A Warm Embrace with the Truth- Reading Guru Nanak

Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, deliberately highlights cracks rather than concealing them. The object's history—its breaking, healing, and reuse—becomes honoured as art itself.

"Oonchi nazar sarraf ki" is a phrase common to Indian culture. The metaphor has made its way from the Bhakti and Sufi traditions to conversations and muhawras (idioms) used at dinner tables in every Indian home.It speaks of the goldsmith's "elevated vision"—one that perceives only gold, never merely ornaments. The goldsmith values substance over form, essence over appearance.

Both these cultural practices are rich in their emphasis on perspective. The identity of an object does not depend on what it is or can be changed into, but simply on how it is viewed and valued.

Recently, two books serendipitously arrived in my hands at a moment when I found myself contemplating fractures and identities. Both turned my attention toward how I see. In our increasingly polarized world, they led me back to Guru Nanak, who lived when polarization between Hindus and Muslims, along with superstition and persecution, ran deeper than perhaps ever before. He offered a way of seeing that redirected people toward truth—truth that so easily slips from sight. If people could actually see who they were, he suggested, they would recognize how imaginary their fractures truly were. He became the golden lacquer of Kintsugi, offering the "oonchi nazar" that people desperately needed—a vision that has endured through centuries into the hearts and literary sensibilities of the writers who wrote these books.

Baba Nanak by Harjeet Singh Gill presents Guru Nanak's grand narrative and bani (sacred utterances) in free verse. The book's origin story is remarkable: Gill, an Emeritus Professor of Semiotics who studied and taught French intellectual traditions and Buddhism across continents, uses the word "waste" to describe his early academic years. "I spent (wasted) my youth in the streets of Paris," he writes, before composing this book that has been described as a homecoming.

Beyond its poetic ability to retain the original rhythm of the jaap and translation skills comparable to Coleman Barks's renderings of Rumi, you sense immediately that this book is written with bhakti and love. It is about Nanak, yes, but also about the writer himself, dissolving in love as he writes. Without such dissolution, this kind of writing would be impossible.

The bani itself contains such elemental truth that countless readers have bathed in the fountain of Guru Nanak's original words. But those reading in translation are not spared either—they are touched to the core. One is reminded of what Yeats felt about Tagore's Gitanjali, carrying the book everywhere, weeping over it, feeling a magnetic attraction despite knowing nothing of the culture or poet. One senses a similar pull here.

Through Guru Nanak's words, Gill illuminates what it means to be a Sikh. The word itself derives from shishya—"learner" or "student." A Sikh accepts that they do not "know." Their goal is deliverance from ignorance to knowledge. Truth escapes quickly; the Sikh's mission is to keep seeing it. This is the cure to fracture, to identities falsely perceived as broken. That which is true never brings the feeling of breaking.

The book beautifully distinguishes between "gurumukh" and "manmukh." The Guru represents true vision, the perception of truth, the one who sees clearly:

With the grace of the GuruThere is knowledgeThere is perceptionThere is steady discerningThere is no need of breathing exercisesNo need of physical gymnasticsWith the grace of the guruThe heart vibrates with divine rhythms (196)

Guru Nanak revealed to the yogis and sadhus of his time, who spent years in meditation and breathing exercises seeking oneness with divinity, that they were already one with the divine. The heart's rhythm—the breath itself—is proof of this oneness, not a tool to achieve it. Turn toward what is already there, what you already are. Do not imagine what is not.

The gurumukh, receiving this discerning power to distinguish truth from falsehood, lives fully and never fractured. Their continuous awareness is that "I do not know"—they forever seek and receive the grace of the guru, forever pursuing knowledge of truth. They never think "now I know," because the moment ego enters, one becomes manmukh. This state requires sacrifice of the ego—"sir dhar tali gali mori ao" (when you come my way, place your head on a platter in your hand):

To love is to transcend the being and the otherTo live is to be eternally engagedIn the endless struggleOf evil and goodOf truth and falsity...this is the lot of thoseWho dareTo liveTo love (241)

Ever learning, ever moving, ever dissolving, Sikhs are warriors and lovers.

The manmukh, conversely, believes they know. They never reflect, remain busy with living instead. They do not sacrifice or share. They remain fractured, living among fractures. The gurumukh, feeling whole, shares their wholeness. Guru Nanak traveled extensively, speaking with people, engaging in dialogue. Through this exchange, millions transformed into Sikhs—gaining discerning powers that shifted their vision, turning them from manmukh to gurumukh.

