OF KHALSA AND SAMURAI - REPRISE.

I think with all the attention on Japan these days, some of you might enjoy reading my earlier post about a Samurai lady meeting two Khalsa in San Francisco.  First, I have constructed a picture as my tribute to the people of Japan, which I will share with you here.

My Tribute to the People of Japan

This is my recognition of the spirit, courage and civility of the Japanese people and their response to the recent trisaster.

This is a reminder that the Sun is always shining. Sometimes we just can't see her.

Below is the the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami, while Fujiyama soars above the tragedy. Above all, the benevolent presence of Amaterasu-no-Kami, the Sun Goddess and chief deity of the Shinto religion, gives her blessing and strength to her people, the people of Japan.

(Note: I am neither Shinto nor Japanese. If I have hurt anybody's religious sensibilities, please let me know and I will correct the matter.)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With much thanks to Derek Visser. Three of his photos were used to make the Fukushima plant here:
www.flickr.com/photos/vizpix/5530864283/
www.flickr.com/photos/vizpix/5529845859/
www.flickr.com/photos/vizpix/5529038135/

To the United States Air Force
www.flickr.com/photos/usairforce/5529732202/
and
the US Pacific Fleet(Navy)
www.flickr.com/photos/compacflt/5529922582/

I believe all other images used are in the Public Domain.

OF SAMURAI AND KHALSA

A few weeks ago, we visited the San Francisco Bay Area, courtesy of one of my husband's nephews. I was the first time I have been to San Francisco, Mani's favourite American city, since the events of 1984. Such memories, it brought back! I can't really share these with anyone here, so I'm sharing them with you, my online friends.




One year, I think it was 1978, but I'm not sure, we decided to celebrate our anniversary/my birthday by taking a holiday in San Francisco. Very unusual for us, we decided to leave Sandeep in the safe hands of the family and set off for nine days and eight nights in The City By The Bay. Family had our hotel number, of course, along with a promise not to phone unless it was a life-altering emergency. No such emergency occurred and we had a wonderful time. OK, I'll fess up. We called home each evening to say hi to our Sikhling.

One of the few things Mani and I could never agree about was our manner of dress. His appearance was very important to him. His clothes were always perfect, his turban beautifully tied, shoes, when he wore them, perfectly shined. He even ironed his jeans! (I refused to do that because I thought it was stupid.) I, on the other hand, insisted only that my clothes be neat and clean and cover me decently. And be comfortable. They must be comfortable. Beyond that, I really didn't much care what I looked like. We did agree on a few important points. No high heels, no dresses, no make-up.


On the farm, my appearance didn't matter all that much. He expected me to be a bit messed up, mucking around with the cows and goats and chickens (kept for fertiliser) and also with our various crops. I usually indulged him in the evenings by showering or lounging in the Jacuzzi for a while and then putting on a Punjabi suit, a salwar kameez. He usually lounged around evenings in kurta pajama. We might not have been a Punjabi couple, but except for his grey eyes and my brown hair and pasty skin, we certainly looked like one.

For our trip to San Francisco, we reached a compromise. During the day, while we were walking, hiking, goofing off, I would wear jeans - ironed by him! - and something colourful and attractive on my top. This was necessary because walking shoes look really stupid with dressy clothes. When we went out in the evenings, I would dress to the nines, looking every inch the proper lady, while he also dressed up - in full bana! He looked really cool in bana - what Sikh doesn't? - and he looked somehow silly in a suit.

 


We quickly found out that many fine San Francisco restaurants had a dress code that men had to wear jacket and tie. We avoided those. As Mani said, "They probably don't have decent vegetarian food anyway. We had a glorious time, walking from the Embarcadero to the Pacific Ocean - one side of San Francisco to the other, rambling through Golden Gate Park, exploring those strange, little neighbourhood shops that San Francisco seems to be full of. We spent a whole day at Fisherman's Wharf, watching the tourists shiver. Most people don't realise that San Francisco is quite cool most of the time, and so dress inappropriately for the weather. We also went hiking in the Muir Woods amidst the giant redwoods and hiking up Mt. Tamalpais across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County.


I really want to write about one particular afternoon and evening. We decided to go see a Toshiro Mifune movie playing in a theatre in Japan Town.

