“Why are we making a special exception for one religion?” asked Levant. “I know why. Because Christians, when they’re upset, they write a letter to the editor. Radical Muslims, when they’re upset, burn down embassies.”

Just goes to show, that if you want things done, peaceful protests, writing letters only go so far. You really want to make things happen you got to,

You gotta snap some collars and let them motherf@#@s know you here to take them out anytime you feel like it! You gotta get the ground beneath your feet, partner, get the wind behind your back and go out in a blaze if you got to! Otherwise you ain’t shit! You might as well be dead your damn self!

Or as Niccolo Machiavelli said -

Nevertheless a Prince should inspire fear in such a fashion that if he do not win love he may escape hate.

It’s been a while since I left Western, and even while I was their I kept as low a profile as is expected, but that could have had more to do with the fact that I spent 90% of my days asleep (I think I was sleeping roughly 12, 13 hours a day back then).Anyways, first I thought I’d give a shout out to the Western SSA, who seems to have things on lock, but more importantly I thought I’d reflect on my days at Western or at least the year I spent doing nothing.

Actually why not talk about the one thing that I did look forward to, Mata bringing back muffins that his mom made for us every other weekend. These were probably by far the greatest tasting muffins I ever had and I think anyone who lived in that house on Sunpac (the one with the Nishaan Sahib, up outside) would agree, that they where the one thing that everyone looked forward to. Well maybe me more so then anyone else, considering I would raid them and they would be gone within the first 2 days. They where awesome, chocolate chip muffins to die for, and then there was also the cake, but that was usually all gone an hour upon arrival.

Then of course there where the pranks, that we pulled, those were in a league of their own. Such pranks included:

• Turning off the water supply when others where in the shower, (never was on the receiving end of this).
• Piling and stacking up the entire kitchen’s furniture (fridge, stove, table, punday, chairs) all in front of Amrit’s door, while he was asleep at night.
• Hiding and scaring the life out of Baba (he’d always grab his chest and be a heart beat away from having a full blown heart attack), by hiding in his room then popping out when he least expected it.
• Putting Polmolive on anything and everything in the basement. This included but was not limited to, door knobs, door handles (fridge, stove, microwave), toilet seats, and off course but not least all the faucets.
• Locking the downstairs guys out from the top half of the house. In retaliation they shut off our power, disconnected our Cable, and turned off our water supply. Luckily we where able to plug the fridge into a socket that was wired with an outlet from downstairs, so it stayed on and no food got spoiled We were also quick to react , whenever they turned the water back on for themselves and quickly filled up any patila we had with water.

There were probably a half dozen others, that I can’t remember or don’t want to remember just because of the psychological scars they probably left, which forced me to subdue them to the nether regions of my subconscious.

Then of course there were Mata’s jam sessions. Even without a tabla player he’d go on doing keertan well into the night and the times that he had one, well that caused for the one kirtani rainsavhi. Literally, he’d start at 8 or 9 at night, and would go on until about 3, 4 in the morning). Recordings were made, but I doubt you’ll be seeing them on any site anytime soon.

I could probably go on with other stories such as the time we went Paintballing, and Baba bailed on me, leaving me to hold my own against the entire opposing team, or the mission where Mata used me as his human shield, but then I wouldn’t have stories to share in person, so left that.

I would have included pictures, but considering all of us were broke none of us had one back then, except for that one night when had one and ended up taking a bunch of pictures and making that Sikh pioneer video, trailer.

Maybe I’ll put that up, one of these days, but then again maybe I shouldn’t, or should I?

Anyways, check out Westerns Site and Blog, and for other SSA’s check out COSS.

A little while ago, I posted a matrmonial clip of Ranjit Bhai. However after reading some of the comments Ranji Bhai was upset, with all the confusion and the remarks about his so called “dhoti”. So he sent in this video, which speaks for itself.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of Naamdhari’s, never have been, was somewhat cool with them for a minute (the Jagardhang Naghardhang track), but then I snapped back to reality.

Now before you think I’m getting all racist or prejudiced or whatever else, you got to realize that Naamdhari’s for all I know maybe really good people, but for their beliefs I can not ever openly accept them.

Sure they do Raag, yes they even lay emphasis on Raag, and good for them! Too bad they also believe in a daydhari Guru. It’s an insult and a slap to Guru Gobind Singh, every minute when they tell us that their Guru is Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s successor.

Some sites now accept Kookay as being a branch of Sikhs. They are not Sikhs! They might be good people, but not Sikhs. They never will be, until the day they recognize only Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, as the true and immortal Guru, until the day they kneel before Guru Roop, Punj Pyarai they will remain separated and on their own path, astray from the Guru Panth.

I don’t know why I’m so frustrated with Kookay. I think largely because they’re spreading there mythology even further and further. Akaal Takhat has rejected Naamdharis from the panth, yet mainstream Sikhs still openly accept them into their homes.

It’s a sad day, when we accept and sit beside those who openly challenge Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s hukam every day by believing in their own daydhari Guru.

I honestly don’t understand where they’re coming from. How do people believe them? Why do people believe them? If any good is to be derived from them, then it would have to be that they help take the fools out of Sikhi, leaving us with those who have at least the common sense to know that the Naamdhari panth is not a genuine panth, it’s a leach, sucking the blood out of Sikhi, which is even more frustrating since we’re already filled with our own set of Pimp’s (Babbay, Jatehdars, Granthis, Gianis Mahants), who are busy pimping our Panth for their own glorification and satisfaction. But then again, in the olden days they used leaches to help cure sicknesses, by sucking out the diseases and poisons, so maybe there could be some good to all this?

Only Guru Sahib knows, but until then let’s just sit back and enjoy watching Kookay going wild.

Something that’s been bothering me for the last while is the spelling of Holaa Mahallaa, as Holla Mohallaa.

No matter where you look, everyone’s writing it as Mohalla, now I don’t know if I missed something but the proper spelling is Mahallaa/Mahullaa.

Now you can argue that I’m being anal about something that could just be linguistic i.e you say To-mate-o’s I say To-mat-o’s , but lets look beyond that. Regardless of how we say it, we still spell it tomatoes.

The way I assume this whole thing even went of track was, someone read the gurmukhi wrong, and remembered it as Mohalla or similarly someone transliterated it, Mohalla, and it started being pronounced Moe-Hulla, with no one knowing any better or just not caring enough, no one cared to fix it, and then it got re-transliterated back into gurmukhi as ?????, and in this copy paste world that we live in, people just stuck with it.

“Hold on, hold on, what proof do you have that you’re right, and everyone else is wrong?”

Well so far from old pictures and videos I have always seen it written ???? ?????, only on the internet and on various English posters have I ever seen it ever written as Mohalla. But then again don’t take my word for it, check out Mahan Kosh, the Sikh Dictionary, and see for yourselves what is written (more importantly how its written) for the entries on Hollaa Mahulaa (for those of you to lazy to check, yes its entered as ???? ?????) .

It’s such cases as the above that have me hating English transliterations. I’m against teaching or starting people of in reading Bani using transliterated Gutka’s. Part of my cynicism towards it comes from me personally having had started of with transliterated Bani’s. Sure it helps in kind of parroting the language but the way most transliterations are done, they are done at some next academia standard which leaves those trying to learn the language in trouble, since you need to basically first learn the transliterated codes and accents.

It also acts as a barrier when learning to read Bani via Gurmukhi, since many times your tongue gets shaped into reading things or saying things the way it was originally picked up, making it that much harder to relearn the proper pronunciation. But for those adamant about their use of using transliterations of Bani’s, I suggest you do so with tapes of individuals who have good ucharan, and try to mimic their pronunciations.

Anyways back to those evil doers who use Mohalla instead of Mahalla, the one that really irked me to write this post was when I saw it on the COSS website, but their not first or last, just another victim of this copy paste era. Other victims can be spotted using Google.

On the bright side, it’s not all bad. Here are a bunch of those that use it properly

In closing, “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle “ – G.I Joe

Here’s a video made by the Capital Mob last summer. I thought it was pretty funny, although I cant see myself pulling stunts like that anytime soon.

Enjoy..

(Having trouble watching the video? You Need the latest Flash Player - 8.0)

I was checking out some sites and came across this one, which lets you check up on charity tax returns, so I thought I’d take a look at the various Gurdwara’s around Canada, or at least the big ones and see how they are spending, so without further ado here we go:

Gurdwara’s With ….

Most Assets:

1. Ontario Khalsa Darbar (Dixie Gurdwara)- $15,557,645.00
2. Kalgidhar Darbaar (Abotsford)- $11,157,787.00
3. Gursikh Sabha Canada (Scarbrough Gurdwara)- $ 6,638,545.00
4. Sikh Spirtiual Centre (Rexdale Gurdwara)- $ 3,033,789.00
5. Singh Sabha Malton (Malton Gurdwara)- $ 2,953,486.00
6. Sri Guru Nanak Sikh Centre Brampton (Glidden Gurdwara)- $ 2,891,172.00
7. Ottawa Sikh Society (Ottawa Gurdwara) - $ 1,972,100.00

Most Revenue

1. Ontario Khalsa Darbar (Dixie Gurdwara)- $1,884,671.00
2. Kalgidhar Darbaar (Abotsford)- $1,342,852.00
3. Sri Guru Nanak Sikh Centre Brampton (Glidden Gurdwara)- $1,256,674.00
4. Singh Sabha Malton (Malton Gurdwara)- $ 936,657.00
5. Sikh Spirtiual Centre (Rexdale Gurdwara)- $ 884,049.00
6. Ottawa Sikh Society (Ottawa Gurdwara)- $ 360,944.00

Most advertising costs

1. Ontario Khalsa Darbar (Dixie Gurdwara)- $73,400.00
2. Sikh Spirtiual Centre (Rexdale Gurdwara)- $53,941.00
3. Kalgidhar Darbaar (Abotsford)- $36,757.00
4. Ottawa Sikh Society (Ottawa Gurdwara)- $ 1,500.00

Most spent on office supplies

1. Sri Guru Nanak Sikh Centre Brampton (Glidden Gurdwara)- $55,860.00
2. Sikh Spirtiual Centre (Rexdale Gurdwara)- $48,396.00
3. Kalgidhar Darbaar (Abotsford)- $21,011.00
4. Gursikh Sabha Canada (Scarbrough Gurdwara)- $10,518.00
5. Singh Sabha Malton (Malton Gurdwara)- $ 9,946.00
6. Ontario Khalsa Darbar (Dixie Gurdwara)- $6,718.00
7. Ottawa Sikh Society (Ottawa Gurdwara)- $5,439.00

Most spent on Sangat

1. Ontario Khalsa Darbar (Dixie Gurdwara)- $1,169,194.00
2. Kalgidhar Darbaar (Abotsford)- $813,390.00
3. Gursikh Sabha Canada (Scarbrough Gurdwara)- $557,800.00
4. Ottawa Sikh Society (Ottawa Gurdwara)- $176,925.00
5. Sikh Spirtiual Centre (Rexdale Gurdwara)- $7,162.00

Some notes about the above

1. The financial years differ for various Gurdwara’s, hence they are not all from the same annual period. The data used was that which was that for the most recently available.
2. I’m not a accountant or anything close. I jus tried to comprehend and understand the tax records best I could, so don’t take the information above as fact.
3. Money spent on Sangat category was derived from Section 5000, which had the header: total charitable programs expenditures.
4. All the above data was obtained using the Charities Listing database tool provided by Canada Revenue Agency.
5. Some of those Gurdwara’s not listed were not listed due to me not being able to find them in the Database.