Fateh…
A few points on Gurudwara protocol: Appreciate your thoughts/comments and constructive feedback on if I am right in the first place, and how some of these can be improved. 1. Basant: We have any traditional gurudwara in India, where a basant raag shabad is recited at the beginning of kirtan. However I notice that in the UK and USA the ragis don’t follow this. Even ragis who are from India (including Hazoori Ragis) tend to forget this when they are in the West. Should a basant raag shabad not be recited in the west during the months of Jan – Mar. 2. Prashad: In many traditional gurudwaras when serving prashad, the bata is covered with a cotton white cloth to preserve cleanliness, barkat etc… However in the west this is somewhat forgotten where you notice the beard of the Prashad Service Sewadar is flowing into the Bata. Again should this not be followed. 3. The ragis doing kirtan in 3’s generally tend to be a sole key ragi; where the ragi on the side most of the times hardly is a mere presence to fill the numbers.It is our highest purest form which you are reciting; should you not pay more attention and really learn how to do kirtan rather than just sitting pretending. 4. Mobile Phones: Most Ragis now use the mobile phone to read a shabad. Phone sits on the baja. The requirement for Harminder Sahib ragi used to be that he should know at least 400 shabads from heart. If we are reciting Gurbani from reading from phone, vs from our mind, it clearly shows. Esp as there is a hukamnama from Akal Takhat prohibiting use of mobile phones. Yes this is clearly violated by the Ragis. How do we enforce this for the others. Again the above are just observations which I think are taking us away from our basic protocol which is being breached.
I will highly appreciate your thoughts /comments on this with a view of Am I correct in the above, if yes then how do we go on about improving this.
Fateh . . . .