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In barber-ic times, Sikhs focus on turbanators
this Baisakhi
WSN Network
 AMRITSAR:
The increasingly worrisome rising index of Sikh young men discarding
turban and advancing all kinds of arguments for the act has now been
taken note of by even the venerable New York Times which has
succinctly brought out the crisis facing the Sikh community, and
underlined the importance of celebrating Baisakhi this year as the
International Turban Day.
In an Amritsar datelined report, the NYT on March 29 showed how a
young Sikh man at the age of 14 abandoned his turban, had a
lifetime’s growth of hair cut off, collected the tresses from the
barbershop floor and packed them into a plastic bag to throw them
into Beas river but didn't feel the pain of his act.
The NYT quoted the teenager as saying: “It was my parents’ idea to
float it down the river...They thought it would be a display of
respect to the hair I had cut off. For me it wasn’t an emotional
moment.”
A large number of young men among the community in India are finding
the turban a bother and turning it into a question of fashion,
deducing that they would look smarter without it.
But now, thankfully, the response is coming in the same coin. Akal
Purakh Ki Fauj, run by SGPC member Jaswinder Singh Advocate, is
reversing the fashion argument on its head and presenting the turban
as the hot fashion on the ramp.
Now, in Amritsar, there is a turban tying training centre offering
free classes for boys, equipped with full-length mirrors and an
instructor teaching the fine art of twisting the cloth into neatly
layered folds on one side and smooth the pleats into sharp lines
with a hooked silver pin, which is then concealed beneath the hair
at the back.
The NYT report also referred to a “Smart Turban 1.0” CD-ROM which
offers "step-by-step instructions to create fashionable looks and
guides new turban wearers on how to choose the most flattering style
according to face shape."
To promote the turban as a fashion item, Sikh leaders have also
started holding Mr. Singh International pageants. Contestants are
judged by looks, moral character, personality, knowledge of Sikh
history and principles, and turban tying skills. The sixth World
Turban Day will be celebrated on April 13 with a march through
Amritsar by thousands of turban-wearing Sikhs.
The NYT quoted Jaswinder Singh as estimating that half of India’s
Sikh men now forgo the turban, compared with just 10 percent a
couple of decades ago. “We are going to have to battle hard to turn
back the tide. Otherwise, another 20 years will pass and India won’t
have any more Sikhs in turbans.”
The dwindling numbers of turban wearers reflects less a loss of
spirituality than encroaching Westernization and the accelerating
pace of Indian life. India began liberalizing its economy in 1990,
more people began traveling abroad and satellite television arrived
in the villages of Punjab. Working mothers are too rushed to help
their sons master the skill of wrapping a turban and increasingly
they just shrug and let them cut their hair. Youth take film stars
as their idols.
In addition, since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Sikhs traveling
abroad have complained of being mistaken for turban-wearing Taliban
and harassed by airport security guards.
India's PM Manmohan Singh and and Army chief J J Singh sport turbans
but are no style icons. That space is now being filled by by the
likes of popular pop-folk belter Pammi Bai who sings of the glory of
wearing a turban in a single released as part of the campaign.
But the community will have to do more if spiritual argument is
selling poorer than turban as the fashion formula. After all,
religion and its core tenets must be more convincing than a pop star
yodeling away.
4 April,
2007
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