Category Archives: Religion

World’s largest turban!

Posted on by

Major Singh, a Nihang Sikh in India, is hoping to qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records with the world’s largest turban (via Mr. Sikhnet):

A Sikh cleric from Amritsar is all set to make it to the record books for wearing what he claims is the largest turban in the world… Major Singh… wears a huge tower-shaped turban using 400 meters of cloth, some 100 hairpins, and embellished with 51 religious symbols made in metal. [Link]

This style of round turban is known as a dumaala and is common to Nihang Sikhs. Most Nihangs wear a smaller turban than this, but there is a tradition of competing to see who can wear the largest. Major Singh’s 400 meter turban weighs around 35 kg, or roughly 77 lbs. Nobody else is in his weight class, the next largest turbans are 10 kg smaller.

If you’ve ever seen or met a Nihang Sikh, all dressed in blue, you’re not likely to forget:

Nihang Singhs belong to a martial tradition … Their way of life, style of dress, and weaponry has remained little changed since … three hundred years ago. Nihangs are a semi-nomadic people. They are organized into “armies” and live in camps known as “cantonments”. Men and women both train in horsemanship, swordsmanship, and in the Punjabi martial art known as gatka. During times of persecution in the past, the Nihangs defended Sikh shrines and the Sikh way of life and become known for their bravery against all odds. In times of peace they travel to festivals and fairs throughout India, staging displays of horsemanship and martial skills. [Link]

For those inquiring minds, my own turban is considerably more modest in size. It’s not the size of the turban on the man, it’s the size of the man in the turban, and that’s all I have to say on this topic . [Major Singh is, I’m sure, a lot of man in a very large turban.]

Related Sepia Mutiny Posts: Crisp or Not, As American as Gatka, Justice Department smacks MTA over turban ban, Da Star in dastar, This turban’s disturbin’

Related Articles: Nihangs, Learn How To Tie Different Sikh Turbans

Continue reading →

Waiter, there’s a fly …

Posted on by

Whether sanctimoniously single or smugly encoupled, I find that most people suffer from a post-Valentines hangover. I don’t mean a literal hangover, although copious quantities of champagne are commonly consumed, I mean a reaction to the intensely saccharine and unidimensional portrayal of love. As a homemade remedy, I offer the hair of the dog that bit you – a reminder that love takes many forms.

Saheli tipped us off to this article by an American desi who went back to Karnataka to work as a medical volunteer at the “largest Tibetan refugee colony in the world,” an encampment of over 10,000 Tibetans:

I found out quickly that I had entered a place with entirely different notions about life purpose and productivity. Soon after I arrived I pointed out to a monk that a mosquito was sucking his blood. He nodded in acknowledgement and said something brief about the accumulation of merit and allowing another being to nourish itself off your own. (Luckily, we were in a region where the prevalence of malaria is low).

The second day I was there, a monk took me to the local Indian restaurant. A fly fell into my daal. The monk’s reaction took me by surprise. I wrote this poem about it.

There are those who
When a fly drops Plop! into yellow daal
it is not their bowl of food they worry about.
It is the fly and her wings
The ability of fire and spice
To sear wings
And with so much kindness
They place the fly in their palm
Unfold a white creased napkin
Clean the wings and the space
Between the wings
with water rinse away
Any hot yellowness
Place the fly gentle
On the edge of the table
Until
by the end
Of our meal
The fly has flown
made her way
Back into the world. [Link]

Continue reading →

Community cable, the gift that keeps on giving

Posted on by

Some Black Israelites wear very Sikh-looking turbans and beards (thanks, Ennis):

Remember that Marley song?

African American and African Caribbean Christianity had long developed a comparison of their experience in the New World with that of the Jews held in slavery in Egypt, particularly as regards the Book of Exodus… [Link]

We know where we’re going; we know where we’re from
We’re leaving Babylon, we’re going to our fatherland

Exodus, movement of Jah people…
Send us another Brother Moses gonna cross the Red Sea…

— Bob Marley, ‘Exodus‘

A small number took the analogy literally and moved to Israel:

The African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem is a small religious group whose members believe they are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. With a population of over 2000, most members live in their own community in Dimona, Israel. The Black Hebrews practice polygamy. [Link]

In contrast, the guy on TV was ranting against Israel even while sitting beneath a Star of David:

Some Black Hebrew Israelites, like Israelite Heritage, are anti-Semitic, and focus on Jews, as Edomites and Khazars acting on behalf of Satan and secretly controlling the United States. [Link]

Related posts: Da Star in dastar, Everyone recycles

Continue reading →

Brown civil liberties update

Posted on by

From DNSI, three stories about both significant violence and institutional discrimination that we wouldn’t face if we were in the “mainstream.” For those of you who’ve asked if I still feel threatened as a brown Sikh living in America, the answer is, yes I do. Stories like this are why.