Gill's book includes photographs of landscapes, conjuring the terrain through which Guru Nanak must have traveled. As these contemporary images connect to Baba's world, Gill himself embodies the Sikh learner—moving from one learning tradition to another, finding his resting place in Nanak, and ironically, as a semiotics scholar, surrendering to the uncertainty and love of the unknown.

The second book, Seeking Nanak, compiled by Paramjeet Singh, Ishmeet Kaur Chaudhry, and Charanjeet Kaur, is a collection of diverse writings commemorating Guru Nanak's 551st birth anniversary. Written by the diaspora and non-Sikhs alike, the book has no rigid boundaries. There is minimal editing of how Guru Nanak is addressed—everyone's relationship with him shines through unfiltered.

Since "Sikh" means learner, anyone can be a Sikh. A Hindu, a Muslim, a Sindhi—all can be learners of truth. Reading these stories, you're carried on waves of love: the centrality of devotion in a Sindhi home and its life-changing effects; how people derive courage in distressing times from simply looking after the gurdwara; how the wealthy return to contribute to the gurdwara and community; how the Guru's bani becomes an anchor through illness, success, failure, and death.

The book reveals strong female characters praying daily at 3 or 4 a.m., cooking, singing, and reading in devotion with no demands in return. Their children were never forced to follow suit—instead told, "We will pray for you, and you will receive God's blessings still.”

The book offers glimpses into deeply personal relationships—how everyone engages with Guru Nanak uniquely. A Sindhi living abroad. A young person from Bangalore discovering Nanak for the first time, connecting his teachings with the local saint Bhasvanna, thereby bridging north and south through love and learning. A Brahmin from another region, transcending cultural barriers, becoming a Sikh while still being a Brahmin.

This country has a remarkable tradition: people maintain personal relationships with historical figures. This speaks to the power of what these figures said and how they saw. India has long cultivated "seers," which explains how it holds together despite vast differences in culture, belief, language, and religion. Perhaps this is how the most diverse nation on earth stays unified because somehow, people possess that "oonchi nazar sarraf ki." The gurus taught people to see and value things in the true manner.

Seeking Nanak shows how performers still perform with his concept of "hukum" (divine order) in mind, creating art that transforms both artist and listener. Contributors imagine conversations between Nanak and Tibetan monks, exploring friendship through the stories of Nanak and Mardana—rendering caste irrelevant in the process, since Mardana came from a lower caste yet learned anyway.

Even the rabab—the instrument Mardana played while the Guru sang—carries symbolic weight. Previously shunned in India during Hindu-Muslim polarization (the harmonium took its place), it was recently adopted in a performance at IHC Delhi, receiving thunderous applause. Ulhasnagar exemplifies this syncretic culture, where Sindhis and Hindus live peacefully, celebrating Nanak's teachings together. His Gurmukhi script challenged linguistic hegemony. He demonstrated that knowing truth can overcome fractures—or more precisely, that when one sees truth through the guru's grace, one discovers the fractures never existed at all.

I want to end with an episode from Gill's verse. Mardana reaches, with the Guru, a land of absolute wilderness—no vegetation, no creatures, only darkness. Frightened, he cries:

O baba where have you brought me,There is nothing to seeNone to talk toThere is not even a tree, a bushThat he could embrace and cryThere is no country no company (207)

The Guru offered comfort and showed him what he saw instead:

We have travelled so farTo be one with the master of the universeAway from all hassleFrom all that disturbs your attentionYour meditationThere is nothing but sand dunes to walk onAnd stars to gazeThe great canopy of the vast blue sky is above usThe air is pureThe atmosphere is beyond all worldly impuritiesThis is the right place for peaceful reflectionFor meditation and prayer (208)

The same landscape. Two entirely different visions.

Having read postmodernism, psychology, quantum physics, and various discourses on identity, I arrived at these two books and found myself in a warm embrace with the Guru. I discovered not answers, but wholeness.

Framing questions, counting fractures, devising solutions—all seem taxing and foolish now. I see that intellectual discernment alone will always be distorted. First comes personal connection and interaction with the world, then the intuitive, and only last the intellectual. Following and feeling the Guru means surrendering intellectual arrogance. Understanding happens first; you make sense of it much later.

Beyond the positive and negative stands the Guru—ever whole. And standing tall on his shoulders, the gurumukh.

About the Author: Vedamini Vikram is a PhD student at the University of Lucknow. She has previously taught at Amity University, Lucknow, as an Assistant Professor and has worked as a Research Associate at IIM Lucknow. She has also worked as an editor for Pepper Content and currently works in the ed-tech space. Her book reviews have been published in The Book Review, Teesta Review, and Muse India, among other platforms. Her areas of interest include mysticism and its cross-cultural dimensions, performance studies, and travel literature.

