Marriage, The Perception Of Beards And Turbans, And The Future Of Our Religion (My Story)

[london001]

this has been done several times on here, inc by myself. infact bbc asian did a show about this a few years ago and a few girls phoned up fessing up to the 'i am the utmost respest for singhs but i couldn't marry one.....' bollocks i say. if that is the way they are that is the way they are.

[californiasardar1]

I saw we make this thread a sticky. Who agrees. This is one of the biggest problems in uk sikh sangat, but we hardly chat about it, too concerned with less important matters!...

I agree. This is one of the biggest problems in the Sikh sangat everywhere (not just the UK).

I know a lot of people aren't too worried about the survival of the Sikh sarup and just figure that religious people will continue to keep it while the less religious will not. But think of how common it is for a sardar to have sons who cut their hair and then think of how rare it is for a man who cuts his hair to have a son who keeps his. In other words, almost all of the traffic is going in one direction.

Right now, I'm pretty sure that the majority of Sikhs cut their hair. But most families still have relatives (whether they are grandparents or cousins or whatever) who keep their hair. But if things continue at this rate, in 20 or 30 years that will no longer be true. Almost all families will consist entirely of people who cut their hair, and the only time that they will see men with beards and turbans will be when they visit Harmandir Sahib. This notion that keeping the Sikh sarup is something that only "priests" or "orthodox Sikhs" do (which has already caught on with most people) will then be set in stone.

I know that some of you may look at this from a purist's point of view and say that it will be good that only the most devout will remain. But I think that in life we must strive to better ourselves even while we remain imperfect. The fewer Singhs there are, the more difficult it will be for even relatively religious people to maintain the sarup. While someone who would shed the Sikh sarup under certain circumstances may be imperfect, creating an environment that makes it easier for them to keep it will help them take one step closer to the Guru and continue to better themselves.

[californiasardar1]

this has been done several times on here, inc by myself. infact bbc asian did a show about this a few years ago and a few girls phoned up fessing up to the 'i am the utmost respest for singhs but i couldn't marry one.....' bollocks i say. if that is the way they are that is the way they are.

It upsets me when people say: "I have the utmost respect for Singhs but I couldn't marry one ..."

What does such "respect" even mean? I could walk down the street and find any random stranger who respects a Sikh's right to practice their religion but wouldn't consider marrying one.

Basically everyone on the face of the planet who doesn't have outright hatred for Singhs has the same level of "respect" for them that these girls speak of. And it's like they want a pat on the back for having such a view about their own people.

[californiasardar1]

LOL, Singh that's hilarious, but i know what you mean. I faced similar things when i first kept kesh and the whole stigma of (loki ki kehnge) among relatives.

Relatives started to tell me to trim my beard and what kind of turban to wear and that you'll look like an "atvadi" with a flowing beard. It got annoying, you're right you need to be stead fast, but at the same time don't disrespect them. Don't pay attention to those fools, just keep treading the path.

I think we are giving less credit to our women, despite many being against proper Sikh saroop, many actually respect it and like it.

Haha, I've experienced similar things. When I went to India a few years ago, my beard was pretty short and still growing, and, accordingly, I did not tie it. Yet, some relatives (who also kept their kesh) flipped out and insisted that I tie it, or use fixer or some other method so that it would press up against my face.

I'm normally pretty open about people making similar suggestions (we live in a world where appearance matters to a certain extent, let's face it), but I was taken aback by how strongly they felt my appearance was unacceptable, and by the fact that my beard was still quite short in any case.

This was the first time I had been to India since I was a baby, and I had expected that people would be happy to see a boy born and raised in America with uncut hair. I was shocked to see that even in India the Sikh sarup has become stigmatized.

[pedrorizzo]

Some of this depends on families and background. Most middle aged migrant Sikh men tie their beards. It is felt by some that a tied up beard is a more professional, refined, educated image. To be honest, most young Sikhs dont really like to tie up their beards and prefer to keep them open. I once asked a white co-worker of mine, what do they think looks better. If my beard is tied up or open. They replied that they never really look, and never really notice the difference lol

Tbh, most of the people that make comments about what turban style looks better, or what beard style looks better are other Singhs. It just doesnt really register on most other peoples radar. Often it is other people, including parents concerns and worries about finding rishtay and their children succeeding in a professional environment that triggers them to pass judgment on whether a beard should be tied or not.

Personally, I find tying up a beard time consuming and unnatural. Both me and my brother have open beards. We both have ladies in our lives and we have always attracted female attention, both from white and Indian girls. Both of us work in top professional environments and having Sikhi saroop has only enhanced our lives, rather than held us back.

As to your family stating whether or not you should have a tied up or open beard.. I would just regard that as parental interference. Just like mums and dads tell you what clothes to wear, what degree to study, and how to live the rest of your life. As a wise man once said, 'opinions are like a - holes, everybody has got one'

You just have to be yourself and do what is comfortable to you and live your own life. That is an attractive quality in it self... as is the ability to shrug off critiscism.. dont take what other people say too seriously and just be confident in yourself.