Toshiro Mifune

 
Mani gave me those cow eyes and asked me to dress up, even though it was only afternoon. I said it was too early, if I had to dress up I'd wear bana, too. He grinned at me and agreed. We ended up dressed exactly alike except he had a saffron turban, while I used a chunni. (We should have tied a turban on me, I now realise, but for some reason, we didn't think of it.) And, unlike him, I carried the more usual short kirpan. I admit we made a grand-looking couple, him in a dark blue chola, saffron-coloured gatra containing a full-length kirpan, and, of course, his perfectly tied turban, me similarly clad. Him tall and towering and masculine, the perfect Khalsa warrior, me short and slender, yet with the full figure of a fertility goddess, also the perfect Khalsa warrior, except in a battle, I'd have to ditch the chunni. As he said, "We look goooooood!"

We arrived for the afternoon matinee and, much to our surprise, there were only a very few others attending. I guess weekday afternoons don't bring out the samurai crowd. A very lovely Japanese lady, clad in traditional kimono, not only sold us tickets, but also tended the refreshments counter and acted less like an usher than like a hostess. When we first came in, she looked at Mani shyly, but still with open curiosity and perhaps a bit of apprehension. She was even shorter than I am; he must have seemed a giant to him. "Sir, "she asked in a heavily accented voice, with that high, squeaky voice that Japanese women traditionally affect, "may I ask you a question?" She waited for him to answer, which he did in the affirmative.


I just knew she was going to ask if he were an Arab, but she surprised me. "I see you have a katana, a sword. Are you some sort of a samurai among your people?"  In spite of the accent, her English was excellent.



We were both startled at that question; I was very curious how he would answer. "We are Sikhs who have been initiated into the Khalsa Knighthood, so I suppose you could consider us a sort of samurai." He went on to explain a bit about Sikhi, which she had never heard of. When he finished, she was grinning broadly, obviously happily impressed.
Then she turned to me and said, "Great lady, you are also this Khalsa?"

Great lady! I could live with that. I smiled at her and replied, 

"Yes."

Her smile faded briefly as she asked, "Then why do you have such a small sword?" I didn't really have a good answer, so, on the spur of the moment, I came up with the explanation that I was so short that it would drag the ground., Actually, that is close to the truth. The answer seemed to satisfy her and her smile returned. She also wanted to see them both unsheathed; we were happy to oblige.

She was obviously impressed and asked if there was anything she could do to make us comfortable. She clearly wanted to do something, so one of us suggested that some Japanese tea would be nice. I mentioned that we were visiting San Francisco to celebrate our wedding anniversary as well as my birthday. She brightened up immediately. "Then you must have long noodles for long life to celebrate." He explained that we were vegetarians and ate only "Buddhist food." (We had learned that was the easiest way to get correct food in what used to be called Oriental restaurants.)


"No meat. No egg. Tofu is OK?" She asked.

"A bit taken aback, we agreed.

"I be right back. You go sit down, enjoy watching the people stab each other." She disappeared into a back room and we went into the theatre and watched "the people stabbing each other."

After a time, she returned with a large tray of not only with tea and noodles (in miso soup), but also a sumptuous feast of vegetarian sushi, inari sushi, norimaki with vegetable and tofu filling, and small mounds of vinegared rice with various thinly sliced vegetables on top where normally there would be raw fish. And lots of wasabi, ginger and shoyu.

We were both overwhelmed. She ignored our reaction and arranged one tray on the seat to Mani's left and another to my right, dividing the food between us. "Now eat and enjoy while you watch movie." She smiled, bowed and walked away. What could we do? We ate and enjoyed and watched the movie. And wondered what was going on. After the movie, we found out, while eating some vegetable tempura that she brought in.


"I am Shinto," she told us. "I worship Amaterasu-no-Kami, the Sun Goddess, foremother of our Emperor.

Amaterasu-no-Kami

"Last night, she sent me a dream that I would meet some great warriors, not Japanese, but worthy to be samurai. I saw you and knew she had blessed me with your holy presence, so I could have the honour of serving you. I am descended from a very old samurai family that was impoverished when the samurai class was outlawed. They took all our swords and melted them down. You know, all our women were also taught martial arts and sword fighting, so we could protect our homes and our honour, if need be. Without our swords, what could we be?"

