Sahibzadey - A saga of valour and sacrifice

Sahibzadey is an Animated film based on the martyrdom of the two younger Sahibzadey.

My cousin has seen the film and said that it is really good. He is trying to do his bit for the film and has bought 20 copies of the film. He is selling the copies for £6.50 + p and p.

I have already ordered mine!

Read more about the two younger Sahibzade, of Shri Guru Gobind Singhs here and here.

They are widely regarded as two of the youngest martyrs ever. The youngest Sahibzada was only 5 years old.

From what I remember about when I was 5, I can honestly say that I didn't have a clue about anything. (I probably still don't ;-)

If you are interested in obtaining a copy please email me on (sugi007 at yahoo dot com).

Simple Living High Thinking (What is it all about)

What is Simple Living High Thinking?

Why did I choose the title 'Simple Living High Thinking' for my blog?

It all started when I was in India in 1998, when I was 18.

It was my first real time in India (I had been when I was about two years old but I couldn't remember anything about it), we were travelling all over Panjab trying to see all the Gurdware etc...

We were travelling everywhere by car and we were often behind big trucks that were carrying good around the country. One time we were stuck behind a truck and I noticed that it had something written next to the number plate. It said 'Do Good, Be Good' in English. I liked this and while we were out and about, I started to look out for more of these on trucks. To my surprise there were lots of these words of wisdom on trucks.

Some examples I remember are:

• 'We two, our two'
• 'Share your wealth'
• 'Simple Living High Thinking'

When I saw 'Simple Living High Thinking' I found that it really struck a cord with me. I thought that it was a simple but important message. It may mean different things to different people but for me it all about living humbly but at the same time having the ability to think about deeper issues like who we are, what we are doing here and how to live a good life.

I have always liked 'Simple Living High Thinking' and I try to live this (abit ;-). So I thought that it would be a good title for my blog.

Desi Designs - Simple Living High Thinking

*****Shameless plug starts*****

I have been thinking about setting up a shop on CafePress for a long time now.

I have finally decided to bite the bullet and set it up. It is called Simple Living High Thinking. I have gone for a Bollywood / Desi humourous theme.

Here are some of the designs that I have put on it at the moment.

Classic Gabbar Singh Dialogue

Indian Road Sign showing how close Southall is to Panjab

Motif showing the Dream Girl of Indian Cinema, Hema Malini.

*****Shameless plug ends*****

Soul Sikher

I went to watch a play in Manchester, yesterday. My brothers friend got some tickets so we went along with him.

The play was called Soul Sikher and was by a Sikh guy called Sody Singh Kahlon.

I have seen Sody on T.V before, he came across very well so I was looking forward to his new work.

Soul Sikher is about a man called Palwinder AKA 'Paul'. He is a British Sikh who is completely disconnected from his Sikh roots. He cut his hair when he was younger and rejected Sikhism because he was being teased and he thought it was holding him back in his life.

Now he has a job where his manager uses him to setup big contracts and then sends Pauls white collegues to finalise the deals.

The play is about how he tries to find himself and the people he meets along the way (all played by Sody himself).

I really enjoyed the play because it was a comedy (with some basic laughs) but more importantly it also had multiple layers that tried to highlight issues in the British Sikh community.

Some of the issues that it highlighted were

• Two faced Sikh girls who pretend to be religious on one side then go out secretly drinking etc on the other.
• People who wear a turban as a fashion statement
• People who live off thier parents earnings
• People who don't know (or don't want to know) anything about there history
• People who think Punjabi culture is Sikh culture
  

If you can catch the play it is well worth watching.

Bradford Shooting

I am writing this as a mark of respect to Pc Sharon Beshenivsky and Pc Teresa Milburn and the Police Service in general.

It is a sad time for Bradford.

Two policewomen were shoot and one died on Friday 18th November 2005 at 15.25.

They were responding to a call about a robbery taking place at a Travel Agency on Morley St in the City Centre.

Six people were arrested in London, on Saturday 19th November 2005, a day after the shooting.

What makes this incident more worrying than other incidents is the fact that it happened in broad daylight, in the city centre and a police woman was killed.

Lets hope this is an isolated incident

Meeting Surinder Shinda

Last year (Oct 2004) while coming back from India we saw a few Panjabi 'Super Stars'.