First, an 80 year old Sikh man was assaulted in California and fractured his pelvis:

The attack took place … on January 21 when Harbans Singh, a turbaned Sikh, was riding a bike from Guru Nanak Sikh Temple … to his home… According to Singh, four or five occupants of a maroon-colored Chevrolet Tahoe sports utility vehicle hurled rocks and racial epithets at him from the back. Fortunately, the rocks did not hit him, so he ignored it… The men were described as Hispanic or white between 25 to 30 years old, she said…

The vehicle overtook Singh’s bicycle and stopped at a corner, where one man got out and pushed Singh off his bicycle. A bystander called an ambulance, assuming this was an accident when she saw him lying on the road. [Link]

The attack is a major surprise given the size and deep roots of the Sikh community in the Yuba-Marysville area:

A hate crime against an 80-year-old Sikh in Yuba City in California has taken the community there surprise and shock, given that it is the first time such an incident has happened there, where 10 percent of the residents are Sikhs with a history of almost a century behind them in the city. [Link]

Now I know that people can be cruel and enjoy the suffering of others, but it makes my blood boil to think of people making sport out of causing harm to an 80 year old man!

Furthermore, the attackers were dangerously foolhardy. Yuba City is the closest you can come to rural Punjab in the USA. Although only 10% of the population, Sikhs have been there for a long time, and own a lot of the land. They are not afraid of asserting themselves. I hope the perpetrators turn themselves in or are caught by the police before somebody local catches up with them and meets out rough justice, village style.

Continue reading →

Blasphemous bill ejected from Parliament

Posted on by

Amidst the Danish toon non-troversy, the Muslim Council lost a vote in the UK parliament this week on a bill banning insults to religion (via Asians in Media).

Supporters of the bill wanted to ban anti-Muslim ads by right-wing political parties. They also argued Hindus and Muslims deserved the same protection against incitement to violence already granted to Sikhs, Jews and Christians under racial hatred and blasphemy laws.

Opponents, such as comedian Rowan Atkinson, said the bill was a sop to Muslim voters, was overbroad and would also ban religious satire like Monty Python’s The Life of Brian. The bill passed in a weakened form with only the hatred and incitement to violence planks intact. Incidentally, Mr. Bean is married to a desi woman.

Salman Rushdie… “There are moments when one is profoundly grateful for, and proud of, British Parliamentary democracy. This is one of them…”

Hanif Kureishi… “This is an amazing result and a great achievement for writers and intellectuals when they unite…”

Hari Kunzru… “I was very happy to wake up to this news. The Government’s loss is Britain’s gain… This defeat should be another signal to the Government that in its disregard for civil liberties, it’s losing touch with the mainstream of British opinion…”

[PEN…] “… It will now be criminal to publish posters showing women of many colours in hijabs with the slogan ‘Muslims go home…’ ” [Link]

That blasphemy laws still exist on Britain’s books, pushed by the government church and enforceable by the state, makes me doubly glad of the upcoming 230th anniversary of American independence.

Continue reading →

The Danish cartoon controversy: A contrast in protests

Posted on by

Here at SM headquarters we have quite an intricate system for vetting which stories make it to our website. Most of our stories are unearthed by the army of ex test-monkeys (retired from military, space, and medical research) that we house in our basement. They are the ones who scour the internet all day and feed important stories to our bloggers, while we spend most of our time at our full-time jobs. We also have the tipline, by which dedicated readers send in tips. Later, in our conference room, we ask ourselves three main questions about a prospective post:

  1. Can I do this story justice/am I knowledgeable and interested enough to write about it without sounding ignorant?
  2. Does the story have an angle highlighting South Asians?
  3. Does the story have an angle of interest to North Americans?

The reason you haven’t seen us post on this topic before is because not all of us were convinced that we could answer yes to all three questions. After attending the SAAN Conference this past weekend (which will be summarized in my next post), I have become convinced that we have missed the relevance this issue has to our community, and that the answer to all three questions is yes. I am speaking of course of the controversy surrounding a Danish newspaper’s decision to publish a picture of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb as his turban.

