Two amazing days at Sultanpur Lodhi and around.

Instrument making – working on the taus for cousin Bhai Kultar Singh and Younis Khan making accessories for my saranda.

Namaz being offered by Younis at the Mosque (once again after what, a century? 🙂 where Guru Nanak taught how to…!

On the night of March 13, I visited Sri Guru Amardas Simran Kendra set up by uncle Sardar Hardial Singh IAS (Retd.) in his farm at Village Khiranwali, Kapurthala. Parmjit Singh who recently retired from the Cultural Affairs Department also sang a shabad after a short manglacharan in raga darbari kanada. Then I sang a shabad by Bhagat Namdev in raga malkauns. Nadar Nihal Singh is staying there now for a few days to learn meditation techniques.

The next morning a small truck brought a sandook (traditional chest) and a charkha (spinning wheel). Both were sent by Bibi Surji Kaur Bhamra, a sister of noted artist Avtarjit Dhanjal, from Village Chakkar, District Ludhiana. The spinning wheel was made by their father. There is another wheel made by her father-in-law which will arrive in a few days and we plan to have some textile and fashion design students from the area and from as far as Chandigarh over when Surjit Kaur Bhamra will visit and do some art-work on the mud walls and assemble the spinning wheels.
As the goods were being offloaded, a cop named Arvinderjit Singh Thind, offered one of his own sandook. He kept a slightly bigger one for himself. An old house adjacent to house of the kind constable belonged to the family of artisans (carpenters) but who had no heir. I am planning to meet the extended family and request them to give the house to ANAD or even rent it out.

On the way back to Delhi, I stopped over at Nawanshahr to meet a local instrument maker, Gyani Kishan Singh and also his elder son.

On the 15th, Swami Madhusudan visited with the talented Dhruv Sharma and we sang…