We saw Surinder Shinda (the singer)


and Sardara Gill.

After much deliberation we persuaded my cousin (Kiren) to ask Surinder Shinda for an autograph.

We were going by Turkmenistan Airlines (A budget airline) from Amritsar to Birmingham so it was funny seeing theses well known Panjabi celebrities going on the same flight.

The Siege of Bethlehem vs. Operation Blue Star

I remember watching a documentary about the Siege of Bethlehem, 2002.

This was when Israeli forces laid siege to the Church of the Nativity were Palestinian Militants were hiding out. There were innocent Palestinians and Christians with the militants also.

The Church of the Nativity is one of the most sacred places in the Christian religion because it marks the location where Jesus was born. It is also a sacred place for Muslims.

The Israeli Forces were under extreme pressure (by the Pope and the international community) not to go into the Church because this could mean that the church being desecrated.

While watching the documentary I remember thinking that the siege had some parallels with Operation Blue Star. This was when Indian forces attacked Harmandir Sahib (The Golden Temple), Amritsar, one of the holiest places in Sikhism because it was being used as a base by Sikh militants

Whatever you think of Operation Blue Star and it's rights and wrongs the fact remains that Harmandir Sahib was desecrated when Indian forces entered it and many innocent people lost their lives during the operation.

The Indian leaders should have shown restraint and respect for the situation and not allowed the army to entered the Harmandir Sahib complex. By showing respect they would have gained the respect of Sikhs all over the world.

I don't know enough about the Middle East situation to hold an informed opinion about the Israeli / Palistinian conflict but in the case of the Church of the Nativity Siege I have to say that the Israeli forces showed restraint in the stuation (admittedly under pressure!!) by not entering the Church.

I just wish the Indian leaders in 1984 could have shown the same respect in similar circumstances.

Sikh Gurus - Their Lives and Teachings

This is one of the few books that I have read. I bought this book at Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar in 1998.

It is the best Sikhi related book that I have read.

The style of writing is very easy to get into and read. The book has a chapter devoted to each Guru Ji. Many of the sakhis of each Guru Ji are covered in the book and you get a good idea of the personality of each of the Gurus. Each chapter ends with shabds of the Guru Ji.

A very good book for everyone who wants to know more about Sikhism

First time wearing a dastaar

I saw this question on the tapoban message board. So I decided to post about my first time wearing a dastaar

****************************************************

Where I live in Bradford, UK children used to change school between Year 8 and Year 9 (Age 13). So I decided to take the plunge then and start wearing a Pag at that time.

Throughout the summer holidays before I changed school I practised on a very small black Pag. My brother showed me the basics and told me to start practicing.

My brother had learnt to do his Pag from our Grandad's friend (Giani Ji). Giani Ji had a unique way of tying his Pag. (I don't know of anybody else who does it like I have been taught)

Anyway before the holidays were finished I got my Pag in a presentable state. I had to go to my new school to pick up my uniform so I decided to take my Pag out for a test drive. I walked out of the house and up my street. My heart was thumping and it felt like everybody was looking at me but I carried on.

In the early days of wearing it my arms used to get tired tying it and it felt like I was balancing something on my head because it was so loose but as with everything you get used to it. I even used to play football with it on, at lunch time.

Now I feel akward without it.

*************************************************

Questions that people ask when they first meet a Sikh

Here is a list of question that Non-Sikhs ask me when they meet me for the first time.

1. How long is your hair? (most popular by far)

2. How long does it take to tie you turban (pag) in the morning?

3. Is your religion a mix between Hindism and Islam?

4. Don't you feel hot with a turban (pag) on all day?

5. Do you have to have an arranged marriage?

I don't mind any of the questions because it gives me a chance to let people know more about who I am and what my religion is all about.

Great cartoon of yester year

I don't know about you but whenever I am with a group of friends, sooner or later the conversation always comes around to how great cartoons were when we were kids and how poor they are now.

So I thought I should list the best cartoon that I remember from the 1980's and early 1990's.

• ulysses
  


I remember Ulysses as a bit of an off beat cartoon. The main thing I remember about it was that Ulysses was trying to get back to Earth with his family. Obviously there were many problems along the way. I remeber the starting credits were there were lots of people all floating around asleep in a space ship (spooky!!)


