Simran Kaur and the Deep End

Thirty-Two

Simran Kaur counted thirty-two steps from the front door to the school bus.

She counted them every morning. Coming home was different — she didn't count the steps back. Coming home she walked fast, backpack thumping, thinking about other things.

Today she was thinking about the time. Four fifteen. Her show started at four fifteen.

She dropped her bag by the stairs. Kicked off her shoes. Did not count the fridge magnets (twelve, she already knew). The kitchen clock said four eleven.

Four minutes.

She took the stairs two at a time.

Kiran

Kiran was on the floor of their bedroom when Simran came in. Three years old, in her pyjama top and a pair of leggings, surrounded by plastic animals arranged in a careful line along the edge of the rug.

"One elephant," Kiran said. "Two elephant. Three elephant."

"They're elephants," said Simran. "Not elephant."

"Three elephant," said Kiran firmly.

Simran didn't argue. She pulled her school jumper over her head and reached for her home clothes. The clock on the wall said four thirteen.

Two minutes.

She moved fast — jumper off, school trousers off, home clothes on. Her kachera stayed on, the way it always did. The white cotton shorts she'd worn every day for as long as she could remember, under everything, over nothing.

She was reaching for her leggings when Kiran looked up.

"What are those?"

Almost

"My kachera," said Simran. She pulled her leggings on.

"Why?"

Simran glanced at the clock. Four fourteen. She could still make it.

"It's — they're —" She stopped. She had her hand on the door handle. She looked back at Kiran, who was sitting very still among her elephants, waiting with the serious patience that three-year-olds have for questions they actually want answered.

Simran let go of the door handle.

She crouched down on the rug beside Kiran. The elephants wobbled but didn't fall.

"Okay," she said. "So. Do you know who Guru Gobind Singh Ji is?"

Kiran thought about this. "The one with the feathers."

"The dastar. Yes. Him." Simran sat cross-legged. She was going to miss the start of her show. "He gave the Khalsa five gifts a very long time ago. Things to wear, to carry. To help them remember who they were."

Kiran picked up an elephant and held it out to Simran. Simran took it.

"The kachera was one of the gifts." She turned the small elephant over in her hands, looking for the right words. "Guru Ji gave it to the Khalsa because being Khalsa isn't something you put on in the morning and take off at night. You don't have a Khalsa version of yourself and a regular version. You're always you."

Kiran looked at the kachera, then at Simran. "Always?"

"Always."

Always You

"You know how you're still Kiran," Simran said, "even when you're at home? And at Nani's house? And at the Gurdwara?"

Kiran nodded. "I'm always Kiran."

"Exactly. You don't become a different Kiran depending on where you are." Simran set the elephant back in its line. "Guru Ji wanted the Khalsa to always remember that. That you're always you. When people are watching and when nobody is. When you're doing something important and when you're just —" She gestured at herself, sitting on the floor in half-changed clothes. "Rushing around. Trying to watch TV."

Kiran looked at the kachera again. She reached out and touched the white cotton very lightly, with one finger.

"Even in pyjamas?" she said.

"Even in pyjamas."

Kiran took her elephant back and set it in its place. She counted along the line — one, two, three — not bothering to correct the word this time.

"Four elephant," she said, satisfied.

Simran stayed on the rug. The clock on the wall said four seventeen.

Two minutes past. Her show had started without her.

She didn't move.

What She Carried

She missed the first seven minutes. It didn't matter as much as she'd thought.

That evening, sitting at her bedroom window, Simran counted the streetlights. Seven, same as always.

She thought about the Five Kakars. She had learned them one by one — not all at once, not from a list, but from the small moments that had made her stop and pay attention. The kara in High Park, when she found the sketchbook. The kanga on the evening her mum worked out the knot. The kesh in the morning mirror, watching her dad's seven dastar wraps. The kirpan on the day she crossed the playground.

And now the kachera. From Kiran, on the bedroom rug, in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.

The kara: I am in this world, and I will help. The kanga: I take care of what I've been given. The kesh: I am who I come from. The kirpan: I will not walk past. The kachera: I am always me.

Not only when it was convenient. Not only when someone was watching. Always. The same Simran at school and at home and on the bus and on the rug with the plastic elephants.

She'd known this. But she hadn't found the words until Kiran asked.

Seven streetlights. Five Kakars. One little sister who kept elephants in a careful line and called them "elephant."

Simran went to find her.

Discussion Questions

Let's Talk About It: Simran almost walked out the door without stopping. What made her turn back? Have you ever been in a hurry and had to slow down for someone?

Let's Think About It: Simran says the kachera means "I am always me — whether anyone is watching or not." What's the difference between doing something because people are watching and doing something because it's just who you are?

Let's Talk About It: Kiran says "I'm always Kiran." What do you think that means? Are you the same person at home, at school, and at your grandparents' house?

Let's Think About It: By the end of the story, Simran has found her own words for all five Kakars. Which one do you think was hardest for her to understand? Which one feels most important to you?

Let's Try It: Think of something that makes you you no matter where you are or who is watching. It could be something you believe, something you always do, or something you always carry. How would you explain it to a much younger child?

Word Meanings

About This Story

This is the fifth and final story in the Simran Kaur series — five stories set in Toronto, each woven around one of the Five Kakars (the five articles of Sikh identity given by Guru Gobind Singh Ji to the Khalsa in 1699). The Kachera is the most intimate of the five — the only one nobody sees. Its significance as a gift from Guru Gobind Singh Ji lies in readiness and self-mastery: a Khalsa is always themselves, always grounded, always the same person whether anyone is watching or not. In this story, it is Simran's younger sister Kiran who asks the question — and in answering it, Simran discovers she already knows the answer. She has been carrying it all along.

Kiran appears here for the first time in the series. Maya, Ethan, Aiden, and Ms. Adeyemi, who appear across the earlier stories, were first introduced in Simran Kaur and the Lost Sketchbook.

Gursharn Singh is a volunteer Punjabi teacher and the founder of Maastarji.com, a English-language Sikhi resource for diaspora children and families.

Explore More

• The Five Kakars — Articles of Sikh Faith — What the Five Kakars are and why they matter
• Simran Kaur and the Fence — The fourth story in the Five Kakars series
• Simran Kaur and the Lost Sketchbook — Where the series began