The administration of www.kanganpur.com pleased to introduce a beautiful couple Researchers Amardeep Singh & Vininder Kaur from Singapore. We are presenting their introduction as they visited our city Kanganpur for research purposes.
Mr. Amardeep Singh visited Kanganpur with Faizan Naqvi (Lahore Da Khujji) in January 2017 and again visited Kanganpur with his wife Vininder Kaur on 22nd March 2019. During their visits to Kanganpur, Ali Babar, Kashif Gohar and Nabeel Nabar welcomed them.
Beautiful Couple Researchers Amardeep Singh & Vininder Kaur
Amardeep Singh is an excellent photographer and writer. He wrote two renowned books on Sikh history i, e “Lost Heritage – The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan” and “The Quest Continues Lost Heritage – The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan”.
Mr. Amardeep Singh is Director, Executive Producer and Host of Documentary “Allegory, A Tapestry of Guru Nanak’s Travels”.
Amardeep Singh educated at The Doon School in India, later studying Electronics Engineering at the Manipal Institute of Technology and a Masters in Business Administration at the University of Chicago, USA.
For 25 years, he worked in the Corporate Sector, at Larsen & Toubro, Crompton Greaves and American Express. At American Express, he rose to the position of the Head of Revenue Management for Asia Pacific Region.
He has worked out of India, Hong Kong and since 2001, is based in Singapore.
About Document Series
From a very young age, his personal interests have evolved across diverse fields – History, Spirituality, Gurmat Sangeet, Philosophy, Photography and Travel Writing. The composite of skills sets attained through created passions, enabled him to embark on ambitious visual ethnographic explorations.
Since year 2014, having left the Corporate Sector, Amardeep has completely dedicated himself to exploring and documenting for posterity, the forgotten Sikh legacy remnants in challenging geographies.
Amardeep had often pondered about the exodus of the communities from the lands that became Pakistan in the year 1947 and how the present generations have totally forgotten the centuries of historic and material remnants, archaeological and architectural feats, interfaith aspects and traditions.
He often pondered, why we find limited documentation on what was left behind? To address this profound question, Amardeep travelled extensively across Pakistan – West Punjab, Khyber Pakhthunkhwa, Pakistan Administered Kashmir, Baltistan, Sindh & Baluchistan.
Having explored the tangible and intangible remnants of the Sikh Legacy, Amardeep penned two path breaking books titled, ‘LOST HERITAGE, The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan’ and ‘THE QUEST CONTINUES, LOST HERITAGE, The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan’.
Thereafter, Amardeep released on YouTube, two documentaries on the Sikh remnants across Pakistan. ‘PEERING SOUL’ covers the forgotten Gurdwaras in Pakistan and ‘PEERING WARRIOR’ takes the viewer on a journey into the Forts in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, where the glorious chapters of Sikh era had once churned.
Explorations Across Pakistan
In explorations across Pakistan, Amardeep engaged with communities, who, regardless of their multifarious identities, considered themselves as Nanakpanthis — followers of Guru Nanak.
This exposure in Pakistan, led Amardeep to conceive the idea to trace the footsteps of Guru Nanak across 9 countries, which he travelled to with the message of Monism — We Are One!
His present ambitious project, ‘ALLEGORY, A Tapestry of Guru Nanak’s Travels’, will be the first multi-episode documentary to chronicle the vast expanse of sites that were visited by Guru Nanak in the regions that are now Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. Approximately 70 per cent of this landscape today falls in geographies where filming is difficult.
Between the 15th and16th centuries, the universal narratives of Guru Nanak’s travels rendered solely through oral narratives. In the 17th century, these were documented in the form of books called Janamsakhis, written by men of faith.
It gave rise to a diverse canvas of storytelling, travelogue and hagiography. But today, these are forgotten, and, alongside the deeply entrenched division of land and nationality, many of the sites have been become inaccessible.
In addition, Guru Nanak’s narrative today stands limited to Gurdwaras, whilst he travelled to multi-faith sites – Islamic, Sufi, Hindu, Jogi, Buddhist & Jain.
In a 15 month journey, since January 2019, Amardeep and his team have filmed the entire narrative of Guru Nanak’s travels and are now post producing the multi-episode documentary. It’s 8 episodes released on www.thegurunanak.com.
The herculean task that his team has accomplished is far beyond any personal ambition and is led by the idea of preserving an ideology that perceives no divisions.
With the aid of the oldest set of Janamsakhis, written half a century after Guru Nanak’s passing away in 1539, along with drawing from history, archaeology, the team has followed the trails of sites of various faiths visited by the saint.
They have travelled from Mecca to Mount Kailash, filming under the shelling of gunfire in Afghanistan and the scalding summer heat in Iraq; across the waters of river Sindh on boat, and the desert expanse of Medina to Baghdad.
They have gone from the mausoleum of Bahauddin Zakariya in Multan to the Hinglaj Nani Mandir Caves in Balochistan; from Baba Farid’s grave at Pakpattan, Pakistan, where during his visit, Guru Nanak collected the verses of Baba Farid, later enshrined in the Guru Granth Sahib, to the congruent region of Para Chinar, which stands between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In a world where visa constraints, nationalist mandates and geographic divisions are often successful in restricting access, Amardeep has remained pleasantly unbounded in his efforts. Apart from himself and his wife Vininder Kaur, the team comprised of Muslims and Hindus. This is the spirit of ‘Oneness’ that Amardeep is aiming to bring alive through this ambitious undertaking.
Amardeep says, “Every step we took has resulted in the dissipation of our own conditioning. We unlearn and relearn. Guru Nanak saw no nationality, caste, religion or language; he knew only humanity.
There is a need for the younger generation, those growing up in the shadows of various forms of tangible and intangible conflict, to understand why Guru Nanak spent over two decades of his life, spreading the message of universal brotherhood.”
As a turbaned Sikh, Amardeep has never compromised his identity for the sake of access to challenging geographies. Yet each day, he is somehow renewed by encounters with the people he meets and the spaces he visits.
According to Amardeep Singh, in the making of ‘Allegory, A Tapestry of Guru Nanak’s Travels’, people have renamed him many a times. From ‘Amardeep Singh’, he became ‘Amiruddin’ in Afghanistan, ‘Haji Omardip’ in Iraq and ‘Amarnath’ in India!
Each and every day, the relevance of Guru Nanak’s five-century-old journey becomes more and more profound as Amardeep’s team encounter Oneness in the collective history that has not yet been expunged.
Vininder Kaur
Vininder Kaur is Director, Script Writer and Music Coordinator of documentary “Allegory – A Tapestry of Guru Nanak’s Travels”. She is a resident of Singapore. She is a learned lady. Vininder educated at Convent of Jesus and Mary (Dehradun, India).
Vinider kaur pursued a degree in fashion designing and thereafter taught the same at ONGC College of Vocational Studies. Vinider also worked as a fashion designer in an international buying house in India.
Vinider is the editor of the two books, entitled “Lost Heritage, The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan” and “The Quest Continues: Lost Heritage, The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan”. She is very nice lady indeed.
Some Pictures with above couples Researchers Amardeep Singh & Vininder Kaur:
