Every day, in a special room in their home in Sandy, Harpal Toor gathers his family. Surrounded by portraits of prophets, he reads aloud from the holy book, the Siri Guru Granth Sahib.
Today, his wife and the youngest of his three children are at home, and they join him. They sit in a row, listening reverently. Toor is especially proud of his 2-year-old, Sukhpreet. For one so young, she shows great respect.These children were born in Utah, born into a Sikh family. They are learning to practice their faith half a world away from the Punjabi province of Northern India where their religion began.
Though there are 21 million Sikhs in the world -- and large communities in places like England and Canada -- in Utah there are, at most, 400 Sikhs, Toor says. In Utah there is not even one small gurdwara, or temple.
Even so, Toor says it has been easy for his family to follow their Eastern faith in this Western place. He knows life may not be as easy for everyone. He knows some Sikh men have had a hard time finding work here because they don't shave or cut their hair and because they wear turbans. Toor, however, owns his own business, the Bombay House restaurant.
He is successful here. The Utahns he's met have all been accepting, he says. "My neighbors I love, like I love all cultures and religions."
And as for the gurdwara, he has an announcement. While it is true there
has never been such a temple in Utah before, the Sikh community is just about to build one.
The groundbreaking will take place next week on property they own at 4800 South and 5600 West. The groundbreaking will coincide with Vaisakhi, the Sikh New Year, on April 13.
For Sikhs, Vaisakhi is a celebration of the harvest, of new beginnings. It is also a holy day. On that day, 301 years ago, the 10th prophet, or guru, of the Sikhs performed a new ritual of baptism. In so doing, Guru Gobind Singh transferred the power of the faith from the gurus into the holy book itself.
From then on, the scripture itself carried all authority, explains Karran D. Singh. "We have not had another living prophet from that point on. In so far as I read my scripture, I am engaged meaningfully . . . connected to the prophet. Sikhs don't need to refer to a clergy; there is no paid clergy," he says.
Singh, who is an analyst at Brigham Young University's Museum of Art, was a keynote speaker last year at a special 300th anniversary Vaisakhi in San Francisco. The celebration drew 20,000 people in a parade along Market Street. Saffron being the official Sikh color, the men wore saffron turbans and the women saffron head scarves, and the street was sea of orange and yellow. The gathering was inspirational, Singh says, and by the mere act of getting together, Sikhs felt the power of their connection. However, he stresses that the first and most intimate connection to God comes directly through daily practice of the faith. This is why a Sikh can live anywhere in the world -- in Australia or Arizona or Provo -- and be a practicing Sikh, even without a gurdwara.
As for Siri Karta Kaur, she's been a Sikh in Salt Lake for 30 years without ever visiting a gurdwara except on a few trips to India. Kaur was not the name she was born with. It is, however, the last name of every Sikh woman, just as Singh is the last name of every man.
Kaur means princess. Singh means lion. The names are reminders of the importance of grace and bravery, Kaur says. They also refer to the Vaisakhi when the 10th prophet ordained that every Sikh should, henceforth, have the same last name. With that action, he removed Sikhs from the Hindu caste system.
Today, Sikhism combines certain aspects of the Hindu and Muslim faiths. There is one God. There is no drinking or smoking. There is also no proselytizing, Kaur explains.
She came to Sikhism when she took a yoga class at the University of Utah. It was taught by a Sikh. Yoga helped her experience her soul in a new way. Then she found herself fascinated by the Golden Temple, in Amritsar, India -- which is open to all and where thousands are fed for free every day. When she was 19, Kaur became a Sikh.
Toor says it is not his place to urge anyone to become a Sikh because Sikhs believe each individual has a natural affinity for his or her own beliefs. As for him, he was born Sikh. He grew up singing the religious text, grew up without cutting the hair that God gave him, grew up with the love and the reverence he now demonstrates to his children, every day, in their Utah home.