29 June 2007

CBC Hatchet Job




(I am trying to make a blue with saffron lettering ribbon, but until I finish debugging Compy, it's just refusing. Right now, this is the best I can do.)(Saffron just wouldn't print, but this still looks pretty good, eh?)




I suppose by now most everyone has heard about the 'news' story broadcast on CBC's The National last night. It is full of lies, half-lies, innuendos and distortions , painting us Khalistan supporters as half-baked, disloyal Canadians, and seemed to paint the whole Sikh community in Canada as a bunch of thugs and terrorists. Before I go any further, I suggest you look at this report:









(I notice this video is about ten minutes long. The piece I saw last night was almost twice that length. I haven't seen the YouTube version, since I have a very slow connexion.)




Here is the link to the CBC, where they have the video posted








You can leave a comment at this site. Please be calm, peaceful, reasonable in any comment you leave, but also please br firm and determined. Remember that there are those out there who will judge all Sikhs by what you say! After watching this nonsense, you may also feel moved to leave a comment at the CBC 'your view' line. The link to that is:








This from Google Alerts alerted me to the 'news' cast.

http://cork2toronto.blogspot.com/2007/06/cbcs-national-airs-shocking-expose-on.html


After watching this bit of nonsense - I am in the Pacific time zone and this blog was posted before the story aired here - I left this comment:





Dear Mr. Dowling,

Please don't believe everything you hear. I would first suggest you go to
Baseless fear mongering by the CBCBy Japnaam Singh(Japnaam Singh) :http://www.japnaamsingh.com/2007/06/baseless-fear-mongering-by-cbc.html

Then if you are up to hearing an opposing view on Khalistan, feel free to
visit our blog, The Road To Khalistan, http://roadtokhalistan.blogspot.com/.
We are three rather ordinary Sikh women caught up in extraordinary events; we
are not violent, raving lunatics, we are loving, concerned wives and mothers.
That CBC piece was a complete hatchet job. Please seek other opinions before you
condemn all us Khalistanis as terrorists!
Thank you.
Mai, Vini and
Suni





I checked this morning and found that Mr. Tarek Fatah has left a comment suggesting that maybe we aren't very good Canadians. Please go read for yourself!

This blogpost mentioned in my comment above is one response. It is well worth reading, Baseless Fear Mongering by the CBC

I am going to publish this now because I want to get it out as quickly as possible. I'll pretty it up as the day goes on. Sorry for all these naked links, but my computer is acting up. For some reason, it seems to need to be debugged.


Sisters and Brothers, Kaurs and Singhs, other most welcome visitors, I have chosen not to delete obscene comments as I believe we can learn from our enemies as well as from our friends. But I will warn you, the first comment here contains strong(weak?) language.

KHALISTAN ZINDABAD!!

25 June 2007

A Wedding

Suni is getting married today to Amritdeep Singh!! I don't have time to write now, but I know she'd be overjoyed at any good wishes, either in comments here, or sent to her e-mail at sunikaur@gmail.com.

I have a few things on my mind, but they'll have to wait.

Congratulations, you two!! It's about time!

21 June 2007

Being Sikh - Female Foeticide








I posted this a few days ago in the Gurbani Learning Zone, a Yahoo! group. The subject was female foeticide, in other words, the murder of our daughters, our little girls while still in the womb:

I humbly ask you to consider the following:

Forgive me for being simplistic, but does our Guru not teach gender
equality?

Does our Guru not condemn the killing of girls, in fact any unnecessary
killing, but specifically, in the strongest terms, the killing of our daughters?

And also, is dowry not forbidden?

As I see it, all we have to do is follow the teachings of our own religion,
i.e., stop being hypocritical, and the problem will solve itself.

How long will the killing of the unborn daughter go on? Until we obey what
our Gurus teach.

Please forgive me for being so blunt and simplistic. And I'm sorry if any
Sikh finds this offensive, more sorry than words can express.

Harinder Kaur, Seattle (They insist on whole name and location)

To date, no one has answered. I cannot preach or hold myself above other people. Anyone who reads this blog or my sometimes - 2 blog knows that I am well-aware of at least some of my faults and I have not led an exemplary life as a Sikh or simply as a human being.

But this issue seems so clear and basic and unequivocal: it is wrong to kill innocent human beings. How can we hold ourselves up as spiritual, moral people when we murder our own children without blinking an eye - just because they are girls. Need we be reminded that without the baby girl there will be no woman, and without woman...we all know this passage written by Guru Nanak Dev.

