Happy Birthday, and Thanks!

Silent contributions are the best way to help your community. That’s my personal philosophy.

My dear Friends, 2006 was the inaugural year of Dashmesh Pictures and the RestoringThePride.com effort. This March 2007 brings us to our one year anniversary towards both of these efforts.

Thanks to everyone, both Sikh and Non-Sikh, who have supported this initiative by spreading the word on Sikh on the Street, by taking the bold step to have their artwork promoted here, by ordering and distributing freely the DVD, by supporting the film festivals, as well as writing the vast amount of supportive emails in regards to this website.

Not much was expected when starting this project up one year ago. After encouragement from various individuals to post all created video projects online, the website was launched with one specific goal in mind: to promote the awareness and acceptance of those who are members of the Sikh religion among their community and society.

The post 9/11 world has changed many individual’s perspectives to define what truly makes up a person’s nationality and cultural heritage – two items that were challenged and are continued to do so today. With this challenge some may feel to loose pride in whom they are and feel to it might be easier to assimilate to the mainstream and forget the rich traditional infrastructure provided by their ancestral roots.

When one overcomes this challenge, and recaptures their pride, they are gifted with the vision to live in a world that captures the best of both of worlds – where one can walk anywhere in this world and remain culturally strong in their ethnic roots.

The intent of both Dashmesh Pictures and RestoringThePride.com is to reinvigorate that pride of any Sikh who may feel challenged in today’s world. Examples of some of these successes can be seen by Gatka 1, Sikh on the Street, Akaal Media, Sikh Service in World Wars, and the recently added artwork of Harpreet Singh. And who knows, maybe even works like these can encourage Non-Sikhs to reinvigorate themselves to also explore and learn their own personally cultural heritage.

Hopefully in 2007 this endeavor continues to grow and grow strong. One of many items the team here has been working slowly and quietly been working on a sequel to the Gatka 1 film. With the short several years in the making, I only hope that this sequel will be as successful as the original short.

So thanks for hearing my thoughts. Let’s all get back to what we were doing, and continue to strengthen ourselves in whatever it is we stand for. Our stance here is to quietly educate individuals, one at a time, to who the Sikhs are and the valor of their heritage.

One of the greatest items I enjoy walking around is when people look at me and do a double take and say “Hey, you’re that guy who did those interviews right?” or “Have you seen RestoringThePride.com?” when they have no knowledge to who I am.

Silent contributions.

In short, thank you.

V/R,

Sartaj Singh Dhami

Over 17k hits on YouTube. I really hope that equates to 17k more individuals who have learned about Sikhism. Download the video here.