For the expat Sikh, the Gurudwara was the sanctuary, the place that connected him to India, the land that he left behind for higher education, a better standard of living and in some cases, for safety, after the Khalistan movement and the riots of 1984. It was a place that connected him to his religion, his community, his mother tongue, his countrymen, cricket, bhangra, parathey and all other memories of his native land. It was a place where arguments with his parents regarding pagdi, beard and arranged marriage subsided when he heard the Gurubani...only to be resumed on the journey back home in the car.

The desecration of a Gurudwara and the massacre of seven Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, on August 5 by a white supremacist and US Army veteran Wade M Page is a hate crime that shook the world. Why did he choose a Gurudwara? Why hate a community that had lived peacefully in the area, the region and the country? The neighbours interviewed by television channels said, “He seemed a normal guy”. Because it seems that is how normal guys behave now: angry, filled with hate against people who look, speak and dress differently from them.