Samurai swords

She was clearly speaking from deep in her heart, speaking as if these things happened recently, instead of in the previous century. I wanted to see your kirpans" - she stumbled over the word - "so I could honour my ancestors." We didn't quite understand that last statement and didn't ask. Somehow asking seemed cold. "There is one more thing, please." She pulled out a small book and handed it to me. (Why not him? I do not know.) This is the Bushido Book, The Code of the Warrior. I think you do not know Japanese, but please accept it as my gift." We were quite overwhelmed. The book was obviously quite old, probably a family heirloom. Still, it was unthinkable to refuse it. We took it and kept it always among our few treasured possessions.


A most important note: As usual most of these pictures are roached from the Internet, compliments of Google Search. Two are not. That strange-looking being on the Golden Gate Bridge is me, as a giant Nihang. Why not?

That very handsome Sardar Ji I have used to illustrate bana is the father of my little sister Kamal Kaur. His name is Sarbjeet Singh Ji and he, like my own Dad, is a Canadian from Punjab. Notice the twinkle in his eyes and that lovely smile.

Sarbjeet Singh Ji

My medical caretaker,Irene pointed out to me that if he is my sister's father, then he must also be my Dad. An interesting idea, as I believe he is somewhat younger than my 57  59 years! My thanks to these two for letting me use this picture. 



One further note about Kamal Ji. You might have noticed her listed as an author, although she has never contributed a post. This is for a very special reason. For some time, she has been downloading and saving each post's html on her computer. Anything can happen on the Internet. This site could be hacked, Blogger could decide to delete it for some reason, new laws in America might restrict the freedom of speech and/or the press. If this blog should, for any reason disappear from the blogosphere, dear Kamal Ji will have preserved it, so it will not be destroyed. Of course, I also download it to my computer, but my poor old compy isn't very reliable and if something should happen to me, it might sit forever here with no one the wiser. So she is performing a great sewa, in my opinion. This will probably embarrass her, but, little sister, I want to thank you from my heart for doing this.

A GOAT MAKES A LION SHEEPISH

For the last few months, my creative endeavours have been mostly concerned with visual arts instead of writing. I’ve been working with Photoshop and gif and, most recently, with Windows Movie Maker. I have also been teaching myself to knit Estonian lace, an accomplishment for those with two usable hands. 

My writing has kind of fallen into the bin of things I just don’t make the time for. A couple of dear friends have really been pestering me to write something, anything. Today, there is a heavy rain and I feel like a change, so I will write about an incident on our lovely little farm many, many years ago when life was simple and generally a lot of fun.

I’m not sure I can write this. It’s about the funniest thing that ever happened to me and even thinking about it I can’t stop laughing. It concerns a grumpy, cantankerous nanny goat – they are all grumpy and cantankerous, but this one seemed to have some special chip on her goat shoulders – and a strong, dignified, self-possessed Khalsa lion who was always in control of himself and never let anything discombobulate him.

A lovely Saturday summer’s day on the farm. Mani had decided that I needed a break from my usual routine and that he would milk the goats. I admit I wasn’t too sure that that was a good idea. Mani was a great doctor and very good at doing almost everything, but he was a city boy right down to his cellular structure and the farm was an alien environment to him. I was, of course, raised in the city, but parts of our summers in India had been spent on the family farm, always a welcome relief from the filth of the city. I sort of caught the farming bug then and felt at home on our little farm.

Back to milking the goats. Mani, of course, looked perfect. He had decided to play nihang, I guess, and was wearing a blue chola and a perfectly tied turban. I knew the goats wouldn’t be impressed, but, to be honest, I was. He always – almost always – impressed me. So he took the milking bucket and all 6’ 3” (191 cm) of himself out to the barn.

 

I sat down in the kitchen to work on my knitting and enjoy a cup of tea and some homemade bread and jam.

For a time all was peaceful. I could hear the happy little birds chirping and the sound of Sandeep and Rosa’s kids playing happily in the back ground when—

Mani came running full speed into the kitchen, screaming as I had never heard him scream before, in a complete panic – (Sorry, I have to stop for a laugh time) – “Shut the door! Shut the door!”

[Freeze frame] Before I continue with the action, I must describe my thoroughly discombobulated husband. His chola had somehow come completely open, his turban was loose and disheveled and goat milk – my wonderful goat milk – my dribbling from his drenched beard. What milk had managed to make it into the bucket was slopping and spilling all over the floor.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t shut the door. All I could do was laugh helplessly. Normally I am a kind person who wouldn’t just laugh at someone in such panicked distress, but this was my imperturbable Mani, the always calm, always perfect Mani Singh with goat milk dribbling down his beard onto his naked hairy chest.

