About Himmat Singh Guram

My name is Himmat Singh Guram. I was on 8^th August 1996 in New Delhi. I study at Vasant Valley School in grade 11. I love playing football and squash. As a specialization I have taken pottery, even though I am not exceptional on the wheel, I try my best. I really care about the environment thus I have taken environmental awareness as a hobby. I am now familiar and aware of my surroundings and try my best to be more conservative. I am fond of animals too. I am interested in the field of geography.

Daily reports

Saturday, 19^th of May

The first day me and Anmol had planned to come together for our first day at work, we left on time and tried following our plan but we still ended up getting late as it was the first time that we were going to that direction. Since we were late we missed out on the first conversation, about the Anad foundation and how it functions. We were briefed about what we had missed Bhai Baldeep Singh and the rest of the interns. We were told that this world is full of beggars and we all our beggars, and the bigger the person is the bigger the beggar he is since the richer you get the greedier the person gets. We were told that logging is important and we will have to keep writing day to day. It helps us keep the flow of thought and remember the exact date and time of a certain event or anything that is done in a day. We were all given one hand book and pencils to keep and account. We then were given a break and we all sat and had lunch, followed by a wonderful talk by a professor and his son about conservation of heritage and the Veda’s. He also told us that the Veda’s were written on the banks of the river satluj. We were then told to research a little about the foundation and how it works took some notes and then head home.

Sunday, 20^th of May

Today Anmol and I reached just on time, we in fact were the first ones there. It was a good feeling to be there on time. We sat and waited for everyone else to arrive before we could start our lessons for the day. When everyone arrived we sat and discussed our views on the project and exchanged notes amongst each other for about two hours. We were told to research on a few topics and we did so and took our notes in our respective note pads, Luigi and i were to sit together and make a hardcopy of the names of the gentlemen we were to invite. We did that and we could consider the lunch as a reward that was cooked by Aunt Maria, she made us some traditional Italian pasta. And followed by that was a talk by Dr. Lal talked to us about architecture, gave us a few very handy tips that are eco-friendly and will help us in the future, things such as using a steel net outside any wall or window so it doesn’t let the sun rays pass through and therefore the house will keep cool automatically. We should increase the ventilation and increase the number of windows so that a lot light could come into the house during the day so that there is no need for any artificial lighting needed that will help us save electricity. It was a helpful talk for all of us.

Monday, 21^st of May

Our day once again started on time, we arrived and sat around for a few minutes and got ready to see one of the greatest and most valuable sword collections. We were taken to Bhai Baldeep Singhs house to see his personal sword collection. We were very excited to see them, to see so many different kinds of swords and daggers namely, bichua, sehthi,saif,kharda,serohi and different sizes of pesh kawaj. These weapons in particular are and were worshipped by the khalsa and a few of them have precious stones and some had gold and silver these were very fascinating to everyone. We were even given a small demonstration lesson by Bhai Baldeep Singh himself; he showed us how they have advantages over others and how they could be used. We were then lucky to be given some time by a professor from JNU, Professor Josh spoke to us and told us about the history of the roads in Delhi and also told us that the rig Veda was first published in Germany. We were told about how everything’s related to history with the help of various examples, but also mentioned how history doesn’t only revolve around dates. It has a lot more to it that we do not study in junior classes. History can further be divided into two one that knows about our ancestry and family and the other is everything. After interacting quite a lot and openly with professor josh we were being taken to a very famous artist’s studio where we were going to see him paint something in front of us and then talk to us about art and tell us a little. Siddharth as he is known worldwide has a workshop of his in Sukhdev Vihar; we were taking there to see some of his art and see him paint in front of us to. Sidharnt in known also for only using organic paints. But that is no let down is what we saw, he told us about how a few were made, the charcoal he uses is made from the twigs of a grape plant. That itself is one very interesting fact. He then stood in front and painted something that was unbelievable for something done so fast. We then thanked him and wrote our reports and headed home.

22^nd of May, Tuesday

My day started at 5:15 in am, I was very excited as we were starting our journey to Kapurthala. The reporting time was 7L00 am at c-26 east Nizamudin. It was taken to be a half an hour drive so we left R.K Puram at 6:30 but because of some confusion and traffic I ended up reaching at 7:30 but at that time the cars were being loaded, we were travelling in two inova’s, one that was rented. We departed by 7:45 hit the highway to Chandigarh, stopped at our first halt that was for a quick breakfast at a café coffee day at Murthal, we there had a few arguments over the dry brownie that we had been served and pushed off to Chandigarh for lunch that we were having at Bhai Baldeep Singhs relatives house. We all had very wonderful journeys; we listened to music, talked and even slept for a while. In the middle half way to Chandigarh we had a toilet break in Karnal at Savoy greens. We drove through Chandigarh and entered Mohali and found Mrs S.S Ubhi’s house, where we were very warmly greeted by all the family members, we sat and interacted for some time followed by a lovely meal of kadi chawal. From there joined our gang Amiteshwar Singh. After that our next stop was Sultanpur Lodhi at the quila where we were staring or could even call it just our base as Uday Anmol and I were spending our nights at Dr. Harjits house. The first night we were taken to Mr Rocky’s in the nearby area, where we were also warmly welcomed by most if not all the family members at the gate before even entering the house. Then we were treated to a meal of dal roti and ‘bhindi’. From there we three boys were then directly taken by Dr Harjit to his house, we slept on the roof to enjoy some of the opportunities that we don’t often get a chance to experience anymore.

