happily accept a rape victim as your spouse?
Answer by Anonymous:
I have married a MAN who was raped. And not as a child.
I married my husband after we dated for about 5 years. We spent a lot of time together and I knew he was the man for me. My parents liked him a lot and his parents too liked me. Since our college days I used to go to his home and he to mine.
After dating and being serious for 4 years, it was I who picked up the topic of marriage. I never thought that he would hesitate, so when he did, I was shocked.
I imagined everything possible. Has he liked someone else? Has he lost interest? Was he just playing with me? Blah Blah Blah.. I pressed him a lot and after a while I gave him an ultimatum.
I told him either he would marry me, or break up. I don’t want things to be hanging loose.
That is when finally he told me something he had not told anyone. He called me to his place when his parents were out of town and broke down.
That was the most sad moment of my life. I discovered the pain my love had gone through and hadn’t told anyone. What is worse, he thought that definitely after hearing this I would break up. So, to break up on an honest note because he owed me that, he told me.
Before coming to city to attend college for higher studies, my husband had done his graduation in his hometown. That time we didn’t know each other. He must have been around 20.
Once when he had gone to a village fair with his relatives, some of the men thought of staying there over night. My husband was forced to stay with them for the men’s party. He was very reluctant because he neither smoked, nor drank nor stayed up late in the night. Apparently, after spending some time with his uncles and others, he went off to sleep on his bed. This bed was on the fair ground in open air. As it was the last day of the fair, most of the troop went off to adjoining villages.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, my husband’s uncle, and his two other friends sneaked up to his bed and beat him up. After that they raped him and left him in a ditch nearby. He managed to get up in the morning, and go to his house. He did not tell his parents about the rape but told them that he had been robed. There was a police complaint lodged for robbery but nothing came out of it.
After that time, my husband spent a few days thinking of nothing but revenge.
But fate had something else in store.
The same three people who had raped him died in a truck accident.
To this day, my husband thanks god because he says that god didn’t want him to do a crime.
Anyway, after listening to him, I felt very very sorry. But even once I didn’t hesitate about marrying him. In my mind, he was the man for me and no other, whatever happened. But he wasn’t sure. He said that if not the physical wounds, after that incident, he wasn’t the same man. In fact, he said that he felt less like a man because he couldn’t even protect himself let alone protecting me.
That was the time I realised how primitive our definition of MAN was!
I advised him to see a psychologist. In our case, thankfully he was a mutual friend we both could trust.
My husband did see him and has been reading a lot of self help books. After I convinced him that his story had not affected me in any way, he agreed to marry.
Both my parents and his parents were very happy with our union. But to me it did not feel right to marry him without telling my parents about it.
The reason was simple. If they came to know somehow, and if they changed their behaviour towards my husband, neither he nor I would be able to take it.
When I told my husband that before marriage I wanted to tell this to my parents, he was very uncomfortable. He opposed for a long time. After a lot of discussion with me and our shrink, he agreed. But he made it clear that he wouldn’t tell his parents. I told him that decision was his and I would support him.
My parents reacted in the most mature of ways thankfully! They told my husband that they loved him as a son in law and couldn’t care less about his past! They also advised him to forget about it as there are both good and bad experiences in life and one has to move on. This has created a very special bond between my parents and my husband. My father truly believes that my husband is the son he never had!
My husband in turn thanks them because he didn’t think his parents would be able to digest such a thing and move on. He also thanks them for not pitying him. Rather, he feels happy that this sad thing that happened to him never comes up in their minds while interacting with each other.
We have been married for 2 years and are now expecting our first child!
The thing that we have learnt from this experience is that rape is not only about women. It is about asserting your dominance over a physically weaker person.
A rapist does not look for attractiveness in his victim. HE is only looking for a hole (pardon my language, but it is the truth).
View Answer on Quora
How do succesful people stay productive working long hours?
Answer by Richard Tsai:
I’ll give it a shot.
I was watching some David Deangelo programs, slacking off of my work, and you know what I think?
Who do you think is successful? Because whatever time you waste on that causes you to focus (and perhaps not make you feel guilty), is not really a waste of time. I mean, would you consider David to be successful? What happens is, these people aren’t exactly working, they’re just playing[1]. Then they find more people that do similar things, and the fun intensifies. Now they get to share experiences and laugh about things and stuff.
The only reason why people might not be successful, is because they haven’t tried something long enough to make it addicting. There’s usually a beginner slope you have to get through. Whatever they did to get through it, friends, environments, failures [2], coaches, memories, contributed to their success-I sincerely doubt they achieved success all by themselves.
Now you can do it by yourself. First, don’t think of the goal all the time. Focus on the process, that’s the goal. If you mind wonders, drag it back. Put on some music, whatever you do I repeat, don’t focus on the goal all the time (it’ll be intimidating). Most likely the majority of the people focus on grades, expectations, past failures, and brighter futures. That’s not staying in the moment. Your in control when your in the moment, but it takes a little effort, to just focus on what your reading right now, the words, the curvature of the words, the ideas presented, how the equation is derived, the problems and answers, the history of the idea, and so on.
In a way your doing meditation. In a way your observing yourself with a third eye. When you learn to detach yourself from your emotions, and you can watch yourself like watching a movie, clip by clip, second by second, then your essentially becoming an alpha male (ok, alpha-female). Congratulations.
The real alpha leader don’t complain (at least, they resist the urge to judge, judging involves digging and comparing the past or the ideal to the present). They influence others by his indirect behaviors, mindset set to focus on what’s at hand, not on the armies of supposed external influences closing in on him. Until then, music (your cue) might help your mind to get in that mode, quieting your mind of other things and priming it to focus on the task at hand.
And of course, you might feel guilty when you play video games because it doesn’t give you value. It comes easily. Things will always be a bit hard if it makes a person successful, that’s why they are “successful.” So pick something you like and have an idea of your “rewards” from the field (can be indirect rewards which can come from encouragement of others, friends, dreams, curiosity, life experiences. They vary on how long they last.), and get to it.
[2] People will usually say (at least people who give a crap about this topic a lot), you usually need a catalyst to start a good behavior. A person dying of heart regret will have a preventive mindset from now on to prevent that ever happening again. Indirect influences.
Last warning, if you have many rabbits to chase, then you might not get any. Your speed might improve sure from all the running, but the rabbits are small and fast.
If you want an extreme example. Join the army. Under fire, they are trained to focus on instructions. They were simple instructions at first, then eventually a string of them. Like playing the piano. Drilled, and drilled (no personal experience here).
A relevant read might be The Inner Game of Tennis or this video about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieb1lmm9xHk
Other resources are all those will power books- The Willpower Instinct, Flow, The Power of Habit, Malcolm Gladwell (author, if you want to know Bill Gates more), and Self Discipline in 10 Days. Maybe they all are influenced by The Inner Game of Tennis around 1975 (not only but you get the point), and that tennis book has ties to ancient eastern philosophy. Essentially it’s just staying in the now, through I’m being a bit presumptuous.
There’s also that famous book a few years back called The Power of Now, and those One Minute Manager Series. There’s also GED, but it’s pretty common sense to me (don’t kill me royal followers). I don’t think you have to read anything really unless you want to. If it was a struggle to finish this answer for you, then I’ll say try to do some exercise. Notice how your mind is focused when you do handstands or running, because your using your energy, focusing on maintaining form or looking at trees, but it goes back to breathing the air to keep yourself from falling, one task. In all, your focused on the “words” or letters (math variables) should I say. One rabbit at a time, and you’ll catch them all. It takes time.
Ladies like a men who can feed them, one with many rabbits to show.
[1] If your in a system (cough like school) that continually put you down or giving you grades to manipulate your behaviors, then that’s not really playing. You might be focusing on the grades, doing whatever it takes (cheating), instead of focusing on mastery of material. Playing means not worrying about the outcome. IT means we don’t have a time limit. Real playing means not worrying about winning or losing, just about doing something better. Winning or losing involves another person failing, and that’s not really fun. Personally, competitive environments always sucked for me; I’m like Waldo. Doing things better on the other hand, your just improving yourself. To the extremes, there’s no winning or losing, friends might just be giving you a push. The focus has always been on evolving (perhaps we are wired that way) or playing.
Maybe I should say, playin’.
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