[Resume action] Immediately behind him ran one very determined nanny goat. Determined to catch him and do God-only-knows-what to him. Needless to say, I could not close the door. I was laughing too hard. I think ROFL had not yet been invented, but I was laughing so hard that I was bent over double, unable even to breathe, and actually fell out of the chair onto the floor. ROFL. So there I was, helplessly laughing on the floor – which by now was slippery with goat milk, my husband first glaring down at me and then at the goat and one nanny goat standing, smiling triumphantly at the whole scene.









“If you can stop laughing long enough, get that damned beast out of our kitchen!” Poor Mani just didn’t see the humour of the situation yet. (He would later, of course.) I struggled to my feet and slid over to the goat while Mani made his way to one of the chairs. He was almost there to safety when he slipped and that whole big body crashed to the floor. He grabbed at the table and managed just to catch the end of the tablecloth, pulling jam and bread and tea onto his prostrate body. I am sure that someday, in some remote corner of hell, I will pay for this, but I couldn’t resist saying, “Lo, how the mighty are fallen,” as I picked myself up. The goat meanwhile had started nibbling at a flower pot on the counter and had pooped on the floor. I managed to get her out of the kitchen and back to the barn. She liked me well enough and I suppose that she was content to return home, having had her triumph. 

Still barely in control of myself, I quickly ran back to our house, to the kitchen, hoping to get to a camera before Mani regained his senses. I was too late. He had already run off to the shower. Not before disposing of the goat poop, though.

I started to clean up the mess, leaving him to nurse his wounded pride. After a time, he returned, looking again like Mani, calm, self-possessed and all that, although he was very, very red from blushing embarrassment. Rather sheepishly, he insisted on finishing cleaning up the kitchen, which was very sweet of him. I made another pot of tea and ate my jam and bread and knitted and burst out laughing every time I even glanced at him.

Two things I learned from this:

1. Bana is not appropriate attire for milking goats.
   
2. Goats do not belong in my kitchen.

Mani never offered to milk the goats again. 

"I AM I, MANI SINGH!"

I am on hiatus, but this story just begs to be told.  So much tragedy on our last trip to India.  It wasn't all tragedy, though.  There were some funny moments that have tended to become lost amidst the blood and guts and glory.  This is one such moment. 
****************************************
Twenty-six years ago almost to the day, three very weary Sikhs landed in the Delhi International Airport.  The three, a man of 43, a woman of 34 and a boy of 13, really just wanted some quiet sleep after two days air journey from Montreal.  We three, of course.  I'm sure we looked less tired than we actually were.  Mani and Sandeep were both in bana, I was wearing a red silk Punjabi suit.  We looked very, very Sikh.  Mani was his usual 188cm (6 ft, 2 in) self, straight back, striding through the airport as if he owned it.  Sandeep - with a beginner's mustache, quite attractive and a few stray strands of hair on his chin, already taller than his 152 cm (5 ft.) mother - and I  trotted along beside him. Neither Mani nor I of us had been to India since the summer of 1969 and we didn't know what we would find.  It was Sandeep's first visit.  We knew, of course, about the tensions between us Sikhs and Indira's government and were very much aware of -  and supporters of - the Khalistan Movement.  We had even hoped that we might somehow be able to meet Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale ji.   Still we were unprepared for the feeling of coldness, even slight hostility toward us.  Nothing we could quite put our fingers on, but definitely something unpleasant in the air.

As we walked quickly through the airport, a weaselly little Hindu kept running alongside us barely able to keep up, jabbering on and on about, "It's 12 o'clock, Sardar."  No ji.

It was a bit annoying, but we ignored it and just kept going.  Finally, the gnarly weasel stepped directly in front of Mani.  I have to say this about the little creep, he had guts.  "He looked up at Mani, directly into his eyes, and said, "What do you think you're going to do?  Who do you think you are, anyway?"  Or something very close to that.  I gasped;  even Sandeep was taken aback.  I knew Mani was tired and might well lose his temper.  His left hand was on the hilt of kirpan and a scowl was on his face.  The weasel seemed to relise that he had made a mistake.  Others, too, noticed what was going on, and our immediate environment became very quiet.

