It was in January 2019 that an Indian-origin Sikh couple, based in Singapore, created a team of volunteers and embarked on an ambitious journey to retrace the footsteps of Guru Nanak Dev.
Amardeep Singh and his wife Vininder Kaur travelled “from the deserts of Mecca in Saudi Arabia” to Mount Kailash in Tibet, “explored remote regions of perilous Afghanistan and experienced the scorching heat in Iraq”. They further “scaled the arid Baluchi mountains in Pakistan, sailed across the waters of the Indian Ocean to disembark in Sri Lanka, blended with the Persian culture in Iran, crossed the delta region in Bangladesh and mapped all four directions in India”.
Their sole aim was to document and capture the travels of the founder of sikhism."In a world that is so fragile and volatile, there has never been a better time to understand why Guru Nanak's travelled for 22 years to share his experiential wisdom and propagate the oneness of humankind," Mr Singh said.
“This herculean task, extending far beyond personal ambition, is aimed with a passion to preserve Guru Nanak’s teachings that perceives no borders or human divisions,” he added.
As we all know, the founder and first guru of Sikhs, Guru Nanak covered a large geographical tapestry to spread the message of humanity during his lifetime and this Sikh couple from Singapore has attempted to retrace his journey and record the impact of his words in a documentary series.
Guru Nanak travelled across the distant lands of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka for over two decades to spread the message of the oneness of creation.
During his pursuit, he engaged in philosophical and social dialogue that fearlessly challenged the binary constructs of society and relentlessly opposed gender, religious, racial and class inequalities.
The couple will now be releasing online a 24-episode docuseries that chronicles this vast expanse of sites that were visited by Guru Nanak during his lifetime.
The couple will release the weekly episodes of the docuseries — Allegory, A Tapestry of Guru Nanak’s Travels — at no cost on the website TheGuruNanak.com.
It will also be available for download.