Arab foreign ministers have condemned the Danish government for failing to act against a newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
At the Arab League conference in Cairo, they said they were “surprised and discontented at the response”.

Islam forbids any depiction of Muhammad or of Allah.

The Jyllands-Posten newspaper published a series of 12 cartoons showing Muhammad, in one of which he appeared to have a bomb in his turban. [Link]

I see great irony in this situation that doesn’t seem to have registered in the press (as far as I know). Muslims around the world are protesting this cartoon (often violently) because it is forbidden in Islam to depict the Prophet, especially in such a vulgar manner as this. Muhammad, in his boundless wisdom, wanted to make sure that his image would never be used or treated as an idol, and that men would never worship him as one. In Christianity for example, many most sects now worship Christ as God, instead of seeing him as only a mortal prophet. It was the message of Islam, and not Muhammad the man, that was to better the world. By violently protesting this cartoon, it could be argued that Muslims around the world are acting as if an idol has been desecrated. Using violence to protest this “desecration” legitimizes that which the Prophet cautioned against in the first place. He has become an idol to be defended and avenged in the eyes of many. Continue reading →

Coconut Express

Posted on by

The Oriya coconut distribution network reminds me of the tiffinwallas of Bombay (via Boing Boing). It’s a marvel of Indian efficiency:

Smashing coconuts in Malaysia

Hold a coconut in your hand on a highway in Orissa and the next bus will surely stop to pick it up to take it to the temple… Even if the bus is on a different route, the driver will make sure to drop the coconuts in a collection box en route or pass them on to a bus headed for Ghatgaon…

They tell stories of bus drivers who failed to pick up coconuts from devotees and met with engine failures or accidents. “No one can refuse to carry a coconut,” says shop owner Rabindra Patnaik. The buses usually dump their coconuts in collection boxes across the state, from where other buses or devotees headed to the temple pick up them up on their final journey…

At the busy temple, priests take turns to break the coconuts in front of the deity. A few hundred coconuts find the place near the deity’s feet, and the rest of them are sold cheaply to local shop owners. This has spawned a local coconut-based sweets and oil industry. [Link]

Besides religion, desis spread at least two things efficiently: fresh food and hot gossip. It’s no surprise that desis are at the forefront of networking technology. Hey, Internet2? I fart in your general direction.

Billo’s bindi

The Auntie-ji Pre-Crime Network is so fast, it predicts things before they happen and never hesitates to tell you so.

The Coconut Express has also had a huge influence on the rock scene in India. The sad fate of the broken fruit inspired alt.rockers Smashing Coconuts, fronted by lead singer Billo Kurugan. Their hit single ‘Sharaab Rakh‘ was a seminal influence on a new genre called cocotechno, inspiring performers like the No-Sex-Before-Marriage Pistols, the Beejis, Bob Dhillon and Elvis Singh:

Continue reading →

Guarding the Pope

Posted on by

Although there is no desi pope, there is one desi member of the Swiss Guard. Dhani Bachmann was sworn in as the first ever non-white Swiss guard four years ago. Private Bachmann was adopted by a Swiss family at 5 and speaks only German, which helps explain how he could join an elite group whose members are comprised solely of Catholic Swiss, mainly recruited from a handful of small villages.

At the time, one news source snarkily reported the story in the following way:

First Black Man Ever To Protect The Pope

For the first time in the more than 500 year history of the Swiss Guards, the group of 200 soldiers who protect the Pope in Rome, a non white man has been allowed to take his place in their ranks. Private Dhani Bachmann was born in India but adopted by a Swiss family and taken to live there when he was 5. He therefore is eligible to join the guards as he is Swiss. He is now apparently trying to learn Italian so that he can explain to people in Rome why he is not white. [Link]

The Swiss Guard are the Pope’s private army, founded 500 years ago on January 22nd, 1506. They had their origins in the “Swiss mercenary detachments that served as bodyguards and ceremonial guards at foreign European courts from the late 15th century on” and once guarded the Royalty of France and Austria as well. Soon after they were founded, in 1527, “147 of the 189 Guards, including their commander, died fighting the forces of Charles V during the Sack of Rome.”

Today, they are half their original size, with only 100 soldiers. After the 1981 attempt to assasinate Pope John Paul, their non-ceremonial duties and training have been beefed up; their training involves unarmed combat and the use of modern weaponry in addition to the traditional Halberd. Still, they’re best known for their colorful uniforms which, according to legend were first designed by Michaelangelo.

