Again, this is another post that most of us have come across. Although the categories are exaggerated, it does show us how even when we think we're just going to the Gurdwara, we actually have our own motives and interests. Rarely do we visit the Gurdwara and focus on Maharaaj, and no one or nothing else.
...
The following is a list of twenty observable categories of Sikhs who come to Gurdwara. This list is constructed on the basis of personal observation and the categories are by no means exhaustive. Nor are they mutually exclusive. Check and see which category (ies) applies.
The Social Geeks
These are people who are socially dull, meaning that from Monday morning to Saturday night they have no social life. So the Gurdwara is their social life. They spend three to four hours in the Gurdwara and spend it on saying hello to everybody. They find out how well and badly everybody is doing. They tell people about themselves, their kids, their pets, their sicknesses, their neighbors, their movies, their vacuum cleaners, their plants and the condition of their basements. They tell people what they think of the weather here, in Canada and in Punjab. By the time they find out that people really don't want to know all these, it’s time for them to have langgar and go home and wait for next Sunday.
The People Watchers
These are folks who think that the Gurdwara is a 3-D cinema hall where a real life movie is being played out for them. In the langgar hall and the Darbar, they invest time and energy in discovering the best seating spots from which they can watch, observe, analyze and make detailed mental notes of who comes, who walks at what speed, who bows with the left hand touching down first, who sits with the right knee up, who needs to lose a few pounds, who wore the same clothes from last month, who drinks more water than he eats, who licks his fingers after Degh and many other such important details. For these folks, their spot is a closely guarded secret; so don't be surprised if they come early to claim it. For them the movie is only paused after they have packed their langgar to take home.
The Fashion Models
In every Culture and Civilization there is always a group of people who feel God created them for the whole world to look at. They are show offs who come to Gurdwara with the latest fashions; unsavory accessories, cell phones, bags, shoes, wallets, CD players and what have you. They walk about excessively and do all sorts of thing such as dialing imaginary numbers on their cell phones to draw attention to them. Some program their cell phones to ring in the Gurdwara at regular intervals to indicate they are important people. By the time they realize no one really cares, its time to think of what else to show off the following Sunday.
The Famine Victims
One look at these people and you think they have just come back from famine starved Somalia. There are three sub categories of this type: The Breakfast grabbers, the Lunch gobblers and the Breakfast and Lunch Hoarders. They survive on tap water and gum from Monday morning to Saturday night and rush to Gurdwara in their pajamas to have their first decent Breakfast for the week. Some go back to bed after that. Some go to work - after pretending to sit around for five more minutes after the meal. They want to show that they did not just come for the food. Some go lean on the Gurdwara walls upstairs, pretending to memorize the Paath, till its time for langgar. As for The Lunch Gobblers - they are too weak to wake up for Breakfast, so they come 7 minutes before lunch is to be served. Tell tale signs of these people - they park their cars nearest to the front door - blocking everyone. They are too weak from hunger to park further and walk. Some block the neighbor's front door. All doors look alike when you are starving.
The Yearly Visitors
These are people who believe that Gurdwaras are buried under snow and mud 364 days and open only on Vesakhi day. So they hibernate 364 days and take up on Vesakhi day. Some wake up on the wrong day. They come to Gurdwara one Sunday before Vesakhi or one Sunday after. Some come on the Weekday that April 13 is and get very upset that the celebration day is not the weekday but the nearest Sunday. They phone the Gurdwara at 12.00 noon on Vesakhi day and ask for directions. Once in the Gurdwara they ask for directions to the langgar hall and the bathrooms after that. Then they walk over to just about anyone wearing the Bana and ask if there is Degh left. Then they ask the Granthi the exact date for next year's Vesakhi. They want to make sure they hibernate for the right period. Then they ask what else is being distributed. Unfortunately this year, they get to read this about themselves. Their cell phones ring to the hibernated Hindi song "Aiye bethey khaey peeay khiskey."
The Gossip Mongrels
There are people who would whither and die if someone exterminated gossip. Gossip is the main chemical component of their DNA. So they come to the Gurdwara to energize themselves with Oscar Award Winning gossip. They sit in pairs in comers, constantly pat each other on their backs, are deeply engrossed in their gossip but manage a wide smile to anyone who passes by. Their slogan: G stands for Gurdwara. G stands for Gossip. My slogan: G stands for Garbage - let’s sweep gossip out of the Gurdwara.
