Guru Nanak’s Message on Film: A beautiful interfaith story – by Amardeep Singh

In the borderless world of 15th century, people travelled distances to trade, rulers invaded to expand territories, and Nanak glided across the geographies to spread the message of humanity.

ALLEGORY, which means the revelation of a hidden meaning, is a tapestry of Guru Nanak’s travels. During his travels, Guru Nanak covered a large geographical tapestry, which in the 21^st century, comprise of 9 nations, Pakistan, India, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. To break barriers across faiths by engaging in spiritual dialogues, Guru Nanak visited numerous Islamic, Sufi and Hindu sites.

Between 15^th and 16^th centuries, the universal narratives of Guru Nanak’s travels were rendered only through oral traditions. In the 17^th century, the oral narratives were strengthened by documenting them in the form of books, known as Janamsakhis. Today, in the 21^st century, the Janamsakhis are forgotten and division of geographies as sovereign nations have made many of the historic sites inaccessible.

Moreover, today the Sikh narrative stands limited to gurdwaras at Nankana Sahib, Kartarpur Sahib and Panja Sahib. Thus, there is a compelling need to explore and film the sites visited by Guru Nanak so that the faded memories can be kept alive.

This will be the first documentary of its kind to chronicle the vast expanse of sites across 9 countries that were visited by Guru Nanak. Through an exploration and documentation of these sites in the 21^st century, interspersed with narratives of the past, the universal message of Guru Nanak will continue to glide through generations.

The Sikh Foundation is supporting this film and appeals to you to add your support to this worthy project to enable the filming cost of 150+ interfaith sites associated with Guru Nanak’s travels across nine nations: