A sweet video of an Ontario city councillor’s morning family routine is making the rounds online. And, according to him, the very fact that what’s happening in the video is so casual and ordinary is what’s heartwarming.
Gurpreet Singh Dhillon, a city councillor in Brampton, a suburb west of Toronto, posted a video of his son to Twitter and Instagram on Thursday morning.
The video’s star? His son’s long hair, which is being brushed out as he prepares to arrange it into a jura, the top knot that will go underneath his turban according to Sikh tradition.
“Every morning he gets up and does his jura (top knot) without thought,” Dhillon wrote. That preparing his hair to go under a turban is so easy and casual for his son is gratifying for Dhillon to see, he added.
“For me growing up I would have to prep for the daily battles of racism that awaited.”
The Sikh practice of kes means keeping hair in its unaltered state. The long hair that results is a symbol of Sikh pride.
Tying a turban is an important part of the Sikh morning routine. “Whenever the turban is removed, it must be unwrapped carefully so that it never touches the floor, then shaken out, stretched, and folded neatly so as to be ready for the next use,” Learn Religions explains.
Watch: NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, a practicing Sikh, put his turban on display in a campaign ad. Story continues after video.
Brampton, where Dhillon grew up as well, has a large Sikh population. Nearly 40 per cent of the suburb is South Asian, and close to 20 per cent of Bramptonians identify as Sikh.
But racism persists, as it does everywhere. A study by the Sikh coalition found that more than half of Sikh students have been mocked, particularly boys. Their religious garb is often more conspicuous than girls’, who don’t usually cover their heads in everyday life.
By Dhillon’s estimation, though, his children don’t experience the degree of bigotry that he did growing up. “So thankful I live in Brampton where my kids can just be the themselves,” he wrote.
Dhillon has documented his very cute kids being themselves before. In the spring, his five-year-old son Shabaig turned a basketball team huddle into an opportunity for a group hug, which the proud dad was there to film, naturally. The clip went viral when it was retweeted by ESPN.
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