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SAT SRI AKAL
Jagmohan Singh 

Are cinema characters to serve as role models? Is eulogizing a Sikh achiever in the field of music and cinema tantamount to preparing Sikhs for a stint in Bollywood? 

Well, the times are changing and changing fast.  Sometime back, we were yearning for a radio station at Darbar Sahib, now we are looking at setting up a regulatory authority to monitor the plethora of channels blaring religious untruths and falsehood. 

Not very long ago, we wanted “good Sikh characters” in Bollywood and Hollywood.  If a young Ishmeet Singh or Manpreet Singh chooses to have acting as a career and their visibility happens to be more, much to the chagrin of those who don’t like Sikhs in cinema, it is certainly not their fault.  Neither Manmeet Singh nor Manpreet Singh goes around town exhorting young Sikhs to join films. Some of these young people are doing yeoman’s service besides their careers and that needs to be appreciated.    

With the fully bearded and turbaned Manpreet Singh as the lead hero, Sat Sri Akal will foster renewed interest in the Sikh face.  Whatever happens, Bollywood will have to sit up, listen and take notice.  In the years to come, it will become more difficult for them to malign Sikhs as they have doing for all these years.   

In this historic year of the Sikh calendar, Sat Sri Akal will be a much talked about movie, because it puts on celluloid the true strains of Sikhism, the ethos of faith in Guru Granth Sahib and the importance of tradition and values in modern day life.  The protagonists, the Mata Tripta Ji Charitable Trust, Chandigarh have been working hard to ensure that the movie reflects the spirit of Sikhism.  Shot on location at Darbar Sahib and Hazur Sahib, the producers say that the film “literally symbolizes and implies truth, divinity and cheer in true harmony.”  Interestingly, it is based on a true story and though it has Sikh characters and a Punjabi background, it has a universal appeal. 

The cast and crew is essentially Punjabi and the writer Arvinderjit Singh has spared no effort to encapsulate Punjabi culture, moral values and Sikh tenets.  The music of the movie also has the Punjabi touch with a string of percussion instruments and singers like Jagjit Singh.  Among the Shabads in the movie, there is Dithe Sabhe Thaav, sung by late Ishmeet Singh, much before he became the Voice of India. 

With the marketing support of Frankfinn Entertainment co, the film is likely to go worldwide and with the Diaspora interest in Sikh characters gradually increasing, the film is set to attract much-deserved attention. 

Jagmohan Singh is a commentator based in Ludhiana and may be contacted at jsbigideas@gmail.com

27 August, 2008
 

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