In recent years, I've been making more of an effort to speak to the elders in my family, to learn about who they are and what experiences they've endured. In 2016, I was cleaning out the basement with my dad and I found a few records still wrapped in the original plastic. We didn't have a record player in our house when I was growing up, and even more striking was the fact that these were kirtan and dhaadi records which I had never seen before, so I was curious to know where these came from. My dad told me his mom's brothers used to press vinyl under the name Dhillon & Mahal Brothers back in the 70s and 80s in Mississauga. I spoke to my grandma's youngest brother Harbhajan Singh about it and he broke down some of the history behind these records and the valuable lessons he learned along the way.
"When we first came to Canada back in 1970 and '71, there weren't a lot of South Asian people here. We wanted to do something special for the Sikh community in Toronto and do our part to spread Sikhi in the true fashion. We flew in all the best musicians and singers from India, booked the studio time here, and pressed the LPs ourselves. Eventually though, it became fuel for our own egos. We started to have the mentality of 'we did this, look at us', but we were wrong. Sikhi is a way of living, it's not something I can give you. But I guess sometimes the only way you learn is when you get slapped."
My biggest takeaway from this story was that we should always be mindful of what our intentions are. With whatever it is we pursue, what are our motives behind it? Life and circumstance can change so quickly and if we dont pay attention, we might lose sight of what our original intentions were.
yousharknotpass
janainaart
areudirty
titsay
vaporwave
dailybridgerton