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Thumbnail image: A victim fights back despair. Above: Tending to sacred birhs of Guru Granth Sahib. Below, first from bottom - A Sikh home in the path of destruction. Second from bottom - A relief camp. Third from bottom - Rescue.

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UNITED SIKHS: A Vignette

by GURMEET KAUR

 

The following vignette by a volunteer worker gives an insight into the type of work that UNITED SIKHS and similar Sikh organizations get involved in, as they serve communities in need around the world. 

 

It was 2:30 AM of January 13 and my cell phone rang. By the time I got to it, the voicemail system had picked it up.

It was the 15th night since the South East Asia disaster that I'd been up this late, either because I hadn't gone to bed yet or had been woken up in the middle of night.

The thought crossed my mind: "I can't handle it any more; this is it. I am calling the UNITED SIKHS folks tomorrow and will ask them to find another volunteer for this job. What am I doing here? More work everyday with bigger expectations I am unable to fulfill."

Three to four hours of sleep each night uninterrupted, if I am lucky. Another six or more hours of commitment through the day, all while I also have a full-time job to keep, a child to raise, a house to take care of ... all by myself?

I haven't cooked a nice meal for us for 15 days now, the house is becoming completely unlivable and I am constantly struggling to meet the deadlines at work. I haven't exercised or been outside for a walk in fresh air, watered my plants or done any paatth. I hadn't spend any time helping or even looking over my son's homework, or had any time to socialize with my friends.

My Mom left yesterday to go back to India and I had spent less than 24 hours with her in the past 15 days.

I have been taking volunteer calls and answering their questions and processing their applications as the Volunteer Coordinator for the GHANAIA project.

I checked my voicemail. It was Bhai Esher Singh, Leader of our South East Asia/India Project. I thought: don't they know it is night here?

Of course he does. How many times have I called him when it is midnight for him? He said it was an emergency and I needed to call him right away. Rubbing my rebelling eyes, I started scanning through my India logs for his latest phone number.

Luckily, I got through on the sixth try. He said they were stuck at Port Blair in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean and that Campbell Bay, where a lot of damage has occurred, is accessible only through the army or air force. It is 300 nautical miles from Port Blair. Even if they take a boat, it will take two or three days. There is only one flight that takes the relief material and they have agreed to send one person only.

There are five organizations, including UNITED SIKHS, negotiating access.

If and when access is secured, we're also warned that the return date cannot be assured.

There are more than 350 Sikh families in Campbell Bay, of which approximately 70-75 are lost. Some families have come to Port Blair and are putting up in a gurdwara where there isn't enough care available.

The Sikh families are in Gobind Nagar, Joginder Nagar and Campbell Bay. The tehsildars (adminstrators) etc. from the affected places have already moved to Port Blair.

Bhai Sahib added that Port Blair got its first relief flight 70 hours after the disaster and people are in bad shape. Administration is still struggling on what to do. Most of the flights are being used by the politicians - Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assembly -  and government officials, whereas the citizens are kept back.

The relief camps at Port Blair were full. He had met a few families who were in great distress; they had lost everything and yet they were refused to be admitted in the camp since it was full.

Bhai Esher Singh and his UNITED SIKHS team had, to date, been phenomenal in banding up with other Sikh organizations, providing short-term relief in four villages in Cuddalore, adopting one village and starting rehabilitation work there.

Now, he was directed by the HQ to go assess the situation of the neglected pockets of people. We had information on how Sikh ex-servicemen were asked to settle in the A&N islands and were neglected for the longest time. We had also been told that the government of India is allowing limited access to these islands.

"Recognize the human race as one," the Guru's command, means we also have to look after our brothers and sisters. We seem to neglect our own people the most. It was time to see how the people who have always uplifted the downtrodden, and tended to the needs of others before their own, needed help.

Now Bhai Sahib is stuck there, unable to get access.

He needed either a higher-up government official to call the Secretariat or use all the credentials of UNITED SIKHS, along with a lot of legal paperwork and the weight of its commitment, to help the people in those islands, before he was going to be allowed to assess the situation.

I promised we would get him the paper work in a few hours and contacted the person who could provide everything in time: Mejindarpal Kaur, Director of the European Chapter. I knew she would be up and, unlike me, she would not complain. The moment I thought of her, I felt ashamed of complaining.

This woman - what drives her, I don't know. I volunteer a few hours a day and it seems to have upset my life completely, but she seems to have allotted twenty hours and more per day to this work. There were others: Kuldip Singh, the humble Director who would take any task and always deliver on time.

Not to forget the rest of the team - the volunteers who have been waking up at 4 am every morning in Chennai (India) and traveling two to three hours to the distant villages which had been affected by the tragedy and neglected, providing them food, medical supplies, clothing and love, without any ulterior motive. And then, getting back late in the day and compiling reports to send to the HQ. Making mid- and long-term recommendations ...

And then, getting ready to do it all over again in a few hours.

Then, the image I saw on TV of little boys and girls in a long line with dirty pots in their hands, teary eyes with no knowledge of their parents or relatives being alive, flashed in front of my eyes, and I saw my own son Angad Singh in that line.

I forgot all my pain, took a deep breath and thanked the Guru for giving me this seva and slept like a baby for the next two hours.

What I had gained was a deep-seated satisfaction that I was, at the very least, doing my bit.

 

[For more info on United Sikhs, please visit  www.unitedsikhs.org]

January 6, 2009

Conversation about this article

1: Jas (New York, U.S.A.), January 07, 2009, 7:55 PM.

Thank you for this account. I totally agree, it sometimes takes some effort to place oneself in another's shoes. 'Out of sight' sometimes does to 'out of mind'.

2: Tejwant (U.S.A.), January 09, 2009, 3:50 PM.

Gurmeet, my Sister Ghanaia, your sleepless nights are not spent on counting the stars but helping to prolong the life of those who may have perished like the shooting stars. Your physical and mental pains are not destined to go astray but act like machetes to pave new ways for those who have come to the dead-ends of their lives. Your great seva is the ointment that heals the physically and the spritually wounded. And, last but not least, your footprints on your walk-the-walk have mapped the way for Angad to follow.

3: Manjeet Kaur Shergill (Singapore), January 10, 2009, 11:43 PM.

If I may ask - at the risk of sounding ignorant and defeatist - what drives United Sikhs and Gurmeet to do what they do? The world continues to be messy, people's lives continue to be messy and the solitary confinement of prisoners will continue to exist ... The Sikh Gurus did what they did to clean up the mess, but the mess remains. May I suggest that Sikhs make it their mission to concentrate on the crux of our ardaas - sarbat da bhalla. No raj. No mukti. Let's just desire what our Guru desired, to just bow at HIS Feet! Simple. Less drama. More humility.

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