In Melaka State there’s only one Gurdwara [Sikh temple]. Like Gurdwaras in India, here food is served all day, breakfast, lunch and dinner, 365 days a year. It’s open to everyone. You can see Chinese, Indians, Malays and other races including tourists come here.
Basically all Sikhs are vegetarian, there are no two ways about it. I was born in India, in the state of Punjab. Punjabis basically have four religions: Punjabi Muslims, Punjabi Hindus, Punjabi Sikhs, Punjabi Christians. At that point of time in Punjab everything was vegetarian. We are an agricultural society. 80% of our produce is vegetables. So anybody who comes in can eat the food, whether Muslim, Hindu, Sikh.
Our religion has certain principles. We are supposed to keep our hair long. Men have this bangle, the sword and the knee-length underwear or jodhpurs which we call “kashera”. They call it the 5 K’s: the Kanga (wooden comb), Kirpan (steel sword), Kashera (cotton underwear, like the cowboys wear), Kesh (uncut hair), and Kara (iron bangle).
We have lots of intermarriages here in Malaysia and Singapore because of our cosmopolitan society. If you like to marry in the Gurdwara, normally we ask the boy or the girl to convert, otherwise you can’t follow the wedding rites. In December we are having a wedding of a Punjabi boy and an Indian girl. She converted in May. And there’s a Chinese girl who comes here a lot. She converted to Sikhism at her own free will. The majority of the converts are better Sikhs than the normal Sikhs. Converts always work harder.
Mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law normally don’t get along very well. But surprisingly, most of the mothers-in-law get along better with the other races. Because you can’t argue because you don’t speak the same language! That’s what I’ve seen. But normally, they all are accepted. We don’t have problems.