Sikh and Punjab Studies at UCSB: Article

Center for Sikh and Punjab Studies

Ventura County Star

by Erinn Hutkin
ehutkin@VenturaCountyStar.com
September 27, 2004

The stairs leading into the church were packed with shoes -- loafers and flip-flops, Nikes and Birkenstocks -- as if a crowd of invisible people were waiting to be let inside.

But here, everyone was welcome. Visitors were asked only to cover their heads as they stepped into the sanctuary.

Nirmal Singh, a church leader, explained those are the only areas where his religion is strict: no shoes, and a scarf- or turban-swathed head.

"Everything else," he said with a chuckle, "is liberal."

The Sikh church on Ventura's Loma Vista Road was busy Sunday. Full of people, of prayers, tradition and song. But while this church, Sikh Gurdwara of Ventura County, held services based on 16th-century tradition, the event was very new for this congregation of about 200.

For three years, the church met every other Sunday at an Oxnard school, but after years of looking, the group bought an empty church at 3076 Loma Vista. Sunday marked its first service in its permanent home.

Photo by Dave Getzschman, Star staff

Women sit together, above, during the first Sunday service at Sikh Gurdwara of Ventura County's new facility. A red carpet decorated with flower petals, left, covers the aisle that divides the men and women.
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Although the religion, which originated in India, is the fifth largest in the world with 24 million followers, the site is believed to be the first Sikh temple in Ventura County.

Sunday's service, conducted mainly in the language Punjabi, centered on themes of gratitude and thanksgiving.

"It is a historic moment," said Gurinder Singh Mann, a professor of Sikh studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "A new element has been added to the religious mosaic of this beautiful town."

Mann wore a big smile and a gray turban that matched his shoulder-length beard. He explained from the pulpit that the religion believes in social productivity, in charity, in sharing resources. The religion is so opposed to a caste system that all male followers use "Singh" as their middle or last name, and women share the middle name of "Kaur."

The everyone-is-equal belief, said Rahuldeep Singh Gill, a UCSB graduate student pursuing religious studies, is why worshippers gathered before the service to eat fried vegetables and desserts made of milk and almonds.

When people share a meal, Gill said, caste and class are obliterated. It is why food is an important instrument of Sikh tradition.

"It's important, I think, for the people who live around this area to feel rooted to this place," he said of the church.

During the service, the sanctuary was in bloom with color. A red carpet aisle divided the room. It was decorated with red and yellow flower petals cool to the touch of bare feet. On one side of the aisle, women sat on the floor, atop a white sheet. They held babies and draped sheer, sparkly scarves over long, ink-black hair. The colors -- blood red, lime green, pale pink -- were the palette of a box of crayons.

On the other side sat the men. They wore dark pants and button-down shirts, and their heads were wrapped in turbans. Some closed their eyes and rocked squatted bodies to the music.

There is no hierarchy in the Sikh religion, no pastors or high priests. Three drummers and singers sat cross-legged on a white-draped stage, leading the congregation through long, low songs that played like novels. Beside them, another man sat behind a podium resembling a brass bed with a deep purple canopy. He waved a ceremonial whisk made of long, white feathers over the holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib.

The church, said Mann, will soon be open daily for prayers and respects. A half-dozen of his graduate students also hope to help develop church programs for children and others.

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