All aboard the Guru Express!

The year is 1892.

In the souvenir booklet printed to commemorate the 494th birthday anniversary of the founder of the Sikh faith, Siri Guru Nanak Devji, and the opening of the Siri Guru Singh Sabha temple in Nairobi on November 1, 1963, a chapter is dedicated to the arrival of the first Sikhs in what is today Kenya.

It reads “Men were packed in the ship like sardines in a tin… They were crossing a vast ocean… Amidst this group of men was a small party of Sikhs who had come on board, led by one who reverently carried on his head a small cot in which sat what looked like a big book richly draped. Another man ceremoniously waved over it a large and ornate fan.

“The Sikhs were carrying their Holy Book — the ever-present embodiment of their faith — with them. On the overcrowded decks travellers willingly created an honourable place for it. While there was shouting and pushing all over the ship, there was a quiet deep air of veneration around this Holy Book — the Adi Granth or the Granth Sahib.”

I continue reading the souvenir booklet.

“These particular Sikhs were part of the first indentured labour force that was brought over from India in 1892 to build the Uganda Railway. They were all men of skill — carpenters, blacksmiths and masons. Within a few weeks of landing at Mombasa, they erected a small wood and iron Gurdwara at Kilindini on land and with materials provided by the Railway authorities. This was the first Sikh Gurdwara on the African continent.”

In this first Sikh temple at Kilindini, the Sikhs must have placed the first Granth Sahib brought to the Africa, but there is no mention of that.

From there it is said to have been taken to the Makindu Gurdwara, from where it was taken to Nairobi in 1972 and eventually found its way to Kericho.

Fast forward to 2010.

The date, February 4.

A train, the Guru Express, arrives at Makindu station ornately draped with the Sikh colours of blue and yellow and the Sikh emblem, the Khanda, painted on the wagons.

Inside, the final prayers are recited from the Granth Sahib before it is closed and brought outside to the crowd waiting at the station — which, apart from Sikhs, includes many Africans too.

I am excited like everyone else, for the Guru Granth Sahib being returned to Makindu Gurdwara from Kericho via Kisumu on board the Guru Express is believed to be the original one from 1892.

There is an air of deep reverence as the holy book is carried outside, much, imagine like the scene in 1892.

It is placed on a specially prepared palanquin and carried on the shoulders of the faithful to a newly constructed temple within the grounds of the Makindu Sikh Temple, one of the most revered Sikh temples in the world — like the iconic Golden Temple of Amritsar, where the first ever copy of the Granth Sahib was placed in 1604.