This scourge is not only immoral, it is suicidal to us as a nation. If we keep this up, the Indian government, the RSS and our other enemies won't need any genocidal actions or libelous campaigns against us. We'll just disappear. And the deaths of all our shaheeds will have been in vain!

Think about it.

19 June 2007

No Comment Necessary


Khalistan Is The Only Solution

Remember 1984 March

3 June 2007

Photo Courtesy of David Storey

10 June 2007

FINAL THOUGHTS on BLUE STAR




















Our commemoration of Blue Star in our blog is now at an end. As a sign of this, we are posting pictures of our beautiful Harimandir Sahib and the restored Akal Takht. But we resume our normal lives with a renewed dedication to up hold 'who we are, what we are and what we're about.'

Mai speaks:


When all the bullets stopped and relative quiet reigned in Amritsar, we joined many others in gaping at Akal Takht, or rather what was left of it. It is even possible the three of us are in some picture from those days, although I haven't seen us. We would be two men of about the same height with saffron turbans accompanied by a woman with a saffron chunni, all in white clothing. If anyone comes across such a picture, PLEASE e-mail it me; I'd love to have it.


The most vivid memory of this time to me is the overwhelming putrid smell of the sacred pool of nectar. I have not read anyone else's comment on this; I wonder why.


Twice in my life I have seen Mani cry: once when he was first presented with Sandeep and on this occasion. After a while, though, he picked up the end of my chunni, dried off his face and said, quite loudly, 'We are Sikhs. We have never been defeated and this won't be the first time. This isn't over. Khalistan Zindabad!' Eyebrows were raised and I observed a few hard smiles around us. I thought he was acting in an insane manner. Who knows? But no cops molested us.


A few days later we escaped from Punjab and made our way to Mani's cousins' home in the safety of Delhi...

**********************************************
Note from Mai: I am OK; Suni is just a bit overprotective of my health. I do thank her for taking over for me yesterday.

09 June 2007

WE REMEMBER 1984 - MASSACRE BLUESTAR - THE THIRD GHALUGHARA - WE CARRY ON


There is a vigil in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on June 9
And a youth rally in Surrey the next afternoon


This is Suni. I will be writing this post. I am preparing for my wedding later this month, but this is important enough to be to take the time for this post on our blog.
Mai, as you may know, is very ill and we are quite protective of her. Right now she is both physically and emotionally exhausted and I have ordered her Kaurs to see to it she gets some rest. She had planned today to post pictures of the various marches around the world along with the last verse of The Chimes of Freedom. I'm afraid I lack her skill and style, but I'll do what I can. If I have done anything wrong here, please contact me and I will try to correct it at once.

Here is one link she asked me to put in. It is the story of a family who willingly sacrificed their lives at Harimandir Sahib during Massacre Blue Star.




CHIMES OF FREEDOM

by Bob Dylan

Verse 6

Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught

Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended

As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look

Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended

Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed

For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse


An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe

An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
























08 June 2007

WE REMEMBER 1984 - MASSACRE BLUESTAR - THE THIRD GHALUGHARA - THE AFTERMATH.




THE AFTERMATH...


OPERATION WOODROSE


If the Indian government has ever acknowledged that Operation Woodrose was a reality, I haven't heard of it. It was, for those who may not know, an attempt to exterminate all the young Amritdhari Sikhs (the Rose) in the Punjab (the Wood). This was brutally carried out. Young men wearing turbans, mostly between the ages of 15 and 30, and also some young women were rounded up and tortured and shot or they simply disappeared. It is estimated that approximately 150,000 of our best young men and women were murdered by the Indian government at this time.


The pictures of this genocide are particularly gruesome, as indeed, genocide tends to be. I reproduce only one here, from the Sikh Lionz website; we believe it will suffice.

We are astonished at the lack of information about Operation Woodrose.

We are not trying here to be unbiased. How can we possibly be when we see our brothers and our sisters, our sons and our daughters, our friends whom we love so dearly reduced to bloody corpses to satisfy the hunger of prejudice and injustice. May their blood truly water and provide nourishment for this beautiful flower we call the Khalsa.

Let us think of them when we hear the words from our beloved Guru Gobind Singh Ji: 'O lord grant me the boon that I may never be deterred from doing good deeds and with a firm resolve should I achieve victory. And when time comes for me to rest, may I die fighting in the battlefield fighting evil while upholding good and noble.' And let us remember what he further said: 'Without sovereignty no faith can prosper and without faith none can have a sense of identity.'


Of course, there was much more aftermath that we are not covering here, culminating in the event of October 31, 1984 (Halloween in the West)



Which cut short [that woman]'s ultimate plan, her 'Final Solution' to the Sikhs of India, Operation Shanti by two more of our shaheeds.
Followed by the savagery in Delhi and elsewhere. We will talk about that in October and November, as it happened.
Vini, Suni and Mai
Painting of Mrs. Gandhi's execution
courtesy of Confused Khalsa

06 June 2007

WE REMEMBER 1984- MASSACRE BLUE STAR - 7 JUNE 1984



"We went inside with humility in our hearts and prayers on our lips." General K. Sundarji




I have just been reading a fascinating account of Massacre Blue Star from the enemy perspective from a website of the Bharat Rakshak Team. Reading what the enemy has to say about himself is most interesting to me. They start out by saying that their purpose is not to be anti-Sikh, but just an account of 'India's Army's Action at the Golden Temple against heavy odds.' I would like to quote a couple of passages, but I have enough problems in my life without them hounding me for copyright infringement.

What more than anything else drew my attention was the massive amount of arms and manpower that were sent in against us. And how bravely and well our Sikh brothers and sisters fought against this formidable power. I am sure the shaheeds and our father, Guru Gobind Singh himself, were there beside them. I don't want to get poetic here; this was a dirty, filthy, grimy battle, as battles always are. But I do need to express my admiration and appreciation of our warriors, our valiant Khalsa who fought against all odds during these days and died perfect deaths, as Khalsa are taught to dream of dying.

One last point about this account: the statistics given were the only humourous part of this article. Make sure you're sitting down! Army: 43 dead, 248 wounded. 'Terrorists and others': 492 dead, 86 wounded, about 1500 captured, Pakistanis among them. Need I comment on any of that?




There are many good pictures at Search Sikhism.


WHY TRY TO FIT IN WHEN YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT?

Amritsar Redux






Mai was in Amritsar with her husband, Mani, and thirteen year old son, Sandeep, at the time of Blue Star. This account is from her personal blog, sometimes - 2. It appeared in slightly different form earlier in this blog.


THE LAST TIME I SAW AMRITSAR







This is another story I had not intended to tell publicly, but the family have prevailed upon me because, they say, it's a great story, and might actually give someone some encouragement someday. So here goes.
I have cleaned up the story and the language considerably, since I want to keep my blog at a PG-13 rating. It was a lot rougher than I have actually written it.

[ Maman read what I had written and said, 'Cleaning up is one thing. Whitewashing is another. Mani wrote me about what he saw and you've left out almost everything. If this is to be any kind of a record, you need to add at least some of that.' OK, I'll try to add some. The new stuff will be written like this.]
June 4, 1984. We had been in Amritsar since mid-May, visiting relatives, of which we have many in that area. The date, for those of you who don't recognise it, was the beginning of Operation Blue Star or more properly, Ghallughara, when the Indian army stormed the Harimandir Sahib (Golden Temple), looking for 'terrorists.' They found thousands of people there commemorating the anniversary of the shaheedi of Guru Arjun Dev Ji. They opened fire on the whole complex, and killed, who knows how many. Fortunately, we were at a cousin's house when it all started and thus were safe, or so it seemed.






No such luck. Two days later, the police barged in and took us all. Fortunately, as it turned out, the three of us had our passports on us. I'm not sure exactly where we were taken, a police station somewhere. They separated the men and the women; I was afraid that that was last I'd see of my men.
Then t hey put each of us women in different rooms. And I waited. For the first time in my life, I was really scared. After a time, a very young policeman came in. Although my hands were bound behind me, I managed to pull out my Canadian passport.





He was not impressed.
'Are you Sikh?' Expressionless.
'Yes.' Calmly.
'Wrong answer.' He slapped me across the face.
'Are you Sikh?' Expressionless.
'Yes.' Calmly.
'Wrong answer.' He slapped me HARD across the face.
'Are you Sikh?' Expressionless.
'Yes.' Calmly.
'Wrong answer. And you're also really stupid.' He doubled up his fist and slugged me in the mouth.
'Are you Sikh?' Smiling slightly.
'Yes. I'm Khalsa.' Blood was coming out of my mouth. I wish I could say I was unafraid, but that would be a lie. A BIG lie. I have, to this day, never been so terrified in my life. But I managed to keep my voice steady.
He reached over to me and tore my shirt off. Then he pulled out my kirpan. 'The little Saint Soldier has her little knife, I see.' In a sarcastic voice. He drew the blade across my throat. I laughed nervously. A strange reaction.
Unlike most Sikhs, I usually do not carry a blunt kirpan. I know, I know. A kirpan is a religious article, not a weapon. I'm sorry if I offend anyone here, and I know I will, but I have never believed that our f ather Guru Gobind Singh Ji intended us to be unarmed. I usually carried a razor-sharp medieval French war dagger that had belonged to a lady ancestor of mine. I suppose it couldn't really be called a kirpan, but it was what I carried. I'm not sure why that day, I didn't have HT, my dagger, on me. If I had, I would be dead. So I laughed nervously.
That seemed to infuriate him and he pulled my pants down. At this point a second cop came in. The first one started pulling at my hair. 'You Khalsa have a real fetish about this, don't you? Is it true that you'll die before letting it be cut?' I nodded. 'Yes.'