This, of course, is not us.  Mani and Sandeep had turbans and I bear little resemblance to the luminous Sophia Loren

Mani was Mani.  He threw back his head and began singing, very loudly,

Oh the trumpets of glory
Now call me to ride,
Yes, the trumpets are calling to me,
And wherever I ride,
Ever staunch at my side
My squire (one arm around Sandeep's shoulders)
and
my lady(the other arm around my shoulders)
shall be!
I am I, Don Quixote

The Lord of la Mancha

We caught on and joined him in the song:

Our destiny calls and we go!
And the wild winds of fortune 

Shall carry us onward,
Oh, whithersoever they blow,

Whithersoever they blow,

Onward to glory we go!

By now, the weasel was groveling in front of us, shaking, obviously terrified.

But Mani wasn't finished.  He tossed back his head and bellowed:

BOLEEEEEEE SO NIHAAAAAAAL!!!!

For a split second, I was about as scared as the weasel , half expecting the cops to roughly arrest us or possibly herd us on the next plane back to Canada.  Nothing could have prepared me for what actually happened.

Loudly, from all sides, came the response,

SAT SHRI AKAAAAAAAAAAAL!!

Mani gave a last look of contempt at the little Hindu, by now just quivering jelly on the floor and tossed a coin at him.  

 Sandeep, very quietly, whispered at him, "Khalistan Zindabad."  I have often wonder how this whole incident sounded when told from his point of view.

We continued on through the airport, singing loudly that we were all Don Quixote, the Lord of La Mancha going onward to glory.

Even at the time, it felt like being in a very silly Bollywood movie.  Looking back, it seems even funnier than it was at the time.  I guess it could have gotten very serious if the officials had decided to make an incident out of it, but someone was watching over us, I guess, and there were no bad repercussions, just a lot of giggles.

So those of you who know me well and have heard me burst out with "I am I, Don Quixote..." for no apparent reason now know the rest of the story.

The section with that contains the "I Am I" song  that we sang starts 2:11 at in the following video, the song itself starts at 8:52 (fortunately, Mani did not drop dead while singing).  Please listen and imagine the three of us and the weasel at the airport.:

The video is from the 1972 movie, The Man of La Mancha, which I highly recommend.  The song, "The Impossible Dream" has been an important part of my life since I first heard it.  The woman who plays my part is the very lovely Sophia Loren at the height of her beauty.

"What is illness to the body of a Knight Errant?
What matter wounds?

He rises where he has fallen and 

WOE TO THE WICKED!!"

A NOT COMPLETELY RANDOM MEMORY

This time of year, I tend to get a bit retrospective and remember those little things from a long time ago that give life its texture and meaning.

One night while we were planning what turned out to be our last trip to India, Mani and I got to talking about the places we wanted to visit someday. After we got past Saturn and the Andromeda Galaxy (we both thought that being realistic was overrated),



I was a bit surprised that one of his dreams was to see the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx. As he knew my interest in Japan, he was less surprised to hear of my yen to visit the deer garden in Nara, Kyoto. We both agreed that our Sikhling really should
see the Great Wall of China, so that was on the list, as well.



Our flight to and from India was already booked, with a few days spent in Paris on the way back. Mani and I had been there in 1982, where we surreptitiously slipped my Dad's ashes into the Seine, but Sandeep had been left in Montréal. The current difficulties we Sikhs are having notwithstanding, everyone ought to visit Paris once in their life.




I remember we were sitting on big beanbag chairs in our family room. I was sitting up and Mani was reclining, head in my lap. His magnificent hair was lose and I had been playing with it, wrapping it around a wrist, when he looked up at me and asked, "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?"

I didn't even have to think about that one. "I'm perfectly happy right where I am."

I never saw him look happier. "You know, that's the sentence every man wants most to hear from his wife. More even than that she loves him. If his wife is perfectly happy, he is a success whatever else might be true."



That was in April, 1984.

...OF KHALSA AND SAMURAI

A few weeks ago, we visited the San Francisco Bay Area, courtesy of one of my husband's nephews. I was the first time I have been to San Francisco, Mani's favourite American city, since the events of 1984. Such memories, it brought back! I can't really share these with anyone here, so I'm sharing them with you, my online friends.