• Mysterious Cities of Gold
  This cartoon was set in South America, where some people were trying to find the myterious cities of gold. Thats all I really remember (apart from the cool intro song). But I remember that it was really good, honest!!


• Thundercats are HOOOOO!
  Thundercats was class, with Liono, Panthero (my favourite), Mumraa etc. We used to play Thundercats at school, i always used to be Panthero. I remember at Uni that someone had a copy of one of the Thundercats episodes. When I watched it I realised that it probably wasn't the best cartoon of all time even though I used to think so when I was a kid. Advise - don't watch cartoon that you liked as a kid when you are older, you maybe disappointed. I watched Ulysses recently and that was a good as I remember, so the rule doesn't always apply. BTW I still think Thundercats is cool (The episode I watched must have been one of the very few poor ones ;-))
  


• Dungeons and Dragons
  
  This was a cartoon where a group of kids are transported to a different world when they got to there local fair. They spend the rest of the series trying to get back home. They are helped or hindered in their quest by a midget wizard called 'Dungeon Master'. When I look back he did seem to be abit freaky. I remeber on of the characters was the funny one who always gets in trouble.

This is the list so far. It may increase as I remember more cartoons

Play acting in the beautiful game (Football)

Diving / Simulation / Play Acting whatever you want to call it is the one thing that I hate in football at the moment.

The thing is that everybody is at it and it is seen as a normal part of the game, when it should be frowned upon.

One of the most famous incidence of play acting occurred in Brazils match against Turkey.

While Rivaldo was getting ready to take a corner one of the Turkey players kicked the ball at Rivaldo. The ball hit Rivaldo on the knee but Rivaldo collapsed to ground covering his face as if he had been hit in the face.

The incident resulted in a red card for the Turkey player and Brazil won the match 2-1.

Rivaldo was fined a few thousand pound for the play acting (which is peanuts for him!!!). He should have been banned for a few games.

People are always complaining about play acting in football but FIFA never does anything about it.

What should be done

---

I think referees should yellow card any play actors. (I know this happens already to a certain extent but most of the time the referees just tell the player to get up and then they continue with the game)

If the referee doesn't spot the play acting then video evidence should be used after the game and players should be given a yellow or red card.

---

Something has to be done because at the moment there is no punishment for the play actors and so they just carry on diving until they get a decision to go their way.

Is America counting down to the next election?

When ever I watch Bush on T.V I always smile. I think he has that kind of look to him and when he talks he has a funny grin on his face all the time (even when he talks about serious issues).

Then I realise that HE IS THE MOST POWERFUL MAN ON THE PLANET!!

Then I get scared.

For anybody who wants to keep a tab on how long is left until the the next American election please look below

Here is a friendly countdown to 04 Nov 2008 -

Test

So many natural disasters...

Has anybody else been wondering why there have been so many natural disasters in the last 365 days (year).

2004

• Boxing Day 26th December 2004 - Asian Tsunami

2005

• 26th July 2005 - Mumbai / Bombay Floods
  
• 29th August 2005 - Hurricane Katrina [?]
  
• 8th October 2005 - South Asia Earthquake
  

It is only human to look for patterns and reasons for why so many disasters have occurred one after another.

Is it something to do with Global Warming?

Is nature trying to tell us something?

Is someone else trying to tell us something?

What ever it is, I can't remember a time when so many big natural disasters have happened so close together.

Bradford Bulls win the Super League Grand Final

Congratulations to the Bradford Bulls who beat Leeds, 15 - 6 in the Rugby League Grand Final.

It didn't look likely at the start of the season when they were being thrashed by every team but they went on a 12 match winning streak at the end of the season to win the title.

One of my claims to fame is that I went to school with one of Bradford Bulls players (Soon to be former player - Leon Pryce) and I had a training session on Bradfords ground, Odsal (The one and only time I played Rugby League!!).

This Gurdwara is under surveillance 24 hours a day

We have had a couple of incidents of donations being stolen from the golak in our local Gurdwara (No, not the Giani's ;-)))). So the committee has decided to fit CCTV in the main hall.

When I saw the signs up on the walls next to the SGGS Ji, it made me think that most of the time we forget that our lives are under surveillance 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. This is not done by the government through CCTV or any other organisation. This is being done by Waheguru Ji.

