Editor’s Note:
I write from New Delhi at Bhāī Baldeep Singh’s residence, where I am based for my fieldwork on the Gurbāṇī Kīrtan Paramparā. My last trip to India was pre-Pandemic in 2017, to participate in the celebrations for Gurū Gobind Singh’s 350th birth anniversary in Patna. Both trips called up precious memories of my Nānā, Sardār Pritam Singh Kohli (1930-2022), who spent many happy years in these two cities in his remarkable career in the Indian Administrative Service.
As I wrote in my Oxford application in 2021, “The seeds of my academic interest in South Asia were planted the summer before high school: my aunt was conducting fieldwork in Punjab for her second PhD, and since I shared her passion for Sikh sacred music, she suggested I accompany her. Little did I know I would thus be commended to the tutelage of thirteenth-generation Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta conservator and exponent Bhāī Baldeep Singh by his nonagenarian granduncle and maestro. My questions regarding the interplay of textual and oral authority in the Sikh tradition stem from undergoing this early modern paramparā’s indigenous pedagogy over the past thirteen years in conjunction with studying political philosophy at Berkeley.”
I am indelibly grateful to my Māsī, Dr. Inderjit Kaur, for inviting me to tag along that summer of 2008. It has been quite the journey to arrive in India for fieldwork of my own.
This month’s installment of The Vital Anjan is a lightly-edited version my eulogy for my Nānā, delivered in Sunnyvale, California in May 2022. Some of his own reflections on how to address the Panth’s challenges are available online thanks to the Institute of Sikh Studies, where he served as president while living in Chandigarh in the 2000s. Upon returning to California, Nānā made active contributions within the Bay Area sangat, both teaching kīrtan and engaging in vicār. I especially appreciate this distillation of the GurSikh ethos from a 2015 talk at San Jose’s Gurduārā Sāhib: “An article of firm conviction with the Sikhs is that Mukti is not release from the world but liberation from its fears.”
It only remains for me to express my sincere thanks for Maurizia jī’s marvellous culinary hospitality, Gigi’s erudition on matters Indological, Lia’s the Cat’s majestic company, and—of course—for all Bhāī Baldeep Singh is and does.
Sardār Pritam Singh Kohli was my Nānā. That is what I called him, since that is what he is to me.
When I was maybe elven years old, he explained that in Panjābī culture, it is unusual to address one’s grandfather simply as ‘Nānā.’ One generally opts for either the affectionate ‘Nānā’ or for the more reverential ‘Nānā jī’.
By then—thanks to a school project in the fourth grade—I already had the distinction of being Nānā’s biographer, and I intuitively sensed that ‘Nanū’ was far too casual for so distinguished a man. But, on the other hand, ‘Nānā jī’ seemed too proper for one so beloved. So ‘Nānā’ it remained, and in my usage, ‘Nānā’ was at once a job title, an expression of wonder, and a sure claim to great and frequent adventures.
My first memory of Nānā is also my first memory of my sister. In anticipation of Harleen’s birth in November 1996, Nānā and Nānī came to stay with us in Martinsburg, West Virginia. I was a month shy of three. Nānā did not come empty-handed. Knowing I would have to share my mother and father’s affection with a new sibling, he came bearing gifts. Most notably, these included a tablā.
When Harleen was born, I demanded we bring her back from the hospital in my then favorite toy: a red one-seater vehicle in red and yellow plastic—my Cozy Coop. I would not hear of leaving without it. As always, Nānā knew what to do: he placed my Cozy Coop in the actual car’s trunk and then buckled a contented Nihal into his car seat. So 1996 was the year I got a sister and a tablā; Nānā first brought me to both.
My family moved to Ellicott City, Maryland in the year 2000. Nānā visited again to help us settle in. I was homesick for the mint chocolate chip ice cream Harleen and I loved eating in Martinsburg. When Nānā came back from the grocery store with a tub of Häagen-Dazs, I was skeptical: mint chocolate chip is supposed to be mint green, not paper white. Nānā tasted a spoonful. He then encouraged us to try it. As usual, Nānā’s counsel proved sound.
Later, during the same visit, Nānā first introduced me to the magical world of Harry Potter. I was in India with him in July 2005 when the series’s penultimate title was released. The Chandigarh Tribune reported: “Eleven-year-old Nihal Singh wanted to spend the night outside the English Book Shop in Sector 17 to be the first to get his hands on the new Harry Potter releasing tomorrow. Alas the book comes in only at 10 am!”
When Nānā saw my disappointment, he worked his magic. Somehow, he convinced the English Book Shop’s proprietor to sell us a copy at six a.m., well before the store usually opened for business. By that evening—to the reporter’s astonishment—I had devoured the 607 page tome. Thanks to Nānā—I may claim with reasonable assurance—I was the first person in Chandigarh to learn the identity of the ‘half-blood prince’.