23^rd of May, Wednesday

We woke and up got ready and came to the quila, we ate our breakfast and we were all lucky to have a chance to be taken around the Sainik School. When we entered we sure could tell that it was a palace at one point of time seeing the majestic building, and beautiful architecture and all the area around. We drove by seeing a plane, tank and missiles lined up on the side of the road. We then parked our cars and walked towards the main building we saw all the children from there school, they all looked so fit and they all were much disciplined. we were taken to meet the head master and the principle of the school and have a special guided tour of the school, where we were actually told the history from which we found out that it was originally the palace of the maharaja of kapurthala and was sold to the Punjab government at a very low price as it was very expensive to maintain it, this is the second sainik school. This school was spread over 200 acres of land. We were then lucky to even have an opportunity to get to meet some of the oldest staff members who had also worked in the palace for the maharaja such as Mr Arya, we went and saw the museum, library and even the dining hall. We had a group photo taken with the principle and then pushed off. We all were then taken to the district court where we had a meeting fixed with SSP Mr Sukhinder Singh Maan who arrived a little late. We had lunch at Mr Bawa’s  house who was a business man and also a trustee of the anad foundation, who served us a very lovely and a very filling lunch followed with some time to sit and talk while watching tv. We also met Mrs Alaknanda Dayal at the district court, whom to which we spoke to about our internship. On our way back we were shown the reality and the sad side of life too that was for a few whose houses had just caught fire at Hussainpur, bhai baldeep singh stopped the car and helped a few of the families by giving them some money to start and for sudden emergency. We arrived at the quila wrote our reports and were dropped off to Dr. harjits house.

24^th of May, Thursday

We woke up in the morning and got ready really quickly and went down and stood waiting for Parminder to come and pick us up. We then reached the quila and joined everyone there for breakfast where we had aloo puri and cereal, after filling ourselves we walked across to the office and began sorting out our reports and began writing them down. I wrote my reports in my diary, as a rough draft. After completing our work in the office we all had a break in which we went out and played some football in the lawn in front of our office, we had some local kids who joined in too who students were learning to play the pakhawaj. Uday and I sat down on Jatinders bike parked right there, we were seeing how heavy etc. it was and we were offered to ride it by Jatinder, I went first and faired pretty well. We all eventually took our turns and rode the bike inside the fort. In the evening, for dinner, we were invited for dinner to a house nearby in the village right in the middle of the fields, right from when we drove through the market area and entered the field area we could suddenly feel the cool breeze, we met everyone in the house and were given fruits in the beginning. We then were introduced to all the children in the house who we got a chance to interact with, they took us behind their house and showed us their cattle and tractors, we went for a drive also where Uday and I were given chances to drive. We reached back well in time when dinner was just being put down. Ate our dinner and then Uday, Anmol and I were taken to sleep at Dr. Harjits.

25^th of May, Friday

We woke up with the bright sunshine right in our faces and the cool breeze the blew on roof of Dr. Harjit’s residence. We all had our baths and got ready, sat and awaited for the arrival of Jitender, soon enough we got a call and telling us that he had reached and was waiting for us downstairs. We reached the qila and ate our breakfast and headed towards the office where we had to complete our reports. We all completed our reports and then we had to all collectively give suitable captions to the photos that Bhai Baldeep Singh had uploaded on the blog of the first few days on the Anad foundation blog. Today was Anmols birthday so we all were going to be having a great time, so we had lunch and then left for Jalandhar where we were going to watch MIB3, on the way we got a chance to see a dari factory from inside and learn the working and see how the dari we easily go and buy in the market has so much work that goes into it. When we went and excitedly sat down in the hall we realized that the tickets we had bought were for MIB3 in Hindi. That was a big disaster but altogether it was a fun experience as we were all together and spent time talking amongst each other. On the way back Anmol and I were dropped off at Dr. Harjits house and said our byes to Uday and Wanhee then itself as they were leaving for Delhi.

26^th of May, Saturday

We were woken up the helper at Dr. Harjits house on the roof where Anmol and I slept. When we arrived at the quila, we ate our breakfast and went to the office to begin writing our previous evenings reports, we then were called for our lunch where we had ‘tinda’ with ’roti’. After the lunch we were all given some time to complete our reports and later in the evening thought we should go for a movie when work was completed, so we then told kavya to call Bhai Baldeep Singh and ask him if we could go, and he told us to book the tickets since he was going to Jalandar anyway to receive aunt Maria who was coming from Delhi. But just before the tickets were booked Dr Harjit called and invited us to a kitty party that was at the London hotel and we were told that there would be snacks, tambola and dinner so we the kids very happily agreed and BBS said he would come and sit with us and stay for a while and then pick us up on his way back to Sultanpur. I filled my stomach with a variety of snacks and skipped the dinner that there was, we then went down and waited in the parking to be picked up, that night Dr Harjit was staying at his house in Kapurthala so we went to his house where the rest of his family was, and slept off.