The Business Dealer
There are two types: The Bad and the Fake. The Bad ones keep hustling the committee with their ideas on how to raise money for the Gurdwara. Their ideas almost always involve the selling of some product or service they deal in. The catch is simple: get the Gurdwara to sell a useless product for them at five times the price to the sangat. The Gurdwara can keep one tenth of the profit. The Fake ones have no such ideas. They just walk around with their cell phones ringing incessantly to fool everyone into believing that Bill Gates is calling them and they are too busy to take the call.
The Matlabees
These are people who belong to some group or organization (not a Gurdwara). One week before their organization is supposed to organize a function - a fund drive, a crowd requiring activity or a donation wanting event - they turn up in full force all ready with fliers, posters and rehearsed speeches, masquerading as loyal and committed members of the Sangat. You immediately recognize them because you saw the same group exactly one year ago and wondered what happened to them after that. Well, they are back, yearly. Now they want the entire Gurdwara Diwan to come to a screeching halt to accommodate their requests. They want to stand up on stage and make speeches about their event. They want to distribute their fliers to every single individual including any unborn children. They want the Gurdwara Notice Board filled with their fliers. They want the committee to organize buses to ferry the Sangat to their event. They want all members of the Sangat present to heed their call and turn up for their event. It's a pity they don't stay long enough to see their fliers ending up in the Gurdwara garbage cans.
The Do Nothing Folks
Some people are just born dull through no fault of theirs. These people come, sit around, look around, smile around, walk around and go back. They don't respond to any messages and any requests to help out. They are in a state of mental fatigue compounded by muscle paralysis. Some are just brain dead. They don't pick up a tissue, they don't shut a dripping tap, don't flush the toilet, don't put their shoes on the racks, and don't empty their cups before putting them in the garbage. They believe the Gurdwara is maintained by the same people who clean the White House, so they have to do nothing.
The Granthi Hustlers
This is a peculiar category. God Bless them. They listen to the Kirten and Katha and the Stage Secretary and the Hukamnama reader with great scrutiny, taking notes of grammatical errors, slips of the tongue, his/her hand movements, what was left out and other mistakes. They walk up to their target and start of with the statement "today you did fantastic, I enjoyed it so very much." What they mean by fantastic is that they were able to catch the one mistake to comment on. And they enjoyed it so much because the target presented them with an opportunity to show that they know better. Their modus is simple: they begin with a question, and then go on to provide a 45-minute lecture type answer themselves. The objective is to show they know more than you. Advice to Granthis, Kirtenias, and Stage Secretary: Fake a diarrhea attack when these people walk up to you. If you don't, then be ready for their verbal diarrhea.
The Control Fiddlers
A group of people who think they have great fingers and that fiddling with heat controls, switches, taps, carpet threads, toilet flush handles and toilet paper is their objective in life. They must turn something, unscrew something, and turn off what is switched on and vice-versa.
The "This Should Be" Folks
These are people who have alternative ideas for everything from the color of the walls to the composition of oxygen in the kitchen air. They stop sewadars and say "you know, this sink should be there, this door should open the other way, that door should not open at all, there should be a door here, this switch should be an inch higher, that plug an inch lower, this wall should be a brighter color, these curtains should be of darker color, these tiles should be bigger, these staircase should be wider, that corridor narrower, the ceiling should be higher and so on. Sewadars have varying levels of patience with these people. The most patient will say, "Oh, I was thinking exactly what you are thinking," and walk off. The less patient one will say, "Why don't you move the sink, widen the staircase, move the ceiling up ... you get the message. The least patient will say, "These people should be ... You fill in the blanks.
The "I'm Free Next Week
"These are people who put up a big façade about wanting to help out and do something. They stand around Sewadars who are doing something; make very concerned suggestions about how to do it better. All these with both hands in their pockets. When the Sewadars make the mistake of asking for their help, they respond most enthusiastically and animatedly (with hands still in their pockets, nevertheless), "Oh I am off next Tuesday," or "I have a free day on Wednesday," or "I wont have to pick up my daughter next Thursday" or "I'm going to pass by Gurdwara next Friday." Sometimes they make their brainless excuses a little more alive, such as "Next Saturday I'm going to BJ’s and I'll buy the right kind of scrub to get rid of that stain," or "next Monday, my cousin is coming from Canada and I'll ask him to bring a new broom they invented that picks up even more dirt."
The Wall Supporters
People who believe the Gurdwara's walls need support and they are ready to provide it. They believe if they don't lean on the walls, the walls will, over time start to sag, or worse just drop down. They also believe the paint on the walls, if it rubs on to them while leaning against it, will help cure their innate laze. The whole Darbar may be empty but they will not sit in the center, rushing to the walls instead. Wall, Wall in the Gurdwara, Who is the laziest of them all?