Waheguru Ji is keeping a record of all the good and bad deeds we do during our life time.

Waheguru Ji will replay a Video Tape or Recordable DVD of all the dodgy things that we have done in our life, when we meet Waheguru Ji.

Obviously there is time to get some of our dodgy deeds erased from from the tape of our life if we do good deeds!!!

My Dad and his Proverbs

My dad likes using Proverbs.

Here is one of his heaviest used saying / proverb

Why ask the way to a village to which you will never go!
Original Punjabi will go here...

He uses this mostly when I watch football or cricket because he says that there is no point watching and learning about something that you are never going to do or use.

My counter arguement is that no one knows when a peice of knowledge will be useful. So it makes sence to learn about as much as you can, when you can.

Read all your favorite blogs...

... all in one place.

Reading blogs is cool but the problem is that you have to remember the links to your favourite blogs and you are never sure when your fav blogs have been updated.

This is where RSS comes in. You can subscribe to the RSS feed of a blog so that you know when the blog has been updated. The way you subscribe to a feed is by using a program to collect links to all your favourite blogs. I haven't used any of the desktop based programs but I start using Google Reader yesterday. You probably think that I have started to work for google, with the posting that I have been doing, recently. I know Yahoo is working on a similar system and I am sure it will as good as googles version ;-)).

With Google Reader you can search for you favourite blogs and add them to the reader. When your favourite blogs are updated, the new posts are shown on screen in the order that they are posted. So you can go through all the new posts from your favourite blogs all from one page.

Get gmail (google mail)

I came across this site (http://www.bytetest.com/).

They collect gmail invites from people on gmail and let you have them.

You probably know this already but I will recap for those who don't know

GMail is googles web based email service. It is currently gives users about 2.5 Gb.

I think that a GMail account will become more and more important in the next few months and years because google uses gmail accounts as logins for many of it's other services like GoogleTalk and GoogleReader (more about this later).

Check it out and get one!

My dad's facts

My dad didn't have much formal education but he has deep knowledge of Indian history. You can ask him any question on Indian history and he will give you the answer with dates (usually)!!

Here is one of the facts he tells me.

Indira Gandhi is no relation to M D Gandhi. She got her surname because she wanted to get married to a Muslim man called something 'Khan'. Her father 'Nehru' didn't want to get her married to a Muslim man but she really wanted to get married to him. M D Gandhi stepped in and said that 'Nehru' should let Indira get married to Mr Khan but that he will give Indira his surname so that after married she would be known as 'Indira Gandhi' instead of having the perceived embarrassment of being called 'Indira Khan' after marriage. My dad calls her Indira Khan to this day.

More facts coming soon... hopefully!!

Countdown timer for memorable dates (javascript)

Countdown for Bandi Chhor Divas (1st Nov 2005)

Test

This is quite easy to do.

Here is how it is done.

[1] Place the following code in your template after the <head > tag near the top of the template.

<!-- START Javascript function for countdown -->

<script type="text/javascript">

var HOURS_IN_DAY = 24;

var MINS_IN_HOUR = 60;

var SECS_IN_MIN = 60;



var DAY_FROM_MSEC = 1000/60/60/24;

var HOUR_FROM_MSEC = 1000/60/60;

var MIN_FROM_MSEC = 1000/60;

var SEC_FROM_MSEC = 1000;

function countdown(yr, mn, dy, id)

{

if(document.getElementById(id))

{

// refer to the id

var div = document.getElementById(id);



var dtNow = new Date();

var dtFuture = new Date(yr, mn, dy);



var dtDiff = new Date();



dtDiff.setTime(dtFuture.getTime() - dtNow.getTime() );



var tmDay = Math.ceil(dtDiff/ 1000/60/60/24);



var tmHour = Math.ceil(dtDiff/ 1000/60/60);

tmHour1 = (HOURS_IN_DAY - 1) + (tmHour - tmDay * HOURS_IN_DAY);



var tmMin = Math.ceil(dtDiff/ 1000/60);

tmMin1 = (MINS_IN_HOUR - 1) + (tmMin - tmHour * MINS_IN_HOUR);



var tmSec = Math.ceil(dtDiff/ 1000);

tmSec1 = (SECS_IN_MIN - 1) + (tmSec - tmMin * SECS_IN_MIN);



div.innerHTML = tmDay + " day(s) " + tmHour1 + " hour(s) "
+ tmMin1 + " min(s) " + tmSec1 + " sec(s) ";