27^th of May, Sunday

We were specifically given a time to be at the qila that was 5:30 am. But since we slept late we woke up late too. The purpose of us being there on time was so that we could take pictures of the quila before the sun rose completely, so that there would be perfect lighting. Anyway we reached the quila where we had Mr Shine who wanted the pictures. After his briefing we had the day before we all chose our topics and began shooting, I chose the main front gate. I took around a 90 shots out of which 80 would have been in focus and 20 with great details, I cut down and chose 20 pictures out of the whole folder and sent them to shine. We then went to the gurdwara where Bhai Baldeep Singh was performing infront of a very large crowd including the CM being there, Sardar Prakash Singh Badal with which whom BBS had a meeting with while we finished eating at the ‘langar’ after the performance. Since we were feeling so hot and we were so tired there was a room that was opened for us where we could rest. After we rested we met BBS and head back still tired to the quila, where we had a lovely dinner that was cooked by Aunt Maria. We went to the office to complete our reports and then went to Dr Harjits to sleep.

28^th of May, Monday

I woke up at 5:30 and looked at my phone to see the time, I thought I would have enough time to catch up with my sleep that I hadn’t for a long time, so I went back to sleep and ended up being woken up by Parminder himself at 8 am. So that is why we had to rush into the bathrooms and get ready and in a hurry. We reached the quila, ate breakfast and got started off with our work, we then went to the office to begin with our reports and had a briefing by BBS about our days task that was to make an inventory on all his tools. We were lucky to have a chance to touch those tools, they were not touched by many people and we were lucky to have a chance to get to take out each one photograph them and learn about each one the tools, we had even heard about how precious they were. Due to the heat we were very tired and so we went and took a break and had a very refreshing drink we again went back and started taking the pictures, the whole process took a very long time as the tools needed to be handled with a lot of care. The information was documented. We were all exhausted at the end of this task so we ate our dinner and head off to Dr. Harjits.

29^th of May, Tuesday

Anmol and I were to join BBS in going to Patiala as he had a meeting at the Punjabi Bhavan. We woke up at 8 whereas the time to report at the quila was 8. We got ready and had our breakfast and head out to Patiala, I was looking forward as I was going to be meeting my uncle over there.  Anmol and I were given the job of photographing this event. We got a chance to meet many talented people, we of course couldn’t get much knowledge out of the meeting since it was all in Punjabi but we had sat through it. The meeting mainly was about the cultural programmes in the university. Finally lunch time came about and I had really been looking forward to meeting my chacha, and so BBS was invited along with us to lunch, so we went to his house from where he took us for lunch to club 16 where we had chicken after a long time and we really enjoyed it, he is a very fun loving and nice man. We thanked him and went with him till his house where we saw his fascinating collection of planes. We were hosted by Dr. Harjit for dinner the same evening, we had that dinner and walked onto the roof where our beds were made.

30^th of May, Wednesday

We woke up on time today and then we got ready and left for the quila, as we arrived we ate our breakfast and began doing our work that was me and luigi in a group, I was the group leader. I was excited to do this task, and when we began luigi wasn’t well as it was very hot so he went to rest but before leaving he helped me organise the task to make it easier for me, he took out all the beautiful stencils and I had to take a picture of each and make a inventory on Microsoft word. I did all the work and mailed it. We then had to single out some pictures that we wanted. I did so and sent them to shine bhola, he helped us a lot even by just lending his camera and teaching us how to use it and when a picture should be taken and how. BBS told us about how the sikh gurus were chosen and basically gave us a talk on how we should never lose hope and we should never just give up. After all our work was complete we had dinner and got dropped off to dr Harjits house.

31^st of May, Thursday

We woke up on time and arrived at the quila by now we were pretty much in the habit of waking up on the roof with the sunlight in our faces and the lovely cool breeze. We just began enjoying the whole experience when we realized it was getting over. After eating breakfast with the rest at the quila we walked down to the office and began doing our individual work. We were even given a talk by BBS on how we all have to put in more hard work into our internship, so we promised that we would, as we knew the efforts he had made for us and all the great arrangements that had been made. If we didn’t work harder it would’ve have been like we are thankless.  We again had to take the pictures of the 139 swiss made tools that BBS has in his collection. Kavya had booked us tickets for Rowdy Rathore, when we arrived at the movie hall we were told that the movie was releasing the next day. We were just on our way back when BBS stopped at a chemist in Jalandhar where BBS met an acquaintance of his and who was also friends with my mamma, Navjot Randhawa. He offered us to a pizza at his house, we happily took the offer, we went and ate food and had the best cold coffee I have ever had. We were the first people to meet his 7 month old daughter who was very cute. On the way back we were dropped off at dr harjit to sleep.