Shaheed Baba Nihal Singh Gurudwara near Jalandhar has recently been gaining popularity and being referred to as the ‘Aeroplane Gurudwara’. The reason for this is due to the fact that devotees flock here from all over the country to offer toy aeroplanes on the gurudwara shrine.
Strange it may sound though but this Gurudwara in the tiny village of Talhan, about 12 km from Jalandhar, has made people believe that if you wish to go abroad, you offer prayers along with a toy aeroplane and it will be answered. The shrine is now popularly known as ‘Hawaijahaj’ (aeroplane) gurdwara.
At the end of each day, thousands of these toy planes, collected by the gurudwara, are given away as ‘Prasad’ to the young children who accompany their parents to the shrine. Since 2006, the shrine is being managed by the government following a dispute between the Jats and Dailts of the village. Both the communities wanted major control in the affairs of the shrine and even led to riots in 2003.
The Gurudwara has come up in memory of Saint Nihal Singh, about whom neither the management of the shrine nor the villagers know much. Balvir though provided a booklet that says Saint Nihal Singh was born in 1860 in Jalandhar but says it is not authentic. Asked why do they distribute it, he says,” An advocate, who belongs to this village but not settled here collected some material and wrote this book. But we do not know how authentic this information is. Since people keep on insisting to know about babaji, we distributed a few books.”
So, here is a shrine whose history is not known much but has scaled heights because of a strange trend.
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