A Day at Lohgarh

Lohgarh douses its campers with a rich mix of academic rigor and pure enjoyment. The day usually begins for most campers around six in the morning, when they jump out of bed and get ready for the morning gurudwara program at seven. After the Nishaan Sahib salute, everyone traipses off to breakfast, which is followed by three hours of interactive classes, covering the Sikh ideology, culture, language, heritage, scripture, and art. After lunch, the counselors make a presentation, and the campers also have the option of learning kirtan - the performance of Sikh hymns. Sports time arrives at 2:30 pm, and lasts until 5:30, when the campers are required to shower and get ready for Rehras. Rehras isn't just a camp-wide recital of the sacred bani - it is a one-on-one tutoring session, designed in the hope that every camper will be able to pronounce the entire rehras correctly at the end of the camp. Dinner is followed by an evening program, which may be a discussion covering some aspect of being a Sikh Youth in America, or a more exciting activity like a pillow fight.

Amrit Vela – Wake Up

Lohgarh awakens early in the morning, with the granthi bhai sahib doing the prakaash. The campers too tumble out of bed. For the boys this can be a harrowing experience as they fall from the upper bunks into the samsonites littering the walkways. Once outside, if the toilets are not all blocked up, it is an overwhelming sensation never before experienced for some as they realize how early the day actually starts. Some, like Veer Singh, Kavan Singh, Avjyot Singh, Kiran Kaur, Jasmeet Kaur, Sumeet Kaur and Jasmeet Singh, take ring-side seats, dumb-founded by the ascendancy of the sun in the skies, or in scientific terms, the ma-earth doing a big belly roll-over.

Morning Program

Breakfast

After the purity of the amrit vela experience, the campers confront the harsh realities of the early morning rumbles. Cereals, pan-cakes, fruits, bagels, paronthaas, adorn the cuisine, as the campers are fed with tender, loving care.

Classes

The most dreaded part, apart from the call to the camp-office, is the onerous regimen of classes. These hour long lectures, with sad attemps at humour, test the last vestiges of caffeine in the system. Some classes have physical exercises included in them to grab the attention of those who had spent the whole night discussing who is attracted to whom. Gossip is something too good to be left alone with the parents at the local gurdwara.

All in all, using slides, audio-visual aids, loud voices, yellings, and pratfall humour, the teachers keep the campers motivated into learning. At left is a class of the eldest campers being conducted by Bhai Gurdarshan Singh. The campers bide the time, scribbling love-notes to each other, or doodling on their note-pads. At times, the lethargy gets communicated to the teachers, too, like Gobind Singh Sethi awaits the students in his tablaa class.

Projects

An indelible part of the Lohgarh curriculum are the projects, some of which wander off into the void of unstructured nothingness. Over the years projects in carpentery, computers, media-relations, publishing, multi-media, board-games, visual arts have been attempted, and with Guru's miraculous grace, some have been completed.

Lunch

Such activity brings us to the food for the stomach, and lunch is a noisy, hot affair. While some gorge themselves on the fruits during the breaks between the classes, one looks forward to idle chatter, after the heady, heavy dosage of Sikh History, Gurbaani and the like.

Afternoon Program

Sports

The end of classes, that comprised the morning program, is a huge sigh of relief for all. To highlight the myriad of atheletes in residence each year.

Baths

This activity, its preface and the aftermath in the bathrooms, is just too ugly to be shown in a public forum like the web. Suffice to say, "Mama! Don't raise your sons to be soiled brats."

Pugri/Attire

All boys are required to have a turban tied in the evening. Many are given individualized attention in the lodge, by veterans, while an assembly-line like atmosphere prevails in the dormitories.

Rehraas Sahib

This robust tradition of every Sikh family resounds within the Lohgarh Retreat. At some times competition between the boys and girls is held as they pronounce alternate stanzas. While baking in the fields remains the popular locale, rains drive the congregation to the porch of the lodge, which is closer to dinner.

Evening Program

Dinner

The conclusion of ardaas following the rehraas sahib in the afternoon program signals that dinner is to be served. Dinner has the newly implemented tradition of the Kaurs being served by the Singhs. The boys are slowly adapting to this slap in the face of male-chauvinism, a seeming birth-right of a Sikh boy, as none wanted to be captured on film involved in such servitude.

Social Exchange

Dinner is a hasty affair, as all rush to maximize the social hour. After a week, close kinships get formed, amongst Sikhs from diverse parts of the country, and crowbars are at times needed to pry the close associations loose.

Discussions

The integral part of the Lohgarh experience are the evening/nightly discussions that at times go nowhere. The same issues are dredged each year, and the same non-resolutions are arrived at repeatedly. Yet, all love to participate in them, if only the moderators would finish with their own diatribes. The campers are drawn to the tittilating topics and revelations of taboo subjects.

Events

The special events make Lohgarh palatable for the campers, and nauseous for the organizers. These activities have a cult-like following, with campers coming prepared with trunk-load of paraphernalia each year. Many go late into the night, whereby they are listed as part of the night program too.