'Stupid. '
The second cop handed him a big pair a scissors. He pointed them at my hair. 'I'm going to use these. The choice is yours: here,' pointing at my hair, 'or here?' He cut the top of my kechera, so they fell down. pointed at the scissors my crotch. [He laughed and laughed.]
Paralysed with terror, I said nothing, but inside I screamed with every fibre of my being, ' GOBIND!!!!' No 'Guru,' no 'Singh,' no 'Ji.' Just, ' GOBIND!!!!'
The result was instantaneous. I was not afraid. I was not in pain. I don't know how I knew they wouldn't dare cut my hair; I couldn't care less what else they might do to me. My dad's words came to me: 'No one can humiliate me without my consent.' I laughed. 'I'm Khalsa.' I looked at the mirror across the room. I'm not a complete idiot. I know mirrors in interrogation rooms are one way glass. And I was certain that the cops were forcing my son and husband to watch this. Sadistic f* cking bastards! I nodded to my unseen men and smiled.
He slugged me in the stomach. It didn't hurt. He slugged me like that several more times until he finally knocked me off my feet and I fell to the floor. I have never felt so calm and complete, as strange as that sounds. I was completely unafraid.
He stood over me and [stared at me, now completely naked, lying on the floor. He kicked me in the head repeatedly. Then, he pulled me up by my hair and with the help of his colleague sat me in a chair. He cut open a hot chili and rubbed it all over my face, up my nose and into my eyes. I didn't react at all.
[He opened my legs and rubbed the ch ili all over my vaginal area. The second one pulled me forward to my feet, while the first one shoved it up my anus. He pulled it out and stuffed it into my mouth. The whole time, he was trying to taunt me by saying all sorts of insulting things. None of it got through to me at all. I will not record what he said, partly because it was mostly in colloquial Punjabi, of which I understood little, and partly because it would serve no purpose beyond teaching someone how to be insulting.]

After he finished with the chili, he started with the scissors, which turned out to be very sharp. Little cuts, not big ones, all over my breasts, then my stomach. When I didn't react to that, the bottoms of my feet. By this time, he was completely livid. I thought he was going to maybe cut my throat or gouge my eyes.
Again he grabbed me by the hair and threw me on the ground, and opened my legs. He raised the scissors over my crotch, clearly intending to use them as a weapon of rape. He stopped, clearly savouring the moment.
At exactly that instance, the door opened and someone burst through, yelling. 'Stop!! We have orders not to mess with the Canadians.'
He glared at me, with pure hatred. But he stopped. The second cop untied my wrists.
I stood up, pulled up my kechera, then my pants. My shirt was torn beyond any usefulness, though. My mouth was still full of blood. which I spat on the floor at his feet. He spoke, very softly, so only I could hear,'If I ever see you again, you'll be sorry I didn't finish with you today.'
[So what was going on in me, while he was torturing me? (I believe this does qualify as torture.) I could see, hear and feel everything that was going on. But I felt no pain, either physically or psychologically, then or later. Instead, I was aware of various voices singing the Mool Mantar, over and over. It was the most beautiful thing you could imagine. It completely transported my being to another level where pain simply doesn't exist. This was the second time something like this had happened to me in this life - and it has not been repeated since.
[I was operating in two completely different states of being. All of my senses seemed to be in overdrive. My hearing was enhanced. Colours were vivid and alive. I was fully, completely conscious and aware. I want to emphasize that I was not being brave or strong or heroic. And I am not masochistic . I was as calmly joyful as I could ever imagine being. It simply made no difference to me what they were doing. Why do I think this happened to me? Because I relied on a promise made by one who was a father to me. There is nothing special about me in this. Any Khalsa in this position has the right, perhaps even the obligation to do the same. No special, secret words, no silly rituals, just the total intention.
[I'd like to make a couple of aside comments here. First, there are still a few things I have left out, for the sake of decency. I was not raped., if rape is vaginal penetration. Please notice that it takes nothing fancy to torture someone, no special equipment, in this case, just a chili, a pair of scissors and something to tie my hands. Also, very little imagination.
[I have not mentioned that, at this time, I was in my first trimester of pregnancy. They, of course, had no way of knowing that. Not that it would have made any difference to them! Why I didn't lose the babies then and there I can only ascribe to the fact that I was being protected by my Guru in some fashion.]