Ko Aham (को अहं): Fragments of Self

"Who am I?" The question appears quite simple, but it is as ancient as human existence itself. It lingers beneath our daily routines, shaping our choices, forming our relationships, and influencing our understanding of the world. Identity is both the blueprint of our soul and the social DNA through which others recognise us. It constructs, deconstructs and reconstructs in response to experiences, geographies, cultures, traumas, and triumphs. And at the core of this evolving landscape lies the possibility, and sometimes the pain, of a fractured identity.

Throughout history, identity has often been imposed rather than discovered. In traditional Indian society, for instance, identity was once closely tethered to caste, lineage, and community. One was "born into" an identity long before one could speak, choose, or question, or like in today's world, it is perceived by one's abilities. Yet the philosophical pursuit embedded in the Sanskrit phrase ko aham?—"Who am I?"—suggests that identity is not merely inherited or a label but also sought after. It is an inward journey, a search for meaning of self that cannot be dictated by society alone.

My own pursuit with identity has never been straightforward. I have often struggled with questions like: Who am I? Where do I belong? How do I fit into the multiple worlds I inhabit? My life has been shaped by forces that both anchored and displaced me; by a childhood defined by transitions and an adulthood shaped by transnational existence. Due to these constant moves, I feel that my identity is less like a stable constant but a variable, and more like a jigsaw puzzle of different experiences coming together to form a whole—ME.

A Childhood on the Move

I grew up in India in a family which often moved due to my father's work. Every few years we packed our lives into trunks and started again in a new place. Each move was marked by a new geography, new school, new friends, new languages, and new cultural landscapes.

Sometimes the move felt liberating—especially if the previous school had been difficult—or it could be isolating. A new city meant a fresh start, a chance to rewrite oneself in small ways. But other times, the transitions were difficult—leaving behind close friends, familiar streets, and comfort zones created a sense of disruption and lost bearings. Every transition came with excitement and sadness, gain and loss, novelty and grief.

These continual relocations at times had unexpected and surprising outcomes too. When I entered university, I realised that I had become more tolerant and adaptable than many of my peers. After having moved all these times as a child and integrating into new environments, I developed a natural adaptability and curiosity towards differences. At my university in Delhi, which was also my home for the longest time, there were students from across the country with varied backgrounds, traditions, perspectives, speaking different languages/dialects. For many, this diversity was overwhelming and they clung to their regional cohorts. For me this new environment felt familiar—almost like coming home to the unfamiliar once again.

Assimilation amongst such a varied group of fellow students was not so difficult for me as I had learnt to adapt to differences. But this adaptability came at a cost: the unsettling thought that I belonged everywhere and yet nowhere, for I could not answer where I was from.

Crossing Oceans

These fractures within myself deepened when I moved beyond India—first to the United States, then China, and eventually, the Netherlands. There was a constant 'tug of war' between each transition and identity. These relocations transported me far beyond the cultural frameworks and my comfort zone that had shaped my early years. Moving abroad, unlike moving within India where cultural threads remained recognisable, meant encountering environments where everything was foreign: language, customs, people, even the rhythm of daily life.

Arriving in the United States, I found myself anonymous and hyper-visible simultaneously. It was easy for me to disappear into the vastness of the country and its diversity. Even though I am married to a person who grew up in the United States, I was often marked by my accent, ethnicity, or habits—sometimes leading to curiosity, other times to misunderstanding. While I was navigating this new land, I learnt that identity is just not a self-perception but is negotiated also through the eyes of others. I was Indian, yes—but I was also an immigrant and FOB (fresh off the boat). Internally, I was torn and struggled to be accepted 'as is', with another layer of fragmentation: Was I still the person I had been in India, or was I becoming someone entirely new? And this question was quite unsettling as I did not want to lose myself!

China posed its own challenges. The language barrier was immense and the cultural codes opaque. In China, small daily interactions, like buying groceries or asking for directions, became exercises in vulnerability. I often felt my capabilities and interactions reduced to gestures, smiles, and approximations. I felt frustrated, sad, lonely and uprooted as I found this unfamiliar ground daunting and too hard to tread on. But within this struggle emerged perseverance and humility. I learned that identity is not only what we bring to a place but what we absorb from it and become. Moments of helplessness and desperation helped me discover new forms of strength: patience, observation, and an ability to exist in uncertainty. Over time, these became part of my internal design, my new blueprint, further complicating and dividing my inner-self.

