The world talks of Mother Teresa and how she cared for the underprivileged living in the slums of Calcutta. Everyone around the globe knows her. Recently there was talk about speeding up the process to make her a saint. You ask a Punjabi kid about her and they’ll tell you all about her. But when you mention Bhagat Puran Singh’s name, 9 times out of 10 you’ll get a blank stare.
While the Gurdwara managements around the world were tangled up in a never ending struggle for power and money one man was serving humankind. He started pinglewara, an orphanage that gave shelter to the helpless and so much more. Everyone watched, amazed, gave him awards and honours yet kept watching not lending a hand to his mission to rid humanity of suffering. Till his dying days he went out and with his own hands cared for those that even Mother Teresa would have had trouble looking at.
The real tragedy lies in Sikhs not telling the world about him. Why does every Sikh know who Indra Gandhi was and what she did and not Bhagat Puran Singh? When Jatehdars fought 30,000miles away it got front page coverage in the Vancouver papers by Salim Jiwa and Kim Bolan. Why didn’t we ever get to see even an 1/8th of a page story about him in our so called panthic newspapers?
Mother Teresa won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize because of the notoriety and media coverage that the west gave her. Bhagat Puran Singh Ji was a candidate who could have easily won not only this but a 100 other international honors. But WE were busy doing other things...
It’s about time people knew about Sikhs that have made a positive contribution.
On June 19th at 1:30pm a video will be shown about the life of this Great man at Gurdwara Singh Sabha(132St. & 81Ave.)
here's a bio and some pics of bhagat jee: http://forums.waheguroo.com/index.php?showtopic=9690&hl=pooran
ReplyDeletea truly great sikh
ReplyDeletemet him in Amritsar once or twice
wish i had touched his feet then
i appreciate u. i wish if i can help for pinglewara. my heart cry whenever i go to the site
ReplyDeleteCheck out some rare pics of Bhagat Ji and his biography(which I am still putting) on simransewa.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteYou Wrote "Bhagat Puran Singh Ji was a candidate who could have easily won not only this but a 100 other international honors. But WE were busy doing other things..."
ReplyDeleteIts not that we were busy doing other things, but its that Sikh never give heck to these types of False awards. Our guru Teaches us. Remember 2 things . Bhagat puran singh gave BACK the peace award to Indian governement to express his resentness for Blue star, but ironaically bibi Inderjeet kaur ( Present chief of Pingalwara ) accepted same kind of peace award from same government. I say What the Heck ??? Second thing. Related to Nobel Prize . US army chief Kissininger ( who was apperently behind pakistan to push into india in 1971 for war ,just because US was unhappy with the recent INDIAN-Russian deal). He was the main GUY who played role providing top guns to pakistan and motiviating to spread terrorism , was IRONICALLY the sucessfull candidate for Nobel prize in 1973 . Although everyone knows he should be dammed of this prize. He should in fact given 'Nobel prize in spreading terrorism' but no one cares. and same as the Nobel prize commite. They are fruded too. So all in all, i must say, its good Bhagat pooran singh ji were never involved in this 'Award Polyitics and media'
Really I admire the great sikh sevadar for the poor & disabled.The awards are not for sikhs(internationally)Punjab govt should give special attention for these institutions if they have heart,most of the politicians are planning various scams rather than serving the state.Indian system is like that we cannot make politicians accountable for this state of affairs.Most of the social heros get un noticed.
ReplyDeleteI pray to GOD for bettterment of the poor & disabled