One year, I think it was 1978, but I'm not sure, we decided to celebrate our anniversary/my birthday by taking a holiday in San Francisco. Very unusual for us, we decided to leave Sandeep in the safe hands of the family and set off for nine days and eight nights in The City By The Bay. Family had our hotel number, of course, along with a promise not to phone unless it was a life-altering emergency. No such emergency occurred and we had a wonderful time. OK, I'll fess up. We called home each evening to say hi to our Sikhling.

One of the few things Mani and I could never agree about was our manner of dress. His appearance was very important to him. His clothes were always perfect, his turban beautifully tied, shoes, when he wore them, perfectly shined. He even ironed his jeans! (I refused to do that because I thought it was stupid.) I, on the other hand, insisted only that my clothes be neat and clean and cover me decently. And be comfortable. They must be comfortable. Beyond that, I really didn't much care what I looked like. We did agree on a few important points. No high heels, no dresses, no make-up.


On the farm, my appearance didn't matter all that much. He expected me to be a bit messed up, mucking around with the cows and goats and chickens (kept for fertiliser) and also with our various crops. I usually indulged him in the evenings by showering or lounging in the Jacuzzi for a while and then putting on a Punjabi suit, a salwar kameez. He usually lounged around evenings in kurta pajama. We might not have been a Punjabi couple, but except for his grey eyes and my brown hair and pasty skin, we certainly looked like one.

For our trip to San Francisco, we reached a compromise. During the day, while we were walking, hiking, goofing off, I would wear jeans - ironed by him! - and something colourful and attractive on my top. This was necessary because walking shoes look really stupid with dressy clothes. When we went out in the evenings, I would dress to the nines, looking every inch the proper lady, while he also dressed up - in full bana! He looked really cool in bana - what Sikh doesn't? - and he looked somehow silly in a suit.

We quickly found out that many fine San Francisco restaurants had a dress code that men had to wear jacket and tie. We avoided those. As Mani said, "They probably don't have decent vegetarian food anyway. We had a glorious time, walking from the Embarcadero to the Pacific Ocean - one side of San Francisco to the other, rambling through Golden Gate Park, exploring those strange, little neighbourhood shops that San Francisco seems to be full of. We spent a whole day at Fisherman's Wharf, watching the tourists shiver. Most people don't realise that San Francisco is quite cool most of the time, and so dress inappropriately for the weather. We also went hiking in the Muir Woods amidst the giant redwoods and hiking up Mt. Tamalpais across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County.


I really want to write about one particular afternoon and evening. We decided to go see a Toshiro Mifune movie playing in a theatre in Japan Town.

Toshiro Mifune

 




Mani gave me those cow eyes and asked me to dress up, even though it was only afternoon. I said it was too early, if I had to dress up I'd wear bana, too. He grinned at me and agreed. We ended up dressed exactly alike except he had a saffron turban, while I used a chunni. (We should have tied a turban on me, I now realise, but for some reason, we didn't think of it.) And, unlike him, I carried the more usual short kirpan. I admit we made a grand-looking couple, him in a dark blue chola, saffron-coloured gatra containing a full-length kirpan, and, of course, his perfectly tied turban, me similarly clad. Him tall and towering and masculine, the perfect Khalsa warrior, me short and slender, yet with the full figure of a fertility goddess, also the perfect Khalsa warrior, except in a battle, I'd have to ditch the chunni. As he said, "We look goooooood!"

We arrived for the afternoon matinee and, much to our surprise, there were only a very few others attending. I guess weekday afternoons don't bring out the samurai crowd. A very lovely Japanese lady, clad in traditional kimono, not only sold us tickets, but also tended the refreshments counter and acted less like an usher than like a hostess. When we first came in, she looked at Mani shyly, but still with open curiosity and perhaps a bit of apprehension. She was even shorter than I am; he must have seemed a giant to him. "Sir, "she asked in a heavily accented voice, with that high, squeaky voice that Japanese women traditionally affect, "may I ask you a question?" She waited for him to answer, which he did in the affirmative.


I just knew she was going to ask if he were an Arab, but she surprised me. "I see you have a katana, a sword. Are you some sort of a samurai among your people?"  In spite of the accent, her English was excellent.



We were both startled at that question; I was very curious how he would answer. "We are Sikhs who have been initiated into the Khalsa Knighthood, so I suppose you could consider us a sort of samurai." He went on to explain a bit about Sikhi, which she had never heard of. When he finished, she was grinning broadly, obviously happily impressed.
Then she turned to me and said, "Great lady, you are also this Khalsa?"