}

}

// Add the date that you want to countdown

// Remember months start at zero i.e. 8 = September NOT August
// Example = 30th September 2006
// 'coundown' refers to the name we give to the <div> tag that will contain the coundown
// You can add multiple countdowns by adding copies of the below line and changing 'countdown1' for another name i.e. 'countdown2'

setInterval("countdown('2006', '8', '30', 'countdown1');", SEC_FROM_MSEC);


</script>

<!-- END Javascript function for countdown -->

[2] In HTML view add the following text anywhere between the <body> and </body> tag

<div name="countdown1" id="countdown1">Test</div >

NOTE: you can add multiple countdowns by adding the above line again and then changing 'countdown1' to another name i.e. 'countdown2'.

Please try it

I hope this makes sense!!

Sikh Historical Paintings

I was browsing the web for pictures of gurus for my niece, Amar.

While browsing I found a website that has painting done by a Sikh painter. His name is Jarnail Singh.

He paints various subjects including:-

• Sikh History
• Portraits
• Punjabi Culture
• Landscapes

The painting are really nice. Definitely worth a look.

Sikh Youth Radio

Just thought I should let you know about a Sikh youth radio show that I try to listen to sometimes.
The show is called Sweet Sikhi (Sunday 6pm - 8pm) and is on Panjab Radio. It is mainly a discussion programme with Sikh students (I think) talking about a different Sikh topic every week. It is a nice program, with some thought provoking discussions.

There is also a programme on Amrit Bani that is a similar kind of programme but I am not sure of when it is on or what it is called, but it is also very good

Gender Ratio in Sikhs

I remember watching a feature on Star News.

Composition	Hindus	Muslims	Christians	Sikhs	Buddhists	Jains	Others
Sex ratio* (avg. 933)	931	936	1009	893	953	950

It went through all the religions in India and showed the gender ratio of each. I was shocked to see that Sikhs had the lowest gender ratio of all.

Its sad to see people who claim to be part of a religion that holds equality as one of its main pillars, are so influenced by a culture that prefers boys to girls.

Sikhs in the media

I have touched on this subject in an earlier post.

I feel that at the moment a large section of the media is mis representing Sikhs and the Sikh way of life.

I don't know if this is because they just don't know about Sikhism or if they have some false notions about Sikhi.

Anyway I think the Sikh community should get together, take a positive step and produce material that is true to Sikh values. Some examples could be Animation, Books, Films, Documentories and TV shows.

I am trying to do my bit of seva by starting a page where we can start to write the screenplay of a trilogy of Sikh Films. The page I have setup is located at sikhitrilogy.wikispaces.org/. Anybody can contribute to this page and expand it.

See what you think.

Sikhi Wallpapers

I have made some Sikhi based wallpapers in Photoshop.

Man jeete, Jagjeet


Sikh man praying (pic found here)

Elephants

I remember hearing this story when I was at school.

Many years ago elephants were not as they were now. There were white elephants and there were black elephants. The white elephants didn't like the black elephant because they were black and the black elephants didn't like the white elephants because they were white.

The two groups of elephants were always arguing with each other. They had many wars against each other becuase they hated each other so much but each time there would be no winner because both groups had similar strengths and weaknesses.

One day some high thinking elephants from the white group and some high thinking elephants from the black group decided to get together and talk about what they should do about the constant fighting between the two groups. The all decided that the best way to set up there own town away from the two groups, where they could live in peace.

The high thinking group went away and started to live a separate life away from the fighting.

Over time they began to mix with each other in their new town. Decades passed and new town started to thrive. A new type of elephant began to emerge. The grey elephant was more common than the black or white elephants. The elder elephants were very happy about the grey elephants because they thought that if all elephants were grey then there wouldn't be any reason for elephants to fight because all elephants would be grey.

The elder elephants of the town decided to organise a mega celebration to congratulate themselves on their acheivements.

It was the night of the celebration and all the elephants got ready to celebrate. As the night went on the elder elephants started to notice something.

