Word: sahibs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...customs and institutions. A newcomer is initiated by being anointed with sweet water that has been stirred in an iron bowl with a double-edged dagger. Sikhs pray together on equal footing in gurdwaras, or temples, through which reverberate chanted verses from the sacred book known as the Granth Sahib. The holiest of holies is the Golden Temple at Amritsar, some 250 miles northwest of Delhi, the shrine that was stormed by government troops five months ago. Rejecting all idols as false, the Sikh (the name means disciple) draws his inspiration from ten religious teachers, or gurus...
...Ashton Pelham-Martyn (Ben Cross). Like Kipling's hero Kim, Ashton is the orphaned child of English-speaking parents. Raised by an Indian nurse, who passes the boy off as her son Ashok, he is discovered by Britons and shipped home to England to become a proper sahib. As a young man, he returns to India, joins the crack Corps of Guides, valiantly leads expeditions into the Afghan mountains, and suffers a grievous casualty at the hands of a snippy English woman who rejects his of fer of marriage. But another pair of mascaraed eyes is just around...
Mahan Singh, co-director, business manager and Singh Sahib of the ashram seems to have reconciled his faith with the demands of Western society, finding a happy niche like his fellow Sikhs. He sits in the underground Golden Temple Restaurant, munching on a sandwich of sprouts and avocado sauce, drinking yogi tea, and talking very matter-of-factly of his "process of spiritual consciousness" as cars and pedestrians rush overhead. He says he left school like most college graduates to pursue goals he though would bring him happiness; he found a good job and compassionate lover. But he felt incomplete...
...hypocrisy of Islam, Hinduism, and the caste system, Mahan Singh says. He says Nanak hoped to turn the tide of the spiritual anarchy by imploring people to bow only before God and to link themselves to the guru. Today, although the faith's chief guru, Siri Singh Sahib, resides at the Sikhs' headquaters in Los Angeles, the Sikhs devote themselves to the scripture of the last living master, the book Siri Guru Granth Sahib. The writings of the ten masters are an account of the faith's traditions and a collection of the chants and songs the first gurus intoned...
...evening, above the ice cream shop, the Sikhs practice the rituals of their predecessors, stretching, contorting, ventilating, and "oaming" to gain the higher consciousness, the ultimate. Below they walk on Mass. Ave. in clean, placidity amidst the chaos. As Siri Guru Granth Sahib says, "As a swan glides upon the water but does not wet its feathers, so a Sikh lives in the world but keeps his mind fixed...