All aboard the Guru Express!

In his Makindu sketch, he shows the Makindu temple and writes, “Big space with many rooms, the Sikh Temple for free food and accommodation.”

It shows a busy railway station complete with the Nairobi-Mombasa road, two baobab trees between the mosque and the temple, and the PWD staff encamped on the periphery of the town with giraffes and other game in the vicinity.

With a busy station to look after, the Sikh community increased in Makindu, the men working in the railway workshop and the trains.

On April 27, 1930, a new Gurdwara was opened at Makindu in the presence of about 150 Sikhs from East Africa.

The new temple is described as “a magnificent stone building with fine arches at the front and back and a beautiful garden.”

The building cost the princely sum of Ksh15,000 — just about $200 at today’s exchange rates.

Unfortunately, the railway that “opened up” the so-called Dark Continent — few outsiders had ever ventured beyond the Coast till then — took a turn for the worse after the 1980s.

Becoming the East African Railways after the Independence of the three countries in the 1960s — Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania — internal wrangling saw the amalgamation break.

Today, the Rift Valley Railways, having taken over the dysfunctional Kenya Railways Authority, has turned out to be a controversial investment, with thousands of railway workers laid off and passenger services becoming infrequent, a pale shadow of its former heyday when the prestigious passenger service say travellers enjoying fine dining in the restaurant cabins served on fine porcelain and silver cutlery.

However, the prime minister reminded the gathering, plans are now afoot to modernise the rail system and expand the network to Kampala in Uganda and run another line to Juba in Southern Sudan from Lamu, where the second seaport is being built.

“Ek on kar,” recites Babaji from the first verse in the Granth Sahib.

“Ek refers to God, the creator. Everything is because of Him. The message is complete in this verse. All the other verses elaborate on this.”

Babaji continues. “According to the Sikh faith or dharma, we have a responsibility towards the entire creation. The Japji Sahib, which is the morning prayer, is about the environment. It mentions the elements — air, water and Mother Earth — which we must not pollute because we are interdependent. It means that we must tread carefully on Mother Earth. Without religion,” he continues after a pause, “there is no environment.”

Born in Uganda in 1939, Mohinder Singh or Babaji as he is fondly called, was raised and schooled in Kenya.

His father worked with the railways and the family moved from station to station, frequenting Makindu.