I'm a Sikh, which might explain my name to you if you've met a boy with my name before, since most Sikh names can be used for either girls or boys, (actually I've got a cousin called Balvinder too). What some people find even more confusing is that Sikh boys wear their hair in a knot in the top of their head before they start wearing a turban so people often think they're girls. You can see that I've cut my hair, but I'm still a Sikh. I just got fed up with it. I kept seeing these older Sikh girls with shoulder length hair and I thought it looked really nice, so I just got it cut one day. My Mum was quite upset though, so I'm growing it again.
Since I'm a Sikh I believe in one God and that there were 10 special men called Gurus who taught us about God and how we should live. The most important of these was called Guru Nanak. We have a holy book like the Bible and it's called the Guru Granth Sahib.
We are not supposed to smoke or to drink alcohol, or to eat any beef. (Actually lots of Sikhs are completely vegetarian, but others really don't keep to the rule about drinking, and I know that's true in India too, from when I've visited there). We are supposed to be respectful of our parents and elders, and teenage girls and boys should not go out together.
Being a Sikh means to me that I believe in God, that I belong to a community of Sikhs that I see regularly, that I should not mix too freely with the opposite sex, that I should be careful of the food and substances that I put into my body, and that I should work hard to better myself.
A Sikh man always calls himself Singh (lion) and a woman's last name is always Kaur (princess). Sikhs are meant to always be proud of their religion, so we have five signs, called the five K's because they all begin with K in Punjabi:
- We should have a knife or ceremonial dagger, called a Kirpan.
- We should not cut our hair (kesh).
- We have to wear a steel bracelet on our right wrists (kara).
- We have special baggy shorts called kachs.
- We wear a special small comb (kanga) in our hair.
Not everyone keeps to these exactly, I mean I know some guys have a plastic replica dagger - they don't walk around armed!
