Under the granite cliffs of Scenic Hill in Griffith every June long weekend the Indian Sikh community run their two day games event. We saw the television advertising and it said everyone is welcome so we decided to walk to the oval with Ruby and have a look at this local event. Sure to be a great place to take photos, I had to ask Dear Husband to be the photographer with his iPhone and these are a few of the best ones. I asked him to take lots of closeups of sarees, turbans, food............basically anything really colourful and interesting.
We weren't sure what sure what this display was all about, many of the men were photographed with guns.
Under the shade of gum trees a sea of sarees and turbans.
So many colours of turbans and they varied quite a lot in how neatly they were wound.
Lots of sports; volleyball, soccer, races for kids, tug-of-war and amazingly the ladies are allowed to play musical chairs!
Sarees are so beautiful but not too sure how warm they are in an Australian winter. Update - many thanks to Aman (second comment on this post), he has taken his time to provide some great cultural information about Sikh's. It seems I got a the name of the women's out fit quite wrong, they are wearing Punjabi suits rather than Sarees which are only worn by Hindu's. I have much to learn it seems. I wish I had met him at the games, I would have loved to have learned more from a Sikh who seems so willing to share his culture.
So much colour.
It seems that they were all quite worried about our chocolate spotted girl.
Not sure what this is called but it was a very testosterone fueled show of power to wrestle the opponents to the ground. Update - I've found out via the local paper that the game is called Kabaddi.
Dear Husband attended on his own yesterday with Ruby and then we all headed over again today as we could hear the commentary clearly from home and it was on our way to our big hill walk anyway. Not sure we were very welcome, we only saw two other white Australians and not a single person spoke to us.
I am the photographer in this family for very obvious reasons! I found these two shots among the couple of dozen photos he took. The iPhone is a waste in his hands, he can't even see the screen without his glasses!
3 comments:
We have a Sikh Temple in our town. They do tend to keep quietly to themselves. Here I think it is because many people give them trouble and they aren't very trusting of white people. (I can't say as I blame them.)
I had a Sikh eye doctor when I lived in my old neighborhood. He was very nice, but a more reserved personality.
Maybe that comes along with the religion. I'm afraid I don't know much about them.
I am a sikh well known in mostly the Sydney community. I visited from Sydney on the long weekend and had a wonderful two days. I'm sorry no one spoke to you, it's not that Sikhs are reserved, it's that our older generation haven't the greatest English, and the new comers and youngers were mostly (from the billion faces I was sure I'd recognise :( ) were newly from India and mostly Melbourne.
The sarees are in fact Punjabi suits (check it out on Google) Sarees are long winded cloth and are worn by Hindus not Sikhs.
The exhibition was about the Martyrs of the 1984 sikh genocide in Amritsar (Golden Temple) check it out on Google too. :)
Again, of course you're welcome there, I'm sorry to hear you didn't feel as if you were, next time, I hope you run into someone more enthuastic... or contact me I'd love to share more about who we are as Sikhs. :)
Aman
The sikh games happening again on the long weekend in June. You are most welcome to come by this year.
I am traveling from melbourne n will be there on 5th of June to 9th. I got booking at a place after trying lot of other places. All the places pretty much booked out there. If u can come this year I can be your guide so you don't feel like we are reserved people.
Thanks
My email id (taransaini@live.com.au)
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