The Guru’s message of equality and empowerment extends beyond gender, sex, religion, and race. In the process of falling in love with the Divine’s Creation, one must strive to create an environment where everyone has the freedom to be themselves. To develop more just, fair, and compassionate world starts with accepting yourself.
The “Urban Sardar,” is a blog that tries to do just that.
Founders, Surjit Singh and Jeet Virk
Founders, Jeet Virk and Surjit Singh, initially created “Urban Sardar” to feature fashionable Sikh men to help other Singhs feel that the Sikhi saroop didn’t have to come at the expense of being fashionably relevant.
“We wanted to show Sikh men how they can look stylish, elegant, and dapper with fresh and new ideas. It is an initiative aimed at providing fashion tips and lifestyle advice for Sikh men and women around the globe. We aim to make Sikhs represent themselves with their own unique style through photos posted on our page and blog on regular basis.”
The two friends want to encourage all Sikhs, not just Sikh men, to live to their full potential. In addition to posting high quality photos of Sikh men’s fashion, they also feature Sikh women. For instance, they promoted Harnam Kaur’s story about her kesh on their Facebook page, featured equestrian Harsangat Kaur’s photo shoot with Sikh photographer Chaz Fly, and a posted a beautiful old photo of Maharani Narinder Kaur and her daughter, Princess Amrit Kaur.
The posting of unique and diverse photos has attracted over 75,000 Facebook likes to the Urban Sardar Facebook page.
“This has encouraged lot of Kaurs to showcase their style, both through modern and traditional dresses,” said Surjit Singh. “We feel this provides support for other Kaurs who are looking for ideas to improve or transform their style.”
Urban Sardar also hopes that by highlighting the beauty and confidence of a Sikh man in a dastar, some Sikh women who currently find the dastar to be unattractive, will change their mind.
“Before starting the blog we met a lot of Sardars who had shorn their hair citing the reason that girls didn’t like men in turbans,” the duo said. “We feel women play an important role in encouraging Sikh boys and men to keep their hair and wear the turban. So showing Kaurs that Singhs are not lesser for keeping their saroop is one of the visions of Urban Sardar.”
“Both Kaurs and Singhs should be solid in their values so they can live up to their potential,” added Surjit Singh.
“We hope that our work continues to give confidence to all the Singhs and Kaurs out there who have been seeking inspiration and determination to face challenges on their Sikh journey to represent themselves freely and proudly,” Urban Sardar.
Jeet Virk and Surjit Singh are always keen to collaborate with other brands, business, organizations, and groups who’s vision and goals are in line with the Urban Saradar. Email them if you are interested in partnering with them or would like to have your fashion photos showcased on their blog: urbansardar@gmail.com.
Check out Urban Sardar’s Facebook Page and website!
The above photo is by Chaz Fly.
