californiasardar1

Is that a video of you, @dallysingh101?

Or the not-so-younguns

What information did you have about the girl before you got married?

Believe me, I've spent much of my life with the goal of completely avoiding Punjabis (and your post partially explains why). But alas, I am stuck with them in some sense ...

I hope that I can talk to some of you who are more familiar than I am with modern Punjab and its culture. This does not have to do with the other threads I made about land or traveling. It is a more personal matter, so it would be best discussed via private messages. If any of you are kind of enough to take the time, please let me know. Thank you.

Come on Veer Ji, don't be so lazy to do a 5 second google search Moga is a city (center of its own district) and it is not especially "close" to either of Amritsar or Hoshiarpur. It is in the Malwa region, south of the Sutlej River. The closest big city is Ludhiana (about 70 km away).

By the way, what is sikhawareness.com? At first glance, it appears to be similar to sikhsangat (with some of the same posters ... or at least some posters who use the same screen names as some posters here), but with little/no moderation and thus more tabloidish topics.

I've never even stepped foot in Sacramento.

How are they getting so many photos of him without being able to capture him?

I will be honest: the thought crossed my mind. Showing up in Punjab suddenly after living abroad for so long, and now getting away despite the entire might of the Indian government supposedly being marshaled to capture him ... it all seems a bit odd. There were definitely some people from the 80s/90s era who seemed fishy in similar ways.

Thank you for the advice Veer Ji. I don't even have any interest in claiming any inheritance. I am basically stuck going because my relatives have been negligent and they apparently can't do anything with the property unless I formally inherit it and then give them power of attorney. Apparently, it was jointly in the name of my father and the other involved parties. They insist that if I don't go to Punjab and fill out the paperwork there, they cannot do anything with the land. I find that difficult to believe, considering how corrupt India is. Anyway, as I said, I have no interest in any of this and I would not go to Punjab if it was just something in my name. But they have made me out to be the bad guy who is inflicting unfair harm on them by not going, so I am stuck. To be honest, I am still tempted at times to just tell my relatives to <banned word filter activated> off and deal with it themselves somehow. I really do not want to go to India.

Thank you Veer Ji. Is there any reason for me to be concerned about the taxis? Even though I can speak Punjabi, my accent will immediately give away that I am an NRI. Is there any chance that taxi drivers may try to kidnap me or rob me or anything like that? The idea of staying at a reputable hotel overnight and going through them sounds good.

Now that I think about it, Amritsar airport would surely allow for a shorter journey to Moga. Do you guys have opinions about the relative ease and safety traveling from Amritsar airport vs Delhi airport?

By the way, I am not planning on going in the next few weeks, so the current unrest in Punjab is not an issue, per se. I would like to go during the summer sometime.

So it looks like I will not be able to avoid going to Punjab to take care of some business matters related to inherited property. Long story short, I don't feel comfortable taking rides from relatives or staying at their houses. I do not like my relatives and cannot stomach the thought of relying on them. I would like to stay on my own and travel on my own. Can you guys please offer some good suggestions on how to travel from Delhi airport to Moga safely and independently? And would a small city like Moga have a decent hotel that I can stay at? I am primarily concerned about people being able to tell that I am an NRI and trying to take advantage of me. Also, please keep in mind that I am a sabat soorat Singh. Getting targeted by Indian authorities for no reason may sound like an irrational fear, but I am legitimately concerned that they could lock me up simply for being a singh and throw away the key.

The song is still played all the time. Many Punjabis grew up thinking that this song perfectly summarized what it means to be Punjabi. The glorification of degenerate "Punjabi" culture continues to have an enormous negative impact today, and it is interesting to take a look back at a song that laid the foundation for that. In particular, I found it it interesting to note how much it was full of revisionist bs and blatantly anti-Sikh.

You've gotta love it at the end when the clown gets emotional over the Ravi being separated from the Chenab.

Why so much footage of the Indian military celebrating?