More generally, that summer in Chandigarh was among the most magical and consequential few weeks of my life. Nānā arranged daily sārangī lessons for me in the mornings and drove me to Mohali for fine tablā instruction each evening. We would later sit poring over musical notations in Bābā jī’s room; as Nānā‘s fingers twinkled across the keys of the harmonium, I first put rough melodic structures to the names of several rāgas. Nānī would periodically remind me to have a bite to eat, and more often than not, this involved fresh samosās from Nanak Sweets and a mug of unstrained, loose leaf chai just like Nānā’s.
Our only break from the daily music lessons was to travel to hear and learn about excellence in kīrtan as it was historically practiced by the Gurūs and their Sikhs. We made trips to Amritsar’s Darbār Sāhib, to Punjabi University, Patiala, met with Bhāī Balbir Singh, and even visited the nonagenarian maestro Bhāī Gurcharan Singh ‘Ragi.’ It was the latter who commended me to the tutelage of his brilliant grand-nephew, Bhāī Baldeep Singh. In my maestro’s words, “Your grandpa was one of the finest bureaucrats of India of his generation and will be fondly remembered by all those who were mentored by him!”
That summer in Chandigarh, Nānā most generously set up a workstation for me on his own computer at his own desk. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ he said handing me reams of book photocopies, ‘but I thought you might find these translations from the Dasam Granth of use.’ I had yet to begin middle school, but he would often solicit my views on a wide range of topics. Nānā wore his erudition lightly, and his infectious delight in the exchange of ideas first introduced me to the joy and dignity of an active mental life.
We spent many happy afternoons together at the British Library in Chandigarh and browsing at the The Browser. I have never met anyone more passionate about interlibrary loans, and I largely credit Nānā for my inveterate bibliophilia. There was a remarkable scope and praiseworthy intentness to his reading. In my own research, I find myself chasing down references and tracing byways of his recommendation, especially on the subjects of comparative religion and GurSikh mysticism.
Nānā exerted a civilizing influence upon me. When it was time to leave Chandigarh, I would plaintively wail, “chhuṭī gone, chhuṭī gone.” “Naughty chap, bandā ban”—become a man—he would playfully reply. A few years back, he drily reminded me when I once arrived to see him in an especially wrinkled green linen shirt, ‘it is customary to iron shirts before wearing them’.
It seemed, to me, my Nānā always knew the perfect thing to say. I think it was because he was as keen an observer of human nature as he was a devoted student of the Gurū’s illuminating word. The mastery of his expression betokened one as versed in the power of language as mindful of the wonders before which it falls silent. No wonder he had a passion for the poetry of Ghalib.
It was very difficult to see someone so purposeful and energetic across so many eventful decades at the end battling the same, cruel disease as did my eternally gracious Nānī. On my final visit two weeks back, I sat next to Nānā on the sunny deck. He asked to see what book I was reading and enthusiastically read the section title out loud. When I unpacked my tablā and played a few minutes of solo repertoire for him, he remarked “sheer beauty.” His lucidity in these moments recalled for me so many treasured, formative moments for which I am forever grateful.
What eulogy, what good words fit such a man? Before I had the privilege of knowing him, he was uprooted from his home by Partition, carved out a new life in a new land with vision and integrity in equal measure, and helped build modern India, serving among the nascent republic’s first generation of top civil servants. He brought the same discernment to his leisure hours, and he may justly be credited for bringing the boundless gift of music into the Kohli family. He lived with indomitable dignity, graciousness, fortitude, reflectiveness, and sanguinity. He was caṛhadikalā incarnate. In the words of Matthew Arnold:
“And through thee I believe
In the noble and great who are gone;
Pure souls honour’d and blest
By former ages, who else—
Such, so soulless, so poor,
Is the race of men whom I see—
Seem’d but a dream of the heart,
Seem’d but a cry of desire.”
Better still, let me share what Nānā shared with me at 3:15 in the morning last August. He told me that “Sikhism may also be defined as Sabad Surati.” With his characteristic gift for getting to the essence of things, he identified the GurSikh path with the inner alchemy whereby the restless multitude within regains unific harmony with the originary oneness. I conclude with the words of Gurū Nanak:
ਪਾਰਿ ਸਾਜਨੁ ਅਪਾਰੁ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਮੁ ਗੁਰ ਸਬਦ ਸੁਰਤਿ ਲੰਘਾਵਏ ॥
ਮਿਲਿ ਸਾਧਸੰਗਤਿ ਕਰਹਿ ਰਲੀਆ ਫਿਰਿ ਨ ਪਛੋਤਾਵਏ ॥
‘Traversing, friend, the boundless beloved, mindfulness of the weighty word ferries one.
Meeting the congregation of saints will you revel; never again will one repent.’
______
Nihal Singh