dalsingh101

Right. These are the last extracts I’m going to post from the book. As you can tell, it goes a long way in helping us understand what was going on around the soldiers at ground level. Well worth a read. Some marital problems are also evidenced as in these two examples: Some wives were unhappy with the absence of their men: A few letters mention the kindness and stoicism of the French. The emotional reserve demonstrated by French women on the news of the deaths of loved ones must have been striking to the Punjabi men who would have been accustomed to witnessing wild shrieking by womenfolk in reaction to similar news.

That's really good. Maybe one day you can publish some of your family history based on these letters? Would be really good to show how concerns may or may have not changed over the generations!

lol

That seems to be limited to 'spread betting'? Basically I guess what I am asking is whether I can trade without overhead costs? Or what is the absolute minimum overhead costs I can pay?

Whenever I have encountered something similar, it usually turns out that the bloke is dating some apnee. lol

Just wondering if anyone dabbles in stocks and shares here? If so, what is the cheapest way to do this with minimal overheads. I imagine it would be via some online service? Could any brother/sister in the know, share their knowledge of how to dabble without it costing an arm and a leg?

Fateh Great seva bhen ji! One day I do hope you do complete the wonderful written translation you started though! For us old schoolers who prefer the written work for absorbing information. Great to see you're back! I'm downloading your videos so I can listen to them at home.

From The Independent: See also: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2026939/Indian-couple-lost-jobs-centre-caste-discrimination-tribunal.html

Useful for anyone teaching western people Panjabi: http://www.youtube.com/user/ihaveacomputer#p/c/892F3257125702D6/4/USqj5jDyQ3Q

Was wondering if a native Panjabi speaker could clarify. Is the way I have used the adhik here in this transliteration of the word 'cigarette' correct? ਸਿਗਰੱਇਟ Also, recently I noticed that when I search for a translation of the word 'throw' in Panjabi I get: ਸੁੱਟਣ, ਸੋਟ, ਸੁੱਟ but we've always seemed to use the word ਸਿੱਟ growing up? Anyone shed any light on this?

Some other interesting extracts: The coy, reserved sentiments of the brother above weren’t shared by all Sikhs as demonstrated in the intercepted coded Gurmukhi letter below: (The above letter was intercepted and deleted by the censors presumably because of the references to sex with white women). A Panjabi Musalmaan wrote: This letter seems to refer to an incident of rape by some Sikh soldiers. In the next letter we can see how religious sentiments were used by the Brits to goad soldiers into action:

That's an oversimplification because it was Singh Sabha that pushed this idea the hardest, yet no one can accuse them of being fuzzy with the boundary of the Sikh community.

Here is a brief bit of text I want to share with you all. It's from Sainpati's Gursobha edited by Ganda Singh. I've included the original Panjabi text as an attachment. Feel free to correct any translation errors.

I understand but I would have thought at least some strands of the faith(s) would have had hard reference to the Satguru of their Guru? I know we've probably had lots of Nanak Panthi type communities spread throughout India in the past that have reverted back to their contextual religions post Khalsa inauguration. But again, I think an event of such magnitude of all bhagats converting would have left more traces in multiple ways. Who knows, maybe a new spurt of research into the field will help shed light on the matter? Besides, I was under the impression that it was Guru Arjan dev ji who compiled the bhagat bani into SGGS ji, so linking the selected bhagat bani specifically to those who had earlier been converted by Baba Nanak is questionable. I don't reject the idea of Baba ji meeting all the bhagats, but we need a lot more evidence than we have now to be able to accept the idea wholesale. On the other side, the implications of all the bhagats being Sikhs are quite fundamentally different to those that a lot of people consider to be mainline Sikhi today (Singh Sabha influenced). I know I've grown up being told/reading that the inclusion of 'nonSikh' bhagat bani is symbolic of a lot of things that marks out our faith from others. Oftenyou read/hear about how our Gurus demonstrated truly exalted levels of spirituality and humanity by including bani from nonSikh sources, clearly warning Sikhs against ignorantly considering their way as an exclusive route to Waheguru. All the mainline literature the panth has been pushing out for a century or so, says as much. If now, we find that, no, they were actually all Sikh, the theological implications are quite significant and divergent from what has been pumped out for some time now.

Well ambiguous posts will do that. Besides Londondabahmanvadi isn't fooling anyone. If anything he's provided a text book example of the typical casteists agenda and their tactics for all to clearly see. His post reeks of the desperation people of his ilk must be feeling right now as their carefully constructed caste structure takes a serious battering in the UK. But still they cling to it. As if ignoring all the deep, unnecessary problems jaat paatism has brought to our society wasn't enough, he even closes his eyes to the answer to his dilemma in bani. The main policy towards casteists should be ridicule and exclusion. They should sod off and form their own insular 'master race' somewhere outside of Sikhi or make serious efforts to overcome their petty ignorance.

Yes you are right. Sorry I meant the bloke that wrote Manusmitri. My bad.

Thanks a lot for this info. I grabbed a few interesting works from those sites.

I would have imagined a scenario of the grand magnitude of all the prominent bhagats of India converting to Sikhi would have left a lot of evidence in it's wake. This is no small thing. If they did meet maybe the situation would have been more similar to the relationship between Mian Mir and Guru Arjan Dev ji? One of mutual respect but one where each still retained their own distinct religious identity? That's what it looks like today. If they did become Sikh, what do people who believe this think Guru Nanak instructed them to do in terms of religious practice? Okay, they were already doing simran. So would it have been based around Sikh bani? If the bhagats did become Sikhs wouldn't the communities that subsequently formed around the bhagat in the wake of such a meeting be reciting Japji Sahib or some other bani/gurmantar they received through Baba Nanak?