From the time I was a very little girl, I was taught probably over-romanticised stories of the Nihangs as great warriors, gentle rescuers, most Noble Sikhs! What our home lacked in pictures of Gurus - Daddy disliked these - it made up for in pictures of Nihangs all over the place.
From the time I can first remember I pictured my husband with a blue chola, a very long, curved kirpan and an over-sized turban carrying me away to marital bliss on a white horse. The man I married actually came close, except his turban was a normal size and his stallion was black.
One summer, when I was 7, I ran away from home (in Amritsar, that summer) and met up with a Nihang. It's a pretty good story.
Rather than sending you to my blog, I'll reproduce it here:
The Little Girl and the Big Nihang
Most Sikhs, I think, have a rather romantic, idealised view of Nihangs. I am no exception. In fact, I have a rather special love of them, based on the story I will tell you now.
I have told the story of how my mother cut my kesh when I was seven. Up until the events of 1984, that was the most traumatic thing that had happened to me. I think to any little girl having her hair forcefully cut would be a horrible and damaging experience. To a little girl in a Sikh family, it was exponentially worse.
Each summer, we went to India. I know this is insane. What sane person would choose to spend the frigid winters freezing in Montreal and summers sweltering in India? Questions of sanity aside, we were not normal people!.
Usually part of our summer was spent in the mountains of Kashmir, part on a family farm in Punjab and part in the dirty, humid, noisy, crowded, stinky, insect-infested, holy city of Amritsar. I did not much like Amritsar, although I loved the Harimandir Sahib Ji, the Golden Temple.
In the summer of 1959, however, India and China were at odds over Kashmir, so we made no trip to Kashmir that year. Instead, we divided our time just between the farm, which was at least livable and the city, which was not. I was in terrible shape. I begged my Dad to let me stay in Montreal with my friend Lilly and her family. They are Jains and would, at least, not stare at my shorn hair. Lilly's mother never really liked me - she thought Sikhs were violent and uncivilised, an opinion she holds to this day - but they were willing for me to spend the summer with them. Dad was not. He wanted me with him. So we were off to India.
As predicted, the women of the family were appalled my hair. It looked awful. My ponytail had been cut off, leaving it shorter in the back and longer on the sides. I suppose it could have been evened up a bit, but I was unwilling to let anyone near my head with a pair of scissors. One good thing about these summers was that we conveniently forgot that I was supposed to be raised Catholic and I was permitted to be a little Sikh girl.
And I was the only girl. Because of a genetic problem in my father's family, few girls are born to us, and those few almost always die in infancy. I am the sole exception in my generation; even among my brothers' children, I have only one surviving niece. Being the only girl child among many children, they made over me and spoiled me and treated me rather like a little doll.
Another girl might have liked all the attention, but I didn't! I was something of a tomboy who would rather be hunting down frogs or rats than being dressed up in fancy clothes. And they kept trying to find some way to comb and tie my hair to make me presentable. If I had been a boy, they could have tied it up in a jura - I think it was long enough for that - and tied a patka on me. But I was a girl and who was interested in something so practical. I finally took to draping a chunni, far too big for me, around my hair, although it was terribly hot.
One morning, I decided I had had enough of all this and I ran away. Being seven, I didn't plan it too well. I took no clothes except what I was wearing, no food and had no idea where I was going. I just took off through the dirty, stinking, crowded streets of Amritsar.
I wandered around for a while. After some time, it occurred to me that I was hungry. I had no food and no money. Then I realised that I had no idea where I was. I was scared. Very, very scared. Unable to contain myself. I started crying.
'Little sister, what's the matter?'
I heard a booming masculine voice above me.
I looked up and saw the biggest, hugest, most gigantic, fiercest-looking nihang you could imagine, towering above me. His beard was long and black and very bushy. I was small, even for a seven year old, and I hardly came up past his chola. His kirpan was just about at eye-level. Any ordinary little child would have been terrified.
I was not any ordinary little child, though. I had spent all my life with my Sikh family, and nihangs were highly respected, even loved. I had been taught that in any emergency, if I needed help I should go to a Singh, he would help me. So much better it that Singh were a nihang! And now one had found me! I had my very own Nihang, my knight in shining armour, or at least a blue chola.
I told him that my mother had cut my hair and that I was ashamed in my family. I unwound the chunni and showed him. He was aghast. Not humouring me. Truly upset.
'Who would do such a thing to her own child?' He muttered.
'She's Christian,' I said.
He scowled. He took my chunni and wound it around my head, turban fashion. 'There. That looks better.'
I looked at my reflection in a window and was quite pleased with the result.
But I was still hungry. I looked up at him, beguiling as only a seven year old girl could be , and said, 'Mr. Nihang Ji, I'm hungry. And thirsty. Could you please help me, sir?'
He burst out laughing. 'Oh, of course.' Looking at my short little legs, he added, 'I bet you're tired, too.'
I realised I was. I nodded.
He picked me up and placed me on his shoulders! There I rode, high above
clouds. He was very tall. We found a street vendor, no difficult task, and got some snacks and a fruit drink. I felt much better.
'Are your family mistreating you?' he asked me.
I had to admit that they were not.
'Then you really need to go home. Your family must be very worried about you. Do you know where you live?'
A little reluctantly, I told him.
The whole way home, I rode up there in the sky on his shoulders. We reached the house much too quickly.
The household was in turmoil. I had been gone for several hours and they were all scared to death, having no idea if I had been kidnapped or just run off or what. Imagine their relief and surprise at seeing me, returning triumphantly, riding a giant nihang!
My Dad, who was tall, but not a giant, reached over and took me off the nihang's shoulders. Maybe Mr. Nihang Ji wasn't really so huge. He was about the same size as Daddy.
He deposited me, talked to Daddy for a while and then left. I never saw him again, but I had had an adventure and felt much better about myself.
I suppose I should have been severely punished; the streets of Amritsar are no place for an innocent, young Canadian girl to be wandering around alone and anything could have happened to me.
Instead, we bathed and got on clean clothes and went to Harimandir Sahib
to thank Waheguru that I was safe.
Oh, yeah, I was a spoiled little girl!
Illustrations:
Top: Nihang Singh at Sri Harimandir Sahib Ji
Second from top: A nihang from the perspective of a seven year old girl
Middle: A street vendor. Notice in background the shop: 'Andeep Singh.' Mandeep? Sandeep? Who knows?
Bottom: A Nihang Singh at Harimandir Sahib. I chose this picture because he looks a lot like my Dad.
