Jayne and I went down to the Sikh temple this afternoon. The words ‘temple’ or ‘gurdwara’ are a little grand for what is just a single-storey hut next to the Asda car park, but it is what is inside that matters.  It was a strange event there: not strange for Sikhs maybe, but a little hard to relate to for us.

We had visited the temple before for the guru Nanak’s birthday celebrations, and this was very similar – it was an Akhand Path, where the holy book is read all the way through by a group of readers doing two-hour shifts over a period of a couple of days.  This is done on official occasions like one of the gurus’ birthdays, but can also be done on demand for anybody; a bit like asking for a mass to be said for somebody in the catholic church. This is where is was all a bit strange for us.

This particular event was being held for the father of a work colleague and friend.  He has been in hospital with cancer and although he is out now he is not expected to survive very long.  He has sons living in Singapore, Canada and Australia who have all been back over here to visit.  They were basically told that it was better for them to come now and visit their father than to come over for the funeral.  A very pragmatic approach.

The whole ceremony seems to be held to mark the old man’s impending death, which strikes me as a bit morbid, but then that is my own cultural baggage.  Certainly his family appeared to be in good spirits, or as good as they can be in the circumstances.  Its a sort of acceptance that death cannot be avoided, so why not handle it sensibly.  The whole family, and the general community, have got together and caught up with each other, shared meals and conversations and paid their respects to my friend’s father in person instead of doing all that around a coffin the way we do. I can’t see it catching on, but maybe it should.