Then came the Netherlands, adding yet another layer to my complex self. Dutch society, with its emphasis on directness and egalitarianism, contrasted sharply with the collectivist nuances of Indian culture or the warmth of Chinese interactions or even the warm hello of strangers in the US. Once again, I learnt to read and navigate a new social landscape. Living in Amsterdam—surrounded by people from all over the world—augmented the sense of multiplicity within me. I felt that my identity was no longer linear; it felt layered, global, disjointed and unsettling at times. And the question of where do I belong deepened.

The Beauty in the Fractures: Still Becoming

The underlying theme of fractured identity persisted through all these transitions. Over time, I learnt to see fracture as a form of complexity, not as weakness. A fractured identity is not a broken identity but a piece of the jigsaw puzzle—ME.

It is important to acknowledge and appreciate the emotional terrain of such multiplicity. Moving across continents to new countries often meant starting from scratch—building new friendships, decoding cultures, re-establishing routines. It was never easy—it came with sadness and lows of life. Many a times it felt that I was putting up a facade, being untrue to myself. Each time I left a place, I left behind a part of myself that had learned to belong there. The person I was in India was not the same as the person I became in the US, China, or the Netherlands. But these versions did not disappear; they coexisted, at times harmoniously and sometimes in tension. The fractures were real: moments of doubt, loneliness, sadness or dislocation. But these fractures also allowed the light of new beginnings to enter. They created openings for introspection, appreciation, empathy, curiosity, hope, resilience and a more humble, adaptable self.

My life echoes these ideas, not as abstract theory but as a lived reality. I am not one cohesive, uninterrupted story but a superimposition of layers of intersecting stories, each shaped and coloured by place, time, people, relationships and challenges.

So, who am I? The answer remains evolving. I am the child who learned to adapt to new geographies. I am the university student who embraced diversity. I am the immigrant in the US, the perplexed newcomer in China, and the global citizen in the Netherlands. I am Indian, shaped by cultures far beyond India's borders. I am fragments, but these fragments create a mosaic that is uniquely mine and my blueprint—my identity.

Belonging, too, reveals itself differently with time. Once upon a time I longed for a fixed spatial point of reference—a geographic place or culture to call home. And today, home is beyond a physical location. It is a collection of fragments of experiences, relationships, and internal landscapes. I belong to the memories of each place I have lived. I belong to the cultures, smells, and tastes that I have adapted to, the languages I have learned, the friendships I have nurtured, and the environments and geographies that have carved me.

And perhaps that is the most honest response to ko aham?—I am many things: I am shaped by movement, I am shaped by learning, I am shaped by people, I am shaped by every place I have called home… and I am still becoming—I am fragmented yet I am whole!

About the Author:

Dr. Purva (Ph.D.), based in Amsterdam, is a geographer and conservation practitioner working at the intersection of protected-area management, community-based eco-development, and environmental education. She served as South Asia Coordinator with the Smithsonian Institution's UN-funded Man and the Biosphere (MAB-BRIMS) team and consulted for UNDP, the Wildlife Institute of India, WWF-India, and the World Bank. She earned her Ph.D. at Jawaharlal Nehru University, with a Pre-Doctoral Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Colorado Boulder, and also leads her family foundation's work supporting education and life-skills development.

Review of Language, Literature, Culture and Cinema: Essays in Honour of Professor Harish Narang Edited by Madhumita Chakraborty, Anuradha Ghosh, Mukesh Ranjan

Review of Language, Literature, Culture and Cinema: Essays in Honour of Professor Harish Narang 

Edited by Madhumita Chakraborty, Anuradha Ghosh, Mukesh Ranjan

Published by Aakar Books, Delhi, 2024

ISBN: 978-93-50028-91-9 (Hardcover)

Price: 1,695 INR

Language: English, pp. 479

The book Language, Literature, Culture and Cinema is a kaleidoscope of a wide array of critical essays offering diverse perspectives on language, marginality, diaspora, comparative literature and cinematic representation, among others. Dedicated to Prof. Harish Narang on his 81st birthday, the book contains an interview with him as well as a section on his writings, providing deep insight into his literary choices and preoccupations, particularly his love for Ngugi and Manto, his invaluable contribution to African literature studies in India, and his journey as a translator.

