Tender as a rose
Gurū Gobind Singh Jī's four young sons and many nameless Sikhs had given their life to VĀHIGURŪ JĪ on the battlefield or under the cruellest tortures imaginable in order to keep the flame of Sikhism burning as a light in the darkness called Mughal surrounding them. The Mughals' thirst for the blood of innocent Sikhs could never be satisfied as they claimed to own the one and only true faith and forced others to share this faith for their salvation. That is why the Mughals again and again acted with a cruelty that had long lost any semblance of humanity.
One of these Mughals, Farukh Siar, had had 700 Sikhs rounded up and brought to
Delhi, where they were to be executed. Among these innocent woeful men there was a boy hardly eighteen years old. To his mother he was still a child, her boy, tender as a rose. And so she turned to Mughal Farukh Siar and, lying to him with the fervor that only mothers have, told him that her son had been wrongly arrested by his henchmen as he was not a Sikh, but a Muslim.
Farukh Siar was overjoyed at every apostate Sikh as this indicated a weakening of Sikhism. He thus was prepared to set the boy free if he publicly declared that he was not a Sikh.
The mother, with the Mughal's order to set her son free if he publicly renounced Sikhism in her hands, went to the place of execution and found her boy among the all the other Sikhs, who calmly awaited their death sentences in deep humility before VĀHIGURŪ JĪ. After she had given the Mughal's order to the men who supervised the executions, she advised her son to publicly renounce Sikhism in order to save his young life. But to his mother's horror, he shouted so loud that everyone could hear him:
"What does this woman want who claims to be my mother? I tell you, I do not know her. But I will tell you who I am: I am a true Sikh who values his faith higher than his own life. Do not rob me by giving me a life that is vapid and bitter if it cannot belong to my GOD. I am ready. I want to die a martyr's death together with my Sikh brothers so that Sikhism can live as a bright light in the darkness, and I will be a tiny spark of that light." And the more the mother fought for her son's life, the louder he shouted and defended Sikhism.
In the meantime, the Kāzī, the executioners and a large crowd had gathered around them. All of them were surprised and impressed by the boy's courage and determination to die for his faith. But they also felt humiliated by him, for the soul always knows when a wrong is being committed, and no-one wants to feel guilty. And so finally the executioner stepped in and beheaded the brave young Sikh with a single blow of his sword. The mother's whole pride and happiness, the rose-like boy, a tender bud that had not yet flowered, was beheaded and slain by the sword of hatred. She collapsed in sorrow and pain – how cruel it is to watch the death of one's child!
The son's red blood flowed and blended with his mother's tears. But the blood and the tears turn into something more than just a sigh in the history of the cruelties committed against Sikhs, for they water the rose of remembrance that never withers and that reveals its glow and its enchanting fragrance to all those that are ready to fight for justice and against oppression with what is most precious: their own life.
Elisabeth Meru München, Germany