[Guru_Da_Chella]

It upsets me when people say: "I have the utmost respect for Singhs but I couldn't marry one ..."

What does such "respect" even mean? I could walk down the street and find any random stranger who respects a Sikh's right to practice their religion but wouldn't consider marrying one.

Basically everyone on the face of the planet who doesn't have outright hatred for Singhs has the same level of "respect" for them that these girls speak of. And it's like they want a pat on the back for having such a view about their own people.

I know these sikh girls chat utter rubbish, if they did the show now, I would have called in and said all these turban hating sikh girls are just reducing turban guys numbers and turban guys are finding it extremely difficult to find any decent girl.

Uk sikh community shouldn't have really tolerated it when sikh kuris started drinking (I am too much of a jatt to care about the EQUALITY argument for drinking!) + smoking, making boyfriend partners (seriously please don't try and justify this, no boy from a good family wants a girl that has an ex partner), and dressing in disrespectful manner (just showing lack of sanskar really), BUT HATE and DISRESPECT against turban of sikhs just cannot be tolerated at all, especially when it comes from FELLOW SIKHS!!!!

When someone tells someone off for doing these bezhti things publically, they are told they are JUDGING and should look at their own actions etc.. BULL I tell you, this is the kinda BULL that is ruining our community and has brought it to the level of disrespecting our turbans!!! If these people even had a little bit shame, just a little SHARAM, they would at least do these things in secret instead of ruining our community in public. These kuris are so shameless that they are publically against turbans, even in gurdwara matrimonials, don;t even make an effort to hide the fact they hate turban because they don;t feel ashamed of it at all, not even a little, not even in gurdwara.

.....

[californiasardar1]

I know these sikh girls chat utter rubbish, if they did the show now, I would have called in and said all these turban hating sikh girls are just reducing turban guys numbers and turban guys are finding it extremely difficult to find any decent girl.

Uk sikh community shouldn't have really tolerated it when sikh kuris started drinking (I am too much of a jatt to care about the EQUALITY argument for drinking!) + smoking, making boyfriend partners (seriously please don't try and justify this, no boy from a good family wants a girl that has an ex partner), and dressing in disrespectful manner (just showing lack of sanskar really), BUT HATE and DISRESPECT against turban of sikhs just cannot be tolerated at all, especially when it comes from FELLOW SIKHS!!!!

When someone tells someone off for doing these bezhti things publically, they are told they are JUDGING and should look at their own actions etc.. BULL I tell you, this is the kinda BULL that is ruining our community and has brought it to the level of disrespecting our turbans!!! If these people even had a little bit shame, just a little SHARAM, they would at least do these things in secret instead of ruining our community in public. These kuris are so shameless that they are publically against turbans, even in gurdwara matrimonials, don;t even make an effort to hide the fact they hate turban because they don;t feel ashamed of it at all, not even a little, not even in gurdwara.

.....

I agree with a lot of what you said. It breaks my heart to see some lovely Punjabi Sikh girls partying, getting drunk, and letting themselves get taken advantage of. I realize adults have the right to do as they choose, but it just makes me wonder why they'd want to be treated as an object when there are plenty of guys out there who would care for them in a much more genuine way.

But the problem is not just shamelessness and ignorance and lack of sharam on the part of Sikh women. Most Sikh men are also guilty of the same thing.

It doesn't hurt as much, since we are obviously only interested in women as partners, but the majority of Sikh men do not show respect to sardars. The women will be open about only wanting to marry clean-shaven men, but it's the men who will often make ignorant jokes and refer to you as a "baba" or "giani" or something else in a sarcastic manner.

[Guru_Da_Chella]

Hmmm so no one is gonna make a sticky about the anti-turban thinking in western countries from fellow sikhs, and no one is worried about Singhs becoming a minority due to non-marriage?

At least until this problem goes away in sikh community, perhaps another decade??

[californiasardar1]

Hmmm so no one is gonna make a sticky about the anti-turban thinking in western countries from fellow sikhs, and no one is worried about Singhs becoming a minority due to non-marriage?

At least until this problem goes away in sikh community, perhaps another decade??

It's not just in Western countries. The clean-shaven preference is already very strong in India and it will only become more prevalent. The only reason one might think it's less of a problem in India is due to the presence of the hordes of beard-trimmers who artificially create an impression that sardars still have a major presence in Punjab. But it's only a matter of time before the trimmers complete the job, so to speak, and stop wearing turbans.

You are right that in a relatively short period of time this problem may go away by virtue of the fact that hardly any sardars will be left.

Just think about it:

1. Every day, keshdari boys are cutting their hair. On the other hand, how often do clean-shaven boys who have clean-shaven fathers suddenly decide to keep their hair?