The Free Heat Therapy Seekers
People who think sitting while leaning on the heat panels will ensure only their neighbors get backaches, muscle pains and joint pains. They further believe if they took some heat home from the Gurdwara, the heating bills in their house will come down by at least 30 percent. So they hog the heaters trying to absorb as much heat to take home as possible. Their logic: if people can take home Degh, langgar, samosas, pakoras, barfee etc, why can’t they take home free heat? In summer, they take home cool air from the Gurdwara's air conditioners so that they can enjoy the 30% savings all year long.
The Car Park Admirers
These are people who think the real beauty of the Gurdwara is in the car park. They get their peace and comfort by hanging on in the car park, looking at other people's wheels and memorizing their registration plates. Their major complaint: Why don't you serve deg and langgar in the car park? That way we won’t have to come into the Gurdwara at all. Their minor complaint: Let’s put a speaker in the Car Park so we can know when Degh is being served.
The Instant Converts
They turn out from just about nowhere and on their first visit after months or years appear to be the most excited people in the universe. They are terribly impressed by the Gurdwara program and want everyone to know about that. They want to be part of all that they witnessed and experienced. They want to enroll in Kirten classes. They want to enroll in the Tabla Classes. They want to be in the Punjabi Class. They want to participate in the Akhand Paath. They want to do Sewa. They want to help. They want to lead. They want to contribute. They bug the Secretary, the President, the Granthi, the Treasurer and every other sewadar by declaring, "Give me something to do. I want to get involved. I want to do something. I want to do everything." The only thing they don't want to do is come back next week or the week after that because by then they would have converted to something else. That is why they are called the instant converts.
The Idiotic
They come to the Gurdwara to protest their coming there. They go there to prove to themselves that it is not worth going. So they come in protest, sit in protest; in short they do everything in protest (except eat langgar, regarding which they have no protest as yet). They protest in the bathrooms by not flushing the toilets. They protest the shoe area by yanking off and chucking their shoes randomly. They protest the sewa by not getting out of the way. They protest the Kirten, Katha, Ardas and Hukamnama by sitting in the langgar hall and reading a magazine or counting the knots in the carpet they sit on. To show the seriousness of their protest they read the same rotten magazine every Sunday and count the same knots. They are labeled idiots because that is what you would call someone who went to cinema and listened to his own rotten CDs while the movie was running. The very idiotic even form a group; discussing the rotten magazine and the carpet knots downstairs while Kirten and Katha is going on upstairs.
The Dyslexics
People who have trouble reading notices and clocks. If the notice says Diwan starts at 10.45 am and ends at 1.30pm, they come at 1.35 pm. When asked about the root causes of their dyslexia, they respond, "Oh, we come to Gurdwara to Matha Tek. Everything else, we are not interested." When told that at 1.35 pm they can only "Matha Tek" to a slab of granite that is the Palkee because the Guru is then in Sukhasan State in some other room, they respond "Oh the Guru is everywhere" When asked if so, then why not Matha Tek at home, the response is "Oh, but the langgar is not everywhere." See what dyslexia can do to your brains?
"I got to go" Folks
These are people who rush into the Gurdwara, talk with a raised voice, move hurriedly form person to person saying "Susrikal" (not Sat Sri Akal) and immediately adding "I got to go, " They mean to tell us they are terribly important people, they have a life to live, a business to run, things to do etc and the rest are people with all the free time in the world who have no where to go and nothing to do but waste time in a Gurdwara. But some people don't get their message as it is intended. They read "I got to go" differently and start pointing to the toilets." Maybe they want to flush these "I got to go" people down you know where.
And finally, the Normal
These are the simple folk who come to Gurdwara to pray, to learn something, to do Darshan of the Guru and His Sangat, to do some sewa, to listen to the Guru's Kirten and his messages. They help out because they consider the Gurdwara their own. They contribute something for the same reason. They are punctual and regular. They inspire others who are doing sewa. The Gurdwara is their spiritual life. They don't bother with the gossip, the fashion, the show offs etc. They know they are coming after a week and they want every second to count. They don't want to commit any follies in the Gurdwara. They sit straight with full concentration; listen to the Kirten, Katha, Ardas and hukum attentively. They respect everyone and get respect themselves. They don't care what others think of them and don't waste time thinking of others. They don't ask what the Gurdwara can do for them, but what they can do for the Gurdwara. They don't care if there are very few people in this category. All they care is what the Guru thinks of them."
No comments:
Post a Comment