This job combines tradition and religious service in the short term with the potential to make a lot of money in the long term – how typically Swiss!

Swiss Guards sign on for a minimum of two years. Many leave the Pope’s military service for lucrative jobs with some of the world’s best-known security services and banks. [Link]

Dhani Bachmann being sworn in or Vinod making a gang sign?

Continue reading →

Yeti kitsch

Posted on by

The Imagineers at Disney World in Florida have erected a mandir to the abominable snowman next to their new Himalayan-themed roller coaster. Expedition Everest opens in spring (via Boing Boing):

Yeti another mandir

The artificial mountain is not a reproduction of Mount Everest; it is the fictional “forbidden mountain” guarded by the yeti… One of the highlights of the attraction is an encounter with an enormous audio-animatronic yeti… Although moderate by contemporary roller-coaster standards, Expedition Everest is unique for having its trains travel forward and backward as a result of the yeti’s interference…

Riders approach the attraction through the remote village of Serka Zong in the fictional kingdom of Anandapur, which is located in the foothills of the Himalayas. Several village buildings that had been used by the Royal Anandapur Tea Company have been repurposed… the legend of the yeti is communicated vividly through a mandir… and a makeshift museum that documents yeti sightings, the yeti’s significance in Himalayan cultures and a so-called “lost” expedition that ran afoul of the yeti many years before… [Link]

Disney is taking over Times Square immediately after Valentine’s Day:

Disney plans to transform the exteriors of the W Hotel and the adjacent Argent building at Broadway and 47th Street into a gigantic backdrop of Mount Everest. An aerial acrobatic troupe will perform there Feb. 15 and 16 on a stage 57 stories high, rappelling down the mountain and coming face to face with a Himalayan yeti — the legendary abominable snowman. [Link]

I’ve never felt entirely at ease in simulacrum cities like Orlando and Vegas, miniature Matrices. There’s something odd about Imagineers daubing tilaks onto idols of yeti which look like ‘roid-crazed Hanumans, leaving offerings of plastic fruit and hanging a poster of Krishna stealing butter. Disney movies like Aladdin and Pocahontas often mince cultures into purposely inaccurate baby pap which plays to stereotype.

(And in the other direction of mashup done badly, I can’t stomach the weak-ass rap in Bollyflicks. French and Spanish rap has coalesced as the language of the barrios, but Little B rapping is as silly as Nic Cage going gangsta.)

But let’s not be yenta about yeti. At first glance, the props around this roller coaster look pretty cute. I love the hand-painted signs.

Continue reading →

Hare Krishnas supporting ‘Intelligent Design’

Posted on by

Secularist Meera Nanda writes that American Hare Krishnas filed an amicus curiæ brief against evolution in the intelligent design case in Cobb County, Georgia (thanks, Razib):

ISKCON devotees in Allahabad

It is these I.D.-creationists who are leading the current barrage of anti-evolution lawsuits… They have found enthusiastic allies among the Hare Krishnas… who have been actively propagating their theory of “Vedic creationism”, “Krishna creationism”, or “Hindu creationism”, as it is sometimes called…

Earlier this year, the Hare Krishnas filed an amicus curiae brief supporting I.D.-creationists… Hare Krishnas appealed to the court to keep the anti-Darwinian warning stickers. As the stickers only attack Darwin without endorsing a specifically Christian God, Hare Krishnas see them as an opportunity to introduce Vedic creationism into American schools. They know that once one religion gets its foot inside the door, all others will automatically get equal time to bring in their own creation stories and cosmologies into science classrooms in America. [Link]

The ID’ers don’t mind since it gives them multi-culti camouflage:

`I.D.’ is often accused of being a scientific-sounding cover for Christian creationism. The ID-ers conveniently use the support of Hare Krishnas to paint themselves in multicultural colours. Prominent I.D. theorists (Philip Johnson, Michael Behe) and some Catholic creationists have endorsed Vedic creationism. Any enemy of Charles Darwin is their friend… [Link]

ISKCON creationism sounds just as nutty as the ID’ers:

The intellectual force driving Vedic creationism is a pair of American Hindus, Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, both resident “scientists” of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the research wing of ISKCON. Cremo recently published a huge book, Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin’s Theory… While Cremo insists he is offering a “scientific” alternative to Darwin, almost all of his evidence comes from paranormal phenomena, including studies of extra-sensory perception, faith-healing, reincarnation and past-birth memories, UFOs (unidentified flying objects) and alien abductions…

Continue reading →