I just kept smiling. "I'd like my kirpan back, please.' The second cop handed it to me, along with my passport.
They took me, still half naked and bleeding, to a hallway, where I was reunited with Mani and Sandeep. With great dignity, my son took off his shirt and helped me put it on. 'Here, Mom.' His voice was shaking a bit. I looked at them. They had been roughed up a bit, and normally neither would have ever tied a turban so sloppily. We would discuss all that later. I evidently got the worst treatment, physically.
Later we discussed the incident. Mani looked in my eyes. 'There for a moment, I thought you might break.'
I met his gaze. 'So did I'
'I could see you change. All of a sudden, it was like you became someone else. What happened?'
I told him. He turned to our son. (Of course, all this happened 22 years ago, so all the quotes have been approximations, except this, which I remember verbatim.) 'Your mother is a magnificent person. You won't find another like her, but I hope when you get married, you'll marry a woman you can love and admire as much as I do my wife.' What woman could possibly forget such praise from her husband? (It goes both ways. A man could not forget such praise from his wife, either.)
Sandeep looked at me, and said, in a whisper, 'Mom, you were so lucky they got stopped when they did.'
Both of us said, in unison, 'Luck had nothing to do with it.'
I will leave the story there, only noting that it was not my strength and courage that made me strong; it was a gift from my father Guru. The only part I can really take any credit for is crying out for help when I needed it.
[We could not get back to our family home that day, but fortunately, some good people saw us right outside the police station and took us in.

[Although some of the city's water was cut off, where our host family lived, it was running. I f elt incredibly dirty. Thank God for a good shower! Mani helped me clean up, washed and conditioned my hair - which, against all odds, was intact - and combed it out for me. He couldn't believe I could walk on those lacerated feet, but even afterward, while I was healing, I was in no pain. I have a few scars left, my hearing was slightly damaged, but nothing too important. Mani, being a physician, thoroughly examined me, but even with the beating I had taken, there were no major injuries.]
[Our hosts, who were Hindus, gave us clean clothes, some really good food, comfortable beds and a feeling that there were still some decent people in Amritsar. We burned our old clothes, except I kept the shirt Sandeep had given to me. Our family in Amritsar is still keeping it today, as a remembrance.]

There is much more I could write about Amritsar at this time, the smell, the heat, the noxious insects, the sacred sarovar filled with blood and dead bodies, but that can be found elsewhere on the net. I'm trying to record only my personal experiences.
[Now, Maman has read the new version and is almost satisfied with it , so I will leave it as it is.]




For more information, try Googling or Yahooing on 'Operation Blue Star.'


'WHAT DOES NOT DESTROY ME MAKES ME STRONGER'


WHY TRY TO FIT IN WHEN YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT?

********************************************************

A 22 year old Hindu Amritsari man I email insists that that is a complete fabrication. His reasons are so silly that I have never answered them, but I am very, very angry at him right now for suggesting that this whole Blue Star is something to laugh at; I very much doubt I will answer any more of his emails.Here are his two objections:



They knew we were Canadians. Not wanting an international incident, they would have left us alone


Punjabi police do not mistreat women unless they are close relatives of terrorists or suspected terrorists.

The first presupposes that the underlings who were first in charge of us would care about such niceties as international relations more than they would care about the pure pleasure of tormenting us. I will point out that as soon as someone in charge realised that foreigners were being worked over, they were ordered to stop, orders that were immediately, if reluctantly, obeyed.



Do I need to even comment on the second? Does anyone believe that these [Punjabi police] have respect for women? Shall we start with K.P.S. Gill? (It takes more than a turban and 'Singh' somewhere in your name to make you a Sikh!)



But totally insulting to me is the implication that I am not the close relative of someone involved in the Khalistan movement - in local police language, a terrorist! How dare he imply that my family accepts the yoke of the Hindus, the perfidy of Mr. Gandhi and company. Now is it clear to everyone why I decline to identify my family?



