Columnists

The Sangat Flourishes in Cyber Space

by I.J. SINGH

 

 

One morning, just days ago, I posted a column on sikhchic.com, and with childlike anticipation logged on that very evening to see if I had touched a reader somewhere.

I was absolutely amazed.

There were six responses but each was from a different country; in order, they were United Kingdom, Malaysia, Canada, Kenya, United States and New Zealand.

Here I sit in the United States, the site operates from Canada; both are in the same time zone.  The other four are worlds apart.

All I could think was: What are these readers doing in the middle of the night somewhere on the other side of the world, reading my fulminations about the state of our existence?

It was pure ecstasy to feel the reach of this young, fledgling, barely five years old site, sikhchic.com.  It has an almost infinite and, more importantly, a growing expanse. We live in a flat world now.

I remember when I left India to come to New York in July 1960. I don’t think there were any direct flights from India to America then, perhaps a rare one beyond my imagination or reach.

So I took a route that, I know now, was absolutely the best vacation I ever had, nay, a young man’s dream passage. From Bombay, it took me 21 days to reach Liverpool via a first class ship. We stopped en route at Karachi, Aden, Port Said, Port Tufaiq, Gibraltar and one or two additional stops that were less memorable.

It was my first trip to Bombay, my first visit outside Indian borders and my first view of the sea. Luckily, I was among the few on the ship that never suffered sea-sickness; my iron stomach was never queasy.  I never missed a meal or the fun evenings.

The trip was a much needed, fantastic time out. It was slow immersion into the wider world outside Punjab and India - so many different people, so many strangers, so many languages and accents, so many different cultures, music and rules of behavior, and so many different cuisines. 

What could be better schooling for a new life in New York City, the Big Apple of the world - old and new? I loved the sea voyage. It was a much needed change from the unending and uninterrupted rigors of the Indian educational format.

And from Liverpool I took a train to London, finally flying via Amsterdam to the breathless pace of life in New York. It was my first flight anywhere.

Of course, there was no gurduara and little sangat in New York. (I encountered only three recognizable Sikhs in the city then.) I used to joke that the nearest gurduara was about 3000 miles away in California. 

And then a year and a half later I was in Oregon to pursue graduate school. And then I would joke that the gurduara was now considerably nearer - only about 700 miles away. In Oregon, there was no Sikh that I knew of before I got there and none after I left it. Occasionally a Sikh visitor would come or travel through and we would meet. Now Oregon, too, has a gurduara.

But I was only a couple of fast hours from Ashland, the home of the second oldest Shakespearean Festival in North America. And I did get to meet the legendry Bhagat Singh Thind in Oregon, a year or two before he died.

How wonderfully and how so fast things have changed.  It takes my breath away.

In 2001, I wrote an essay, The Sangat of Cyberspace. Sikh communities were not quite so large then. Gurduaras were quite a rarity, but never more than one in the same territory; they were a respectable distance from each other.

Most importantly, the computer revolution was still new and embryonic. Not everyone had a laptop, The iPhone, the iPod and the Blackberry didn’t exist. 

I had discovered computers for their word-processing comfort and had learned the rudiments of e-mailing, but not much more. I was discovering a new world. 

The art, technology, indeed the meaning of communication has now changed and how. A generation before mine didn’t trust the telephone for confidential information on the most sensitive matters of life and death. 

For the most meaningful and significant matters of navigating through the cunning passages of life one needed face to face communication; this was de rigueur. You had to look someone in the eye, watch the eyes narrow to slits at your sight, watch the shades and shadows flit across one’s face, feel the firmness and the warmth of the handshake, see the perspiration form when you had cornered someone, and enjoy a genuine smile of welcome, acceptance and liking. 

Computer connectivity robbed us of all that but gave us time, expanded our reach in time and space that I still can’t imagine. I have lived most of life in the pre-Google days but now the possibilities are endless.

Just a couple of years ago, chatting with a young Sikh at a party who was studying pre-law, I triumphantly challenged him to locate the citation from Shakespeare on the clarion call to “kill all the lawyers.” I thought I was being clever and my humor sophisticated. I had barely turned away in triumph when he nudged me to give me the right answer. Flabbergasted I asked him how he had achieved that miracle so fast; he happily showed me his cell phone and his competence with Google.  

Somewhat deflated, I was but also pleased at how the world was changing. Now I understand why our academic centers and universities worry so much about electronic cheating at exams.

Electronic communications and virtual meetings now add to my pleasure as life never could before. Sometimes I taste grief that I never imagined - when I get into verbal jousting with people all around the globe, mostly those that I have never met. They are friends, nevertheless.

But then some days are different - when my daughter and now her daughter who is not even in school yet shows me a trick or two on a computer or a cell phone, that escapes me.

I never know if it is a man or a woman, young or old, rich or poor, genuinely curious or merely superficial that engages with my writings. What does his body language say? Is he talking with a sneer and an expression of disdain? Where is he located? Is he shading his words because of the political realities of the system he is in? I shouldn’t really use the word “he”-  for I know not that either. 

Much lies outside the range of my knowledge, conjecture or imagination. Cyberspace is endless, as are its promises and possibilities, while our lives are short. Thank you, my readers from around the world; you make my day.

A lot of living can be packed in one single generation. 

 

ijsingh99@gmail.com

August 29, 2011

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