The Power of Five
(As told by a sevadar from Gurdrawa Nanaksar)
It was during the anti-sikh riots. I was at that time living in Gurudrawa Nanaksar in Haryana. There were 7 other sewadars in the gurudrawa. Trouble started brewing early in the morning. We noticed about 50 young men gathering outside a few hundred metres away from the gurudrawa sahib. We didn’t really pay too much attention to them.
By noon, the group had turned into a rowdy crowd of about 300. We became quite concerned at that point. Our telephone wires had been cut, so there really was not much we could do. But we were still in chardi kala.
At about 3 pm, a truck driven by a Singh was driving by the crowd when the crowd attacked it. The Singh gave up the truck and ran to the gurudrawa. Some gundas overtook him and injured him but he, being a strong man, managed to escape. Still, he was quite bloody/injured when he came in. That increased our number to 9. The number outside had increased to about 500 by evening. They were very loud and obnoxious by now.
We tried to ignore them and began our evening diwan at 6 pm. But as the darkness approached, the rabble become more and more bold. In fact, soon they started stoning the gurdrawa. We stopped the evening programme and placed all the Guru Granth Sahib jees in the safest place possible.
At 7.30 pm it was very dark and the rabble became so bold that they put fire to the gurdrawa’s gate. It hit us then how serious the situation was. We soon would be killed!
Our jathedar gathered us and said, “Khalsa jee, the Khalsa has faced worse situations then this. The Khalsa has gone through two holocasts but the Khalsa lives and will live in freedom forever! Khalsa jee, the Khalsa has never given up and will never give up. The enemy stands outside. There are 500 hundred, we are 9 but remember Guru Gobind Singh jee has made each of us equivalent to sava-lakh (125,000)! Khalsa jee, get prepared to fight!”
He said this with so much josh and bir ras that our body hair stood on their ends. Even though I had been seriously ill for the past 3 months, I too was ready to fight. The jathedar then told us that we must make two groups. The first group of five will go out first and fight the enemy. The the rest (4) can go later. Everybody agreed. Jathedar Sahib then chose 4 other pyares. I was not chosen, most probably due to my illness.
The five put on the uniform of the Khalsa. Then the jathedar sahib did ardas to Guru Gobind Singh jee saying, “Pita jee, dear father,, we are coming to your land. Please prepare for us!”
Then five of them took out their kirpans and with BOLE SO NEHAAL! SAT SRI AKAL! BOLE SO NEHAAL! SAT SRI AKAL! filling the air, came out the face the enemy. You will not believe what happened then. Seeing 5 Khalsa in the uniform of Guru Gobind Singh jee, the rabble of 500 ran away It was as if 5 lions were chasing 500 hyenas away!
One of the Singhs managed to cut off a running man’s ear. The Khalsa’s victory was sweet.”
waheguru waheguru waheguru waheguru…
Just as an epilogue, some police officers had the gall to come a few days later to investigate the ear injury!!!! But this was so ridiculous and the Singhs were in such high spirits that the police had to leave without even a bribe.
Acknowledgement: http://tuhitu.blogspot.com/