In my younger days, I spent quite a few years out West, and loved the life there.  When I arrived in Oregon a good forty-five years ago, it took me less than a New York minute to learn to holler "Howdy, Pardner!" with the correct inflection. I thought it fit just right with my turban and beard.  I was no cowboy but, for sure, I was an Indian  -  just not of the variety that people immediately recognized.

How do we address our friends when we meet them? There are a myriad ways  - from "Yo", "Hi" and "Hey", to "Salaam", "Shalom", "Namastey", and many more than I can possibly count.

From data based on my nonexistent survey, I would think that amongst Sikhs, a vast majority prefer Sat Sri Akaal.  Progressively smaller numbers go with Sat Naam and, what is a mouthful, Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh. 

My impression is that Sat Sri Akaal is generally preferred by the vast majority of Sikhs, whether they are observant in their Sikhi or not.  It could be loosely translated as "Truth is Eternal" or that "True (sat) is the Eternal One".  Phonetically easy, its meaning is no esoteric mystery: in Indian society, the honorific Sri precedes a respected person's proper name.  Akaal(timeless, free from time, the One who never dies) stands for an attributive name of God, and that would be consistent with the idea here that God is eternal.

Satnam or Sat Naam, in my limited experience, is most often used by those who came into Sikhi through the influence of Yogi Harbhajan Singh.  Once again, a simplistic literal rendering is self-evident  -  it speaks of another trait of God  -  true (sat) is his name (naam) or being.  So, this points out that "God is Truth".

The last choice here  -  Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh  -  usually identifies a Sikh who has been initiated into the order of the Khalsa, in a rite somewhat reminiscent of the confirmation of Christians and the Bar or Bat Mitzvah of the Jews.  But many non-initiated Sikhs also use the term.  Nevertheless, its users remain a small minority.

I have even encountered young Sikhs in their teens and early twenties who prefer Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh, while their parents continue to stick to the much simpler variation, Sat Sri Akaal.  Interestingly, these young men and women are the products largely of a Western upbringing, away from India and Punjab.

Let's not dismiss Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh quite so simply.  There is a whole lot of meaning that deserves to be mined in it.  It probably dates from 1699; certainly its meaning comes to us from the seminal events of that time.  This is when Guru Gobind Singh initiated Sikhs into the order (and institution) of the Khalsa. 

In other cultures, too, invocations to God are not uncommon in words of welcome or farewell. Look at the widely used Adieu, which says "Go (or be) with God".

Literally, Waheguru means "the awesome reality that is God", while Fateh means victory.  So one would be tempted to translate it to mean that the Khalsa belongs to God, and God is forever victorious. And that's how it is often explained.

To me, very briefly, it says that the Khalsa is here exhorted to experience the oneness in creation and act always from that awareness; therein triumph and satisfaction are to be found.  Effectively, what it does then is to weed out from our actions the hubris and pride of our triumph, as well as the despair, stigma and smell of our failure and defeat.

Does it then teach us a little humility?  I don't really know, but it should and I hope it does!

I leave further exploration of its meaning to another time; what started me on this road was a recent encounter with a young Sikh in his twenties.

I was sitting at the dining center of a university, enjoying lunch between classes, when I spied a fresh face  -  a young, recognizable Sikh  -  approaching me. 

Sunil Singh Kanwal turned out to have come not from India, nor did he have any, even remote, connections to that country.  In fact, he was born and raised in Pakistan. He, along with his family, converted to Sikhi from their Hindu roots, just a few years ago.  Not quite an amritdhari yet, he was aspiring to be one.  A new graduate of the medical college in Peshawar (Pakistan), he had come to the United States to pursue further training.

I was born many years ago in what is now Pakistan, and our family abandoned that home and escaped into India, primarily with just the clothes on our backs, one week after the formation of Pakistan.  Most Sikhs and Hindus escaped, many in worse circumstances than ours.  Similarly, many Muslims abandoned their homes and properties in India, along with lifelong friendships, to flee to Pakistan. 

Most Sikhs of that generation (circa 1947) have a troubled history with Pakistan; also India has, during the past sixty years, fought three historic wars with Pakistan, and Sikhs still constitute the backbone of the Indian army.

Not many Sikhs were left in Pakistan post-1947.  Sunil tells me that now the number may be around 40,000, a minuscule amount in a country of over 164 million.  There are a tad more Hindus in Pakistan.  Talk of being a minority.  The figure translates to about 2 Sikhs in 10,000; in India they are about 2 in 100.  

I had always thought that, given the history of Sikh-Muslim strife, those who chose to stay must exist as second-class citizens in an officially Muslim country, with little freedom to practice their own faith.

Now, I see that things are a-changing.  We Sikhs have always been conflicted about our minority status everywhere, particularly post-9/11 in the United States.  We, who wonder about minority existence even in India, are astounded, even shocked, at these few thousand recognizable Sikhs surrounded by an aggressively Muslim culture. 

And then, I look at the emerging public face of Sikhism in Pakistan  -  three young recognizable Sikhs less than thirty years of age  -  a lieutenant in the Pakistani army, a police officer patrolling the streets, and now a young physician.  (My comments today on Pakistan have no political content; they are not meant to be an endorsement or critique of Pakistani policies or politics.)

When we met, Sunil Singh Kanwal immediately greeted me with Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh. 

It surprised me because he looked so young, and I expected a "Hey", "Hi" or "Hello".  You see, in the affluent neighborhoods of New York where many Sikhs live, young Sikhs rarely greet you with anything but an American colloquialism if they think you are "cool", or else, they ignore you if you are a graybeard as therefore considered unlikely to be accustomed to their hip culture and lingo.

In fact, I have worked out a reasonably plausible yardstick for Sikh youthful greeting: the probability of hearing a non-Sikh greeting is inversely proportional to the length of their stay away from India.

As an example, I personally did not come to terms with Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh until I had been away from India for over thirty years.

The longer a young person has been away from India, the greater the chance that he or she has rediscovered the virtues of the Sikh code of conduct and conventions.  The further away young Sikhs have lived from a concentration of Indian Punjabi Sikhs, the longer they have been away from their Bollywoodian influence, the greater the chance that the first words out of their mouths will be Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.

I wonder why.  Could it be that we do not value something until we have been deprived of it?

So my friends and pardners: Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh to you all!