2. How often does a girl with clean-shaven brothers and a clean-shaven father marry a sardar? I'm willing to bet it's quite uncommon. By contrast, it is not uncommon at all for a daughter of a sardar to marry a clean-shaven boy (and then have sons who'll grow up to be clean-shaven).

In other words, all of the traffic is going in one direction.

The number of Singhs is decreasing exponentially. I know many of you will continue to insist that this is okay because anyone who cuts their hair was too weak in the first place, and that only the strong will survive. But it is not very far fetched to conceive of a scenario in, say, 50-100 years where the population of sardars will be so small that they will truly be threatened by extinction. They might literally have trouble finding unrelated women to procreate with. I'm not joking.

Then we'll all be able to enjoy a rewritten history where kesh will be portrayed as an outdated practice that was only appropriate for its time, and something that is not required of a Sikh. Maybe the pundits will get their wish and we'll merge back into Hinduism.

[Jonny101]

It's not just in Western countries. The clean-shaven preference is already very strong in India and it will only become more prevalent. The only reason one might think it's less of a problem in India is due to the presence of the hordes of beard-trimmers who artificially create an impression that sardars still have a major presence in Punjab. But it's only a matter of time before the trimmers complete the job, so to speak, and stop wearing turbans.

You are right that in a relatively short period of time this problem may go away by virtue of the fact that hardly any sardars will be left.

Just think about it:

1. Every day, keshdari boys are cutting their hair. On the other hand, how often do clean-shaven boys who have clean-shaven fathers suddenly decide to keep their hair?

2. How often does a girl with clean-shaven brothers and a clean-shaven father marry a sardar? I'm willing to bet it's quite uncommon. By contrast, it is not uncommon at all for a daughter of a sardar to marry a clean-shaven boy (and then have sons who'll grow up to be clean-shaven).

In other words, all of the traffic is going in one direction.

The number of Singhs is decreasing exponentially. I know many of you will continue to insist that this is okay because anyone who cuts their hair was too weak in the first place, and that only the strong will survive. But it is not very far fetched to conceive of a scenario in, say, 50-100 years where the population of sardars will be so small that they will truly be threatened by extinction. They might literally have trouble finding unrelated women to procreate with. I'm not joking.

Then we'll all be able to enjoy a rewritten history where kesh will be portrayed as an outdated practice that was only appropriate for its time, and something that is not required of a Sikh. Maybe the pundits will get their wish and we'll merge back into Hinduism.

True. The traffic is only going one way. Our people are taking this clean shaven business way too lightly and nothing is being done about this. We are already a minority within the Sikhs and this all just happened since the mid 90s. Long ago when a Sikh boy cut his hair, it was a big deal within the family. Many times Sikh boys did not have the guts to cut their hair simply out of fear of his parents. But now even the parents do not care, and largely because Sikhi has taken the back seat in people's lives. Sikh mothers actually prefer their sons to be clean shaven because they think the boy will look more like her favourite bollywood hero and not to mention the fact that many of those same mothers preferred to marry a clean shaven man.

Before this trend of Sikh girls wanting to marry clean shaven boys was only in the west. But now this manmukh trend has caught up in India which is the heartland of Sikhi. A friend of mine who was educated and born and brought up in the west went to India to marry and HE was rejected by a girl in India because she wanted a clean shaven boy and the girl wasn't even from the cities. She was from a Pend in Amritsar(Guru Ki Nagri!!!).

This is an extremely serious problem and the Panth does not even realise it. Sikh jathabandis need to temporarily put every other issue on the back seat because right now more than ever MASSIVE Parchar is needed in Punjab to bring people back to Sikhi. If it is not going to happen now the damage will be irreversible for many decades. Right now the damage can still be undone. If Sikhs in India will not do the job maybe Sikhs in the west should go to India and do their part in doing parchar. I myself am planning to do this in a few years time. If not now, do it for your future generation because when your son grows up, who will be left to marry him? or would you rather see him cut his hair out of frustration just to get married? Singho! do something.

So many parcharaks come here on tours in the west to do Katha. They need to do it in India, not here. Punjab is the mecca of Sikhi. If SIkhi is lost there, what hope will be left for Sikhi in the rest of the world? before many people used to feel bad seeing so many hair cutting Sikhs in the west, but at least we had hope for Punjab. But can we still feel that hope now seeing so many Sikh boys becoming hair cutters in Punjab? Something seriously needs to be done.Right now the situation of Punjab is such that you will hardly find a Sabat soorat Gursikh boy in Punjab's village. When you do find one, it turns out the boy is a kirtaniya so that is why he has a untrimmed beard. I myself whenever I go do any pend in Punjab, the first thing people think is that I must be some kirtaniya or giani because full Sikhi sroop has become so uncommon amongst young Sikh boys.