ISDZZ

I believe that when we say pavan guru pani pita, and har kar vich dharamsal hovei kirtan sada basoya, we are in fact saying god is family. This is why I feel we need to challenge the status quo that Sikhs speak Punjabi to saying Sikhs speak Gurmukhi and this would encourage a sea change in the way people communicate. Whenever I listen to the news on a Punjabi or Sikh channel I am surprised how different the language has changed from the similar cross border Pakistani news channels that cater for the Punjabi audience there. I seriously believe that we do not need to go down the route of Hinduism whereby Sanskrit became a language too difficult for the indian people. Gurmukhi is no that hard to understand and when it is incorporated into media such as the news t becomes more familiar and people ask questions about what the presenter has just said etc. The danger is that we allow Punjabi to become more hindi like which is what I see happening especially when you go to places like chandigarh. There are so many hidden gems in Gurbani it requires Individuals to seek them out and make them understandable within their own fram of reference. So for me God is Family and a home is a dharamsaal that is the ideal anyway but I am far from this reality its jut hat gurbani gives me understanding and thus hope and clarity in my life.

The motto of the Ted Talks are "ideas worth spreading". What would you prepare as a Sikhism related topic and why?. I would talk about the infinite newness of my religion. How it is something which manages to pull creativity in fresh ways through recitation of Gurbani , The hidden gems in the form of new words we learn from the vocabulary of Gurbani which adds to our own vocabulary. This helps momentum of creativity in the spoken word, I see the language changing all the time in Punjab and believe this is due to the incorporation of vocabulary into existing language as a means of making sense of the changing reality. This means our religion has an infinite capacity in imparting structural changes in language to meet the expectations of the changing reality of time. I don't know any other language which has this gift and believe that the recitation and understanding and studying of Gurbani is an idea worth spreading. It is this vocabulary which also shapes how we interpret the historical sakhis in Sikhism it gives us a flavour of what the conditions were like during that time and this is then rendered into devotional music which is soul stirring. What would you think would be an idea worth spreading?