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.