There were two groups in the hall. One group stayed on one side of the hall and another group stayed on the other side of the hall.

After watching this for a few hours the elders decided to ask the two groups why they were standing away from each other.

One group shouted out "We hate elephants with BIG EARS!!!!"

The other group shouted out "We hate elephants with SMALL EARS!!!!"

It just goes to show that we will always find something to hate.

SikhiWiki.org

I have just noticed that my blog is on Sikhi Wiki.

Sikhi Wiki is a variation on the Wiki theme that allows users to be the editors of what is shown on a page. If you know something about Sikhi then share your knowledge on the site.

My blog is listed in the Sikh Bloggers section on SikhiWiki.

I think that I have Harpreet Singh Gill (OneMind.co.uk) to thank for this. cheers Harpreet:-))

Pics of India, October 2004

I thought that I should share some photos of my visit to India in Oct 2004

Starting off with Harmandir Sahib , Amritsar. Whenever I have been to Harmandir Sahib there is always a beautiful atmosphere about the place. No matter how many people are around or how busy it is you always get a feeling that you are privilaged to be there.


One more




Amritsar Traffic




Sheata Sahib




Mehteana Sahib


I will try to post more later.

Into the whirlwind

Found Valarie Kaur's blog Into the whirlwind while I was searching for sikh blogs (tip: put the words 'sikh site:blogspot.com' into google).

She has been going around USA making a film about the innocent people that were targeted after 11th September 2001 and how it affected them and their families.

She also has a website for the film that she is making

I think we need more Sikh film makers like her so that issues relating to Sikh's can be given a higher profile.

Freaky Coincidences

I am sure that everybody has freaky coincidences in everyday life.

I just though that I should document the things that happen to me

Here is what happened to me this week

My wife got an interview for a job at Fox's biscuits in Batley (Near Bradford). I knew that I would have to drop her off on the day of the interview but I didn't have time to find out where the factory was. So I left it for a while.

The very next day at work there was an employee who required support off site. She said that she would take me to the place where she was doing her presentation. She told me that the place was called 'Batley Bulldogs' (A Rugby League Club). I followed her to the place and found that the presentation was taking place right opposite the Fox's biscuit factory where I need to take my wife!!!!

Now, I have never even been to Batley before so I think I can class this as a Freaky Coincidence.

Lulu - The site for budding writers, photographers...

The BBC website had an article on Lulu.

This is a new website that allows people to get published as writers even if they have been rejected by mainstream publishers. Lulu prints books on demand so that there are no "books left on the shelf".

It is using the same model for music and photograhs

The royalties are much better aswell (80% of each book sold rather than 10%-20% from mainstream publishers)

Fantasy Football 2005/06

At work they are organising a fantasy football league through The Telegraph (UK).

Here is my team ( subject to change :-))

101	P Cech	Chelsea	4.0
Defenders
201	J Terry	Chelsea	5.0
204	R Ferdinand	Manchester United	4.5
210	G Heinze	Manchester United	4.2
214	J Carragher	Liverpool	4.0
Midfielders
401	F Lampard	Chelsea	5.0
404	S Gerrard	Liverpool	4.5
422	Park Ji-Sung	Manchester United	3.6
495	S Davis	Tottenham Hotspur	3.1
Strikers
607	J Defoe	Tottenham Hotspur	6.7
690	P Crouch	Liverpool	5.1

The thinking behind the choices

Every year there are a few player who perform above expectations. I have tried to guess who will have a good season before everyone else. Obviously everybody will be trying to do this.

My gambles are

Crouch
Davis
Park Ji-Sung

All the rest are fairly solid players based on ManU and Chelsea

My five songs of the moment

Here is a list of what I am listening to at the moment in no particular order

• Rabbi Shergill - Bulla Ke Jaana (Whole Album)
• DJ Vips - Lus Lus
• Gurdas Mann - Dhan Ho Drivera (This is a mad tune)
  
• Aman Hayer - Mela
• Kal Ho Naa Ho - Its the time to Disco
  

Setting up your Windows XP computer so that you can input Panjabi characters (or other non Roman character sets)

Hi,

I found out how to set a computer up so that you can input Punjabi straight from the keyboard, without using any clumbersome codes.

Here are the steps required to setup Panjabi as a language on your Windows XP computer.