There are a couple things that I personally wonder about, though. As foreigners, why were we not quickly escorted out of Punjab? Or why didn't we disappear? They must have known that we would eventually tell our story.



And why did they just turn us lose. Unless I am mistaken, the city was under curfew at that time. We should not have been on the street. What would have happened if those good people (whom Guru Ji sent) had not met us?



These are questions that have only occurred to me years later; at the time, and for some time after, I was in an altered state of consciousness where such things had no meaning. Indeed, the aftereffects of that spiritual state remain with me still.



Why was I chosen for special treatment? I believe it had something to do with my brown hair, green eyes and fair skin. They must have believed that I would be the weak link in the chain. They were wrong. Among us, there were no weak links.



As to the rest of my family that were taken that day, at their request, I have little to say except that the three of us got off much more lightly than they did.

WE REMEMBER 1984- MASSACRE BLUE STAR - 6 JUNE 1984 - The Last Time I Saw Amritsar Redux






Mai was in Amritsar with her husband, Mani, and thirteen year old son, Sandeep, at the time of Blue Star. This account is from her personal blog, sometimes - 2. It appeared in slightly different form earlier in this blog.


THE LAST TIME I SAW AMRITSAR








This is another story I had not intended to tell publicly, but the family have prevailed upon me because, they say, it's a great story, and might actually give someone some encouragement someday. So here goes.

I have cleaned up the story and the language considerably, since I want to keep my blog at a PG-13 rating. It was a lot rougher than I have actually written it.

[ Maman read what I had written and said, 'Cleaning up is one thing. Whitewashing is another. Mani wrote me about what he saw and you've left out almost everything. If this is to be any kind of a record, you need to add at least some of that.' OK, I'll try to add some. The new stuff will be written like this.]

June 4, 1984. We had been in Amritsar since mid-May, visiting relatives, of which we have many in that area. The date, for those of you who don't recognise it, was the beginning of Operation Blue Star or more properly, Ghallughara, when the Indian army stormed the Harimandir Sahib (Golden Temple), looking for 'terrorists.' They found thousands of people there commemorating the anniversary of the shaheedi of Guru Arjun Dev Ji. They opened fire on the whole complex, and killed, who knows how many. Fortunately, we were at a cousin's house when it all started and thus were safe, or so it seemed.







No such luck. Two days later, the police barged in and took us all. Fortunately, as it turned out, the three of us had our passports on us. I'm not sure exactly where we were taken, a police station somewhere. They separated the men and the women; I was afraid that that was last I'd see of my men.

Then t hey put each of us women in different rooms. And I waited. For the first time in my life, I was really scared. After a time, a very young policeman came in. Although my hands were bound behind me, I managed to pull out my Canadian passport.






He was not impressed.

'Are you Sikh?' Expressionless.

'Yes.' Calmly.

'Wrong answer.' He slapped me across the face.

'Are you Sikh?' Expressionless.

'Yes.' Calmly.

'Wrong answer.' He slapped me HARD across the face.

'Are you Sikh?' Expressionless.

'Yes.' Calmly.

'Wrong answer. And you're also really stupid.' He doubled up his fist and slugged me in the mouth.

'Are you Sikh?' Smiling slightly.

'Yes. I'm Khalsa.' Blood was coming out of my mouth. I wish I could say I was unafraid, but that would be a lie. A BIG lie. I have, to this day, never been so terrified in my life. But I managed to keep my voice steady.

He reached over to me and tore my shirt off. Then he pulled out my kirpan. 'The little Saint Soldier has her little knife, I see.' In a sarcastic voice. He drew the blade across my throat. I laughed nervously. A strange reaction.

Unlike most Sikhs, I usually do not carry a blunt kirpan. I know, I know. A kirpan is a religious article, not a weapon. I'm sorry if I offend anyone here, and I know I will, but I have never believed that our f ather Guru Gobind Singh Ji intended us to be unarmed. I usually carried a razor-sharp two-edged medieval French war dagger that had belonged to a lady ancestor of mine. I suppose it couldn't really be called a kirpan, but it was what I carried. I'm not sure why that day, I didn't have HT, my dagger, on me. If I had, I would be dead. So I laughed nervously.

That seemed to infuriate him and he pulled my pants down. At this point a second cop came in. The first one started pulling at my hair. 'You Khalsa have a real fetish about this, don't you? Is it true that you'll die before letting it be cut?'

I nodded. 'Yes.'

