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P I N I O N October 14, 2003 One recent Saturday I went to watch my 8-year-old niece play soccer and I was just thrilled to see her play. I thought - you know, it would be so wonderful to see a Sikh girl athlete someday. My mind drifted to the movie I had read and heard so much about, "Bend it Like Beckman." So I did something I hadn't done in a long time - I watched a movie. The obvious excitement was that this movie starred a Sikh woman in an unusual comedy about a young Sikh girl who wanted to play professional soccer. Boy was I disillusioned. If I weren't so embarrassed by what I saw, I suppose I could have found the humor in it. I wasn't embarrassed by the young women with short hair and even shorter dresses, the young men with short hair and perverse thoughts, or the rigid narrow-minded parents stuck in their old customs. But I was embarrassed that these people were all supposed to be Sikhs. Is this a typical Sikh family? I should just take my rose-colored glasses off and throw them away. Perhaps what bothers me is that there was a lot of truth in the movie. How Sikh girls, and boys, are cutting their hair; how Sikh girls feel a lot of social pressure from within their communities, especially from the "aunites;" and how parents are just not passing anything of substance about Sikhi to their kids. This movie would not have lost its appeal if it were just about an Indian family, or even a Punjabi family. I wish that they had left the religious orientation out. It was difficult not to think about the Sikh issues when the story revolved around a picture of Guru Nanak - a pristine image in a sea of shallowness. I did not find any redeeming value in this movie. And there is nothing of value in it for Sikh girls. A few days later, as I was sulking about this movie while eating lungar in someone's back yard, I noticed something wonderful. A few of the young Sikh girls, who were earlier dressed in Punjabi suits disappeared into the house and came out wearing soccer uniforms. It was Saturday afternoon, time to play soccer! They were hurrying to put on their cleats as their parents gobbled the last of their lungar to rush them off to the soccer matches. Their knee-length hair was neatly braided in the back. And I thought - you know, this is what the real Kaurs are doing. And there are plenty of them around. I should go dig those rose-colored glasses out of the
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