Step 1

Make sure that you are running Windows XP.

Step 2

Open 'Control Panel'

Step 3

Make sure the view of the control panel is in 'Classic View'.

Step 4

Open 'Regional and Language Settings'

Step 5

Click on the 'Languages' tab at the top of the window.

Step 6

Make sure the checkbox labeled 'Install files for complex scripts...' in the 'Supplment Language support' section is ticked.

Note: You will get a confirmation message after ticking the check box.

Step 7

Click 'Apply' and then 'OK'

Note: You may be asked for the 'Windows XP' CD after clicking 'Apply' depending on your set up

Step 8

Restart you computer

Step 9

Open 'Control Panel'
Make sure the view of the control panel is in 'Classic View'.
Open 'Regional and Language Settings'
Click the 'Languages' tab
Press the 'Details' button
Press the 'Add' button in the 'Installed services' section of the window that appears
Choose 'Punjabi' from the list of languages
Press the 'OK' button

Now you should have support for Punjabi.

If you want to start typing in Punjabi first use the key combination 'Alt + Shift' to set you computer to Punjabi mode (You can tell if you are in Punjabi mode by looking for a 'PA' in the bottom right hand corner of your screen rather than the 'EN' for English) and then just start typing.

For example: ਸੁਖ (Sukh)

Jo Bole So Nihaal - The Film - No If, No But, Just Crap?

There has been an interesting discussion about the film ' Jo Bole So Nihaal ' on SikhNet

First of all I would like to make it clear that I have not seen the film and I wouldn't class myself as a proper Sikh i.e. I have not taken amrit, I trim my beard, I eat meat. ( As I read this it looks bad) but I am constantly learning about Sikhi.

Here is my humble opinion

In my opinion the title of the film should not be ' Jo Bole So Nihaal '. This is because the film looks like a typical masala film with all that goes into a masala film ( sex, item numbers, girls in skimpy clothes). This can clearly be seen in the promos. This type of film cannot be reconciled with ' Jo Bole So Nihaal ' as a title which is a Sikh War Cry and has been misenterpreted too many times in Bollywood films already.

The director of the film, Rahul Rawail, who is born into a Sikh family, says that the films' title is apt because the heros name is Nihaal Singh.

With a title like ' Jo Bole So Nihaal ' I was expecting a religious film with a message like some films I remember wacthing as a kid ( Dukh Banjan Tera Naam, Nanak Naam Jahaz Hai, Guru Maneo Granth) Although these films were by no means perfect, they did have good intentions and showed Sikhism in a beautiful light.

Other people have said that the film continues the worrying trend of portraying Sikhs in a bad light. For example they are shown to be stupid, simpletons etc. I have to say that the promos do suggest that point of view. However this cannot be verified until I see the film.

I can understand how people get frustrated when they see yet another film where a person who looks like a Sikh is shown in a negative way. I feel that they do have a point but they have to look at the real world where we so called Sikhs are doing numerous things that are against Sikhism. We have to be realistic and understand that the media will depict people as it see them in real life. All groups will have good and bad people in them.

However we must not allow the media to mould the image of Sikhs so that it is contrary to real life.

A more important issue to me is the way the media portrays the Sikh religion as a whole. I will try to explain what I mean by this. If a ' Proper Sikh ' is shown to be doing something that is against Sikhism, then this can be more dangerous than when a ' Trim Singh ' or ' Mona Singh ' do something that is against the religion. For example in some films ' Proper Sikhs ' are shown to be idol worshiping. The act of idol worship is totally against the principles of Sikhism

If you have seen the film ' Jo Bole So Nihaal ' please post a comment on what you think about the film generally and how you felt about the film from a Sikh point of view.

If I have offended anyone please accept my apologies.

What if Guru Ji came to stay

This is a really thought provoking poem.

What if Guru Ji really did come to stay with us
(It could be said that he is always with us and we just choose to ignore him).

How would we treat him.

Would we try to hide things from him?

Would we be glad when he leaves?

Here is the link. Nihang Singhs Blog

Let the blogging begin...

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I should start blogging so that I can tell other people about all the daft ideas that I have and what I think about.

About me:

Name: Sukhjit Singh
Nationality / Ethnic Origin: British / Sikh
Location: Bradford, England

I will post more soon