'Stupid. '

The second cop handed him a big pair a scissors. He pointed them at my hair. 'I'm going to use these. The choice is yours: here,' pointing at my hair, 'or here?' He cut the top of my kechera, so they fell down. pointed at the scissors my crotch. [He laughed and laughed.]

Paralysed with terror, I said nothing, but inside I screamed with every fibre of my being, ' GOBIND!!!!' No 'Guru,' no 'Singh,' no 'Ji.' Just, ' GOBIND!!!!'

The result was instantaneous. I was not afraid. I was not in pain. I don't know how I knew they wouldn't dare cut my hair; I couldn't care less what else they might do to me. My dad's words came to me: 'No one can humiliate me without my consent.' I laughed. 'I'm Khalsa.' I looked at the mirror across the room. I'm not a complete idiot. I know mirrors in interrogation rooms are one way glass. And I was certain that the cops were forcing my son and husband to watch this. Sadistic f* cking bastards! I nodded to my unseen men and smiled.

He slugged me in the stomach. It didn't hurt. He slugged me like that several more times until he finally knocked me off my feet and I fell to the floor. I have never felt so calm and complete, as strange as that sounds. I was completely unafraid.

He stood over me and [stared at me, now completely naked, lying on the floor. He kicked me in the head repeatedly. Then, he pulled me up by my hair and with the help of his colleague sat me in a chair. He cut open a hot chili and rubbed it all over my face, up my nose and into my eyes. I didn't react at all.

[He opened my legs and rubbed the ch ili all over my vaginal area. The second one pulled me forward to my feet, while the first one shoved it up my anus. He pulled it out and stuffed it into my mouth. The whole time, he was trying to taunt me by saying all sorts of insulting things. None of it got through to me at all. I will not record what he said, partly because it was mostly in colloquial Punjabi, of which I understood little, and partly because it would serve no purpose beyond teaching someone how to be insulting.]

After he finished with the chili, he started with the scissors, which turned out to be very sharp. Little cuts, not big ones, all over my breasts, then my stomach. When I didn't react to that, the bottoms of my feet. By this time, he was completely livid. I thought he was going to maybe cut my throat or gouge my eyes.

Again he grabbed me by the hair and threw me on the ground, and opened my legs. He raised the scissors over my crotch, clearly intending to use them as a weapon of rape. He stopped, clearly savouring the moment.

At exactly that instance, the door opened and someone burst through, yelling. 'Stop!! We have orders not to mess with the Canadians.'

He glared at me, with pure hatred. But he stopped. The second cop untied my wrists.

I stood up, pulled up my kechera, then my pants. My shirt was torn beyond any usefulness, though. My mouth was still full of blood. which I spat on the floor at his feet.
He spoke, very softly, so only I could hear,'If I ever see you again, you'll be sorry I didn't finish with you today.'

[So what was going on in me, while he was torturing me? (I believe this does qualify as torture.) I could see, hear and feel everything that was going on. But I felt no pain, either physically or psychologically, then or later. Instead, I was aware of various voices singing the Mool Mantar, over and over. It was the most beautiful thing you could imagine. It completely transported my being to another level where pain simply doesn't exist. This was the second time something like this had happened to me in this life - and it has not been repeated since.

[I was operating in two completely different states of being. All of my senses seemed to be in overdrive. My hearing was enhanced. Colours were vivid and alive. I was fully, completely conscious and aware. I want to emphasize that I was not being brave or strong or heroic. And I am not masochistic . I was as calmly joyful as I could ever imagine being. It simply made no difference to me what they were doing. Why do I think this happened to me? Because I relied on a promise made by one who was a father to me. There is nothing special about me in this. Any Khalsa in this position has the right, perhaps even the obligation to do the same. No special, secret words, no silly rituals, just the total intention.

[I'd like to make a couple of aside comments here. First, there are still a few things I have left out, for the sake of decency. I was not raped., if rape is vaginal penetration. Please notice that it takes nothing fancy to torture someone, no special equipment, in this case, just a chili, a pair of scissors and something to tie my hands. Also, very little imagination.

[I have not mentioned that, at this time, I was in my first trimester of pregnancy. They, of course, had no way of knowing that. Not that it would have made any difference to them! Why I didn't lose the babies then and there I can only ascribe to the fact that I was being protected by my Guru in some fashion.]

I just kept smiling. "I'd like my kirpan back, please.' The second cop handed it to me, along with my passport.