Great lady! I could live with that. I smiled at her and replied, 

"Yes."

Her smile faded briefly as she asked, "Then why do you have such a small sword?" I didn't really have a good answer, so, on the spur of the moment, I came up with the explanation that I was so short that it would drag the ground., Actually, that is close to the truth. The answer seemed to satisfy her and her smile returned. She also wanted to see them both unsheathed; we were happy to oblige.

She was obviously impressed and asked if there was anything she could do to make us comfortable. She clearly wanted to do something, so one of us suggested that some Japanese tea would be nice. I mentioned that we were visiting San Francisco to celebrate our wedding anniversary as well as my birthday. She brightened up immediately. "Then you must have long noodles for long life to celebrate." He explained that we were vegetarians and ate only "Buddhist food." (We had learned that was the easiest way to get correct food in what used to be called Oriental restaurants.)


"No meat. No egg. Tofu is OK?" She asked.

"A bit taken aback, we agreed.

"I be right back. You go sit down, enjoy watching the people stab each other." She disappeared into a back room and we went into the theatre and watched "the people stabbing each other."

After a time, she returned with a large tray of not only with tea and noodles (in miso soup), but also a sumptuous feast of vegetarian sushi, inari sushi, norimaki with vegetable and tofu filling, and small mounds of vinegared rice with various thinly sliced vegetables on top where normally there would be raw fish. And lots of wasabi, ginger and shoyu.

We were both overwhelmed. She ignored our reaction and arranged one tray on the seat to Mani's left and another to my right, dividing the food between us. "Now eat and enjoy while you watch movie." She smiled, bowed and walked away. What could we do? We ate and enjoyed and watched the movie. And wondered what was going on. After the movie, we found out, while eating some vegetable tempura that she brought in.


"I am Shinto," she told us. "I worship Amaterasu-no-Kami, the Sun Goddess, foremother of our Emperor.

Amaterasu-no-Kami

"Last night, she sent me a dream that I would meet some great warriors, not Japanese, but worthy to be samurai. I saw you and knew she had blessed me with your holy presence, so I could have the honour of serving you. I am descended from a very old samurai family that was impoverished when the samurai class was outlawed. They took all our swords and melted them down. You know, all our women were also taught martial arts and sword fighting, so we could protect our homes and our honour, if need be. Without our swords, what could we be?"

Samurai swords

She was clearly speaking from deep in her heart, speaking as if these things happened recently, instead of in the previous century. I wanted to see your kirpans" - she stumbled over the word - "so I could honour my ancestors." We didn't quite understand that last statement and didn't ask. Somehow asking seemed cold. "There is one more thing, please." She pulled out a small book and handed it to me. (Why not him? I do not know.) This is the Bushido Book, The Code of the Warrior. I think you do not know Japanese, but please accept it as my gift." We were quite overwhelmed. The book was obviously quite old, probably a family heirloom. Still, it was unthinkable to refuse it. We took it and kept it always among our few treasured possessions.


A most important note: As usual most of these pictures are roached from the Internet, compliments of Google Search. Two are not. That strange-looking being on the Golden Gate Bridge is me, as a giant Nihang. Why not?

That very handsome Sardar Ji I have used to illustrate bana is the father of my little sister Kamal Kaur. His name is Sarbjeet Singh Ji and he, like my own Dad, is a Canadian from Punjabi. Notice the twinkle in his eyes and that lovely smile.

Sarbjeet Singh Ji

My medical caretaker,Irene pointed out to me that if he is my sister's father, then he must also be my Dad. An interesting idea, as I believe he is somewhat younger than my 57 years! My thanks to these two for letting me use this picture. 


One further note about Kamal Ji. You might have noticed her listed as an author, although she has never contributed a post. This is for a very special reason. For some time, she has been downloading and saving each post's html on her computer. Anything can happen on the Internet. This site could be hacked, Blogger could decide to delete it for some reason, new laws in America might restrict the freedom of speech and/or the press. If this blog should, for any reason disappear from the blogosphere, dear Kamal Ji will have preserved it, so it will not be destroyed. Of course, I also download it to my computer, but my poor old compy isn't very reliable and if something should happen to me, it might sit forever here with no one the wiser. So she is performing a great sewa, in my opinion. This will probably embarrass her, but, little sister, I want to thank you from my heart for doing this.