The book is thematically divided into nine sections:

The first section on Bhasha Literature is varied, with articles highlighting regional literary traditions. Poetry, poverty and politics abound in this section as we move through the sensibilities of Punjabi poets Pash, Dil and Shiv, to the "notion of pseudo nationalism" in Doodhnath Singh's 'Mai ka Shok Geet', which Diamond Oberoi Vahali terms as "one of the finest literary interventions in the national discourse". While treading through Mohammad Aslam's essay on Kashmiri poetry and politics and another on Premchand's timeless stories, one thing becomes clear: that the plurality of Indian linguistic traditions in more ways than one emphasizes the commonality of experiences among people of different castes, creed and community. Human suffering and fortitude are the common threads binding all of them together.

The second section, 'Constructing India from the Margins', focuses on tribals, dalits and marginalised communities. The essay by Shreya Bhattacharji and Hare Krishna Kuiry explores the nature-human connect in the rituals of tribal communities, particularly evident during the celebration of the 'Sarhul' festival. The essay holds a visual treat for its readers by including beautiful paintings and pictures to emphasize the aesthetics of tribal culture. This whole section, as the essay points out, "set pointers for entire communities to soul search and thereby dismantle their own stereotypical, hierarchical and gendered cultural constructs and societal structures."

The section 'On Reading Literature and Allied Arts' explores the relationship between literature and other art forms such as cinema, theatre, OTT platforms, etc. The essays span across a wide range of genres. Atanu Bhattacharya in 'The Choice of Language' indicates the possibility of "deterritorializing the discourse of the 'major' especially when located within a 'minor' genre", whereas the essay "Whitening Voices and Black Lives Matter" associates colonisation with linguistic imperialism and the significance of ratio-linguistics in terms of interaction between 'blacks' and 'whites'.

The fourth section on Indian diaspora is majorly focused on Canadian novelist and editor M.G. Vassanji's writings. Anjum Khan's essay deals extensively with the historical records and memories of migrants coalescing in the narratives of Vassanji. She points out that the themes of 'migration, displacement and nostalgia' are frequently addressed in his short stories and fiction. Another essay written by Vinod Kumar and Neelima Kanwar compares Vassanji's travelogues to those of Naipaul. They illustrate with examples that the travelogues of both the writers are 'replete with prejudices, religious fanaticism and fears…'

The section 'On Reading Literature in Comparative Terms' adopts a cross-cultural approach, comparing texts across languages, regions and traditions. The essay by Chandrani Biswas aptly brings out the dilemma shared by women across races and geographical boundaries, as their "multi-layered identities are often constructed for them by others rather than by themselves." Another essay by Ranu Uniyal on the poetry of Judith Wright and Kamala Das beautifully brings out the common threads in their poetry as well as in their personal lives. She draws our attention to the fact that "both the poets endorse a vision of pluralistic society with a diversity of customs and traditions, races, tribes, castes, communities, religion and languages."

The sixth section, 'Black Sensibilities in Literature and Cinema', contains essays articulating the black literary and cinematic traditions. The essays dealing with African literature and cinema examine themes of racial discrimination, struggle, oppression and identity, apart from exploring the issues of gender and empowerment. Devapriya Sanyal's essay on African novelist and filmmaker Sembene Ousmane's works is quite fascinating in this context and adds both global as well as ethical dimensions to the book's critical vision.

The section 'On Writings of Harish Narang' brings out his thematic concerns, his passion for Manto's writings and his immense contribution to the studies of African literature in English in India. The essay by Anuradha Ghosh on Prof. Narang's writings meticulously examines the range of ideas, perspectives and techniques that shape his writings. She describes his writings as a combination of "the critical, the creative and the translational axis." The essays highlight his deep concern for common people and the various burning social issues on which his stories are based.

The section 'Reflections' provides a very interesting talk of Prof. Narang on 'Creative Writing is an Ethical Question', where, without mincing words, he criticizes the literary world's obsession with Salman Rushdie and raises some very pertinent points on creative freedom, among others.

The interview of Prof. Narang taken by one of his students, Nandini Sen, is the cherry on the top as it explores various facets of his illustrious career and his journey as a writer and translator at a leisurely pace. The afterword provides a sense of closure to the book while inviting further discussions and

critical thinking.

Finally, Language, Literature, Culture and Cinema is an excellent book and adds immense value to the literary oeuvre by its extensively researched essays, critical sensibilities and inter-disciplinary perspectives.

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About the Reviewer:

Sangeeta Kotwal

Dr. Sangeeta Kotwal is a Professor and the Head of Department of English, Navyug Kanya Mahavidyalaya, University of Lucknow. She is an avid reader and researcher and has published various research papers in prestigious journals. She visited Australia for six weeks as a member of Group Study Exchange Programme sponsored by Rotary International. At present she executes various academic responsibilities at her Institution as IQAC coordinator and officiating librarian.