This is what a "baba" in a mid-90s Punjabi village looks like in Maan's revisionist Punjab:

Watch the video. In a few minutes, it captures the complete victory of secular, degenerate "Punjabiyat" over Sikhi. It does so in several ways. First, it celebrates anti-Sikh practices as central and beloved parts of everyday life in Punjab: - Alcohol is referred to not just in the chorus, but also in other lines (like the one referencing a peg) - Maan celebrates being a jatt - People are playing cards (and therefore probably gambling) Second, it almost erases the Sikh presence from Punjab - The vast majority of men in the video are monay, of the rest almost all are beard trimmers. There are one or two Sikhs with beards in it. Even most of the old men are monay. The video was made in the mid 90s. - The flagrant deletion of the Sikh presence in Punjab is perhaps most apparent in a scene featuring a "baba" who grabs Maan's ear during the card game. How ludicrous is it that, in the the mid 90s, a "baba" in Punjab has a haircut, a mustache, no beard, and a sloppily tied pagh with the final layer left hanging on the back? The man looks like a Haryanvi Hindu jaat. I've never seen an elderly Sikh (even trimmers and monay) wearing a pagh with a mustache but no other facial hair or stubble. Not nowadays, and DEFINITELY not 30 years ago. In Maan's revisionist Punjab, the elderly Sikh "baba" archetype is replaced by a Haryanvi Hindu jaat. Let that sink in for a moment. Third (and perhaps most disgustingly): along with the near-absence of Sikhs, we see a large proportion of the men wearing military uniforms. I take it you guys know what the Indian military was responsible for in the decade and a half prior to when the "Apna Punjab Hove" video was produced. So why would the military be featured so prominently in the video? It is symbolic and sickening: the Sikhs have been defeated, and the military is left standing, celebrated as the true sons of Punjab as they dance and engage in anti-Sikh practices (drinking). That is the Punjab that is celebrated by Maan (and most dimwitted, shameless Punjabis of modern times): a Punjab free of Sikhi and taken over by a bunch of degenerates. The most sad this is that, while Maan was engaging in ludicrous revisionism, his depiction is what Punjab has more-or-less become.

You make a great point. Nobody is going to mess with an economic giant consisting of over 1 billion people because some random, uneducated pendus who have no money, no organization and no power. Sikhs are very clueless. Just browsing SikhSangat is extremely depressing. I think there was a thread a long time ago where people were speculating on the worldwide Sikh population, and everyone was just pulling random crazy numbers out of their @sses (like over 100 million).

Sikhs will not be able to move forward and progress until we stop: 1. Attaching importance to silly things and 2. Living in the past (and even worse: living in a pretend fairy tale version of the past) The Koh-i-noor diamond is not some sort of special symbol of Sikh sovereignty. It has just been a status symbol for various rulers over time. The Sikh obsession with it is corny and pathetic on multiple levels. It's like caring about random material possessions of some rich person just because that rich person comes from the same background as you. Also, Sikhs crying about the British taking it is silly considering that Ranjit Singh took it from someone. What is the appropriate amount of time to go back to determine the "rightful" owner of anything?

Why does it matter that you aren't the only one who engages in sentimental revisionism about Ranjit Singh's kingdom? Does the fact that, in addition to you, a large proportion (probably a majority) of our people are misguided and misinformed somehow make it less cringe-worthy? Regarding why Sikhs remember Maharaja Ranjit Singh and not the other various Sikh rajas, there are two reasons: 1. Ranjit Singh had a much larger kingdom but, moreover: 2. 95% of today's Sikhs (including Malwai) probably are unaware of the existence of the other rajas in any case We are sadly one of the most clueless and ill-informed groups of people on the planet. I bet you more than 95% of Sikhs who have heard of Ranjit Singh also believe that his empire included all of modern Indian Punjab.

Sikhs need to stop looking back at Ranjit Singh's empire and making it out to be something that it wasn't. As for "sovereignty," Ranjit Singh's empire began when he robbed other Sikh misaldars of their sovereignty. Was that fighting something that was happening according to Khalsa principals? Or was it just another instance of rulers fighting over land and power (which has been happening since the beginning of time)? Did Ranjit Singh's empire have a significant impact on the preservation and spread of Sikhi? It doesn't seem like it. In more detail: roughly half the "long term" Sikh population of the time lived outside the borders of Ranjit Singh's empire. Was there a dramatic difference between the preservation and spread of Sikhi, development of Sikh institutions, free practice of Sikhi etc. within Ranjit Singh's empire vs. outside of Ranjit Singh's empire? It doesn't seem like it. It is puzzling why people portray Ranjit Singh's empire as having been so important to the Sikh cause. This portrayal does not seem to be grounded in facts, but rather sentimental revisionism.

Who gives a <banned word filter activated> about a bunch of rocks.