They took me, still half naked and bleeding, to a hallway, where I was reunited with Mani and Sandeep. With great dignity, my son took off his shirt and helped me put it on. 'Here, Mom.' His voice was shaking a bit. I looked at them. They had been roughed up a bit, and normally neither would have ever tied a turban so sloppily. We would discuss all that later. I evidently got the worst treatment, physically.

Later we discussed the incident. Mani looked in my eyes. 'There for a moment, I thought you might break.'

I met his gaze. 'So did I'

'I could see you change. All of a sudden, it was like you became someone else. What happened?'

I told him. He turned to our son. (Of course, all this happened 22 years ago, so all the quotes have been approximations, except this, which I remember verbatim.) 'Your mother is a magnificent person. You won't find another like her, but I hope when you get married, you'll marry a woman you can love and admire as much as I do my wife.' What woman could possibly forget such praise from her husband? (It goes both ways. A man could not forget such praise from his wife, either.)

Sandeep looked at me, and said, in a whisper, 'Mom, you were so lucky they got stopped when they did.'

Both of us said, in unison, 'Luck had nothing to do with it.'

I will leave the story there, only noting that it was not my strength and courage that made me strong; it was a gift from my father Guru. The only part I can really take any credit for is crying out for help when I needed it.

[We could not get back to our family home that day, but fortunately, some good people saw us right outside the police station and took us in.

[Although some of the city's water was cut off, where our host family lived, it was running. I f elt incredibly dirty. Thank God for a good shower! Mani helped me clean up, washed and conditioned my hair - which, against all odds, was intact - and combed it out for me. He couldn't believe I could walk on those lacerated feet, but even afterward, while I was healing, I was in no pain. I have a few scars left, my hearing was slightly damaged, but nothing too important. Mani, being a physician, thoroughly examined me, but even with the beating I had taken, there were no major injuries.]

[Our hosts, who were Hindus, gave us clean clothes, some really good food, comfortable beds and a feeling that there were still some decent people in Amritsar. We burned our old clothes, except I kept the shirt Sandeep had given to me. Our family in Amritsar is still keeping it today, as a remembrance.]

There is much more I could write about Amritsar at this time, the smell, the heat, the noxious insects, the sacred sarovar filled with blood and dead bodies, but that can be found elsewhere on the net. I'm trying to record only my personal experiences.

[Now, Maman has read the new version and is almost satisfied with it , so I will leave it as it is.]





For more information, try Googling or Yahooing on 'Operation Blue Star.'



'WHAT DOES NOT DESTROY ME MAKES ME STRONGER'



WHY TRY TO FIT IN WHEN YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT?

********************************************************


A 22 year old Hindu Amritsari man I email insists that that is a complete fabrication. His reasons are so silly that I have never answered them, but I am very, very angry at him right now for suggesting that this whole Blue Star is something to laugh at; I very much doubt I will answer any more of his emails.Here are his two objections:



They knew we were Canadians. Not wanting an international incident, they would have left us alone



Punjabi police do not mistreat women unless they are close relatives of terrorists or suspected terrorists.


The first presupposes that the underlings who were first in charge of us would care about such niceties as international relations more than they would care about the pure pleasure of tormenting us. I will point out that as soon as someone in charge realised that foreigners were being worked over, they were ordered to stop, orders that were immediately, if reluctantly, obeyed.



Do I need to even comment on the second? Does anyone believe that these [Punjabi police] have respect for women? Shall we start with K.P.S. Gill? (It takes more than a turban and 'Singh' somewhere in your name to make you a Sikh!)



But totally insulting to me is the implication that I am not the close relative of someone involved in the Khalistan movement - in local police language, a terrorist! How dare he imply that my family accepts the yoke of the Hindus, the perfidy of Mr. Gandhi and company. Now is it clear to everyone why I decline to identify my family?



There are a couple things that I personally wonder about, though. As foreigners, why were we not quickly escorted out of Punjab? Or why didn't we disappear? They must have known that we would eventually tell our story.



And why did they just turn us lose. Unless I am mistaken, the city was under curfew at that time. We should not have been on the street. What would have happened if those good people (whom Guru Ji sent) had not met us?



These are questions that have only occurred to me years later; at the time, and for some time after, I was in an altered state of consciousness where such things had no meaning. Indeed, the aftereffects of that spiritual state remain with me still.



Why was I chosen for special treatment? I believe it had something to do with my brown hair, green eyes and fair skin. They must have believed that I would be the weak link in the chain. They were wrong. Among us, there were no weak links.



As to the rest of my family that were taken that day, at their request, I have little to say except that the three of us got off much more lightly than they did.