Harjas Singh

Ever since I was three years old and my hair was long enough to be tied into a bun or a juda, my mom and I had developed our daily ritual.

I would sit down in front of her, my back towards her, and she would oil my hair, comb it, braid it, then tie it into a bun.

She would then cover it with a one foot by one foot square cloth called a patka.

But there was another daily ritual that I would observe every morning.

I would be sitting at the breakfast table, and I would see my grandfather, an older, bearded, Dumbledore-esque gentleman, with a bun on his head, and he would take this really long piece of cloth, let's say the length of the stage, and he would hold one end of it, my father would hold the other end, and they would roll it from either side until it looked like a long pipe.

He would then take it to his room, and he would walk out, and there would be this beautiful turban sitting on top of his head.

And to me, it looked like a king wearing a crown.

He almost had an aura about him.

And I would ask him, when can I wear that?

And he would say, when you're older, when you're more responsible.

I had no idea what that meant.

I was three.

But all I wanted to do from that day on was be older and more responsible.

So when I woke up on the morning of my 13th birthday, I was bursting with energy because today was finally the day.

Today I would transition from boy to man, and it would be marked by my very own turban-tying ceremony.

See, the turban-tying ceremony is not too dissimilar from a bar mitzvah or a more religious sweet 16.

But instead of reading from the Torah, we read from the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib.

But more importantly for me, my grandfather would switch out my patka with a 16-foot long The Star or turban.

So I shower quickly that morning, I put on my favorite Bugs Bunny sweater, and I make my way outside and I see my grandparents and I touch their feet to seek their blessings.

My parents, they're so happy on this day because for them, with the turban on my head, I would be fully accepting my identity as a Sikh.