To the Sikh, Guru Gobind Singh Ji is many things at once. Born in Patna in 1666, he became Guru at just nine years old, after his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, gave his life in Delhi defending the right of others to worship freely.

He was a warrior who fought more than a dozen battles, yet a poet who gathered fifty-two poets at his court and wrote in Braj, Persian and Panjabi. He was the father of four sons, all martyred: Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh at Chamkaur, Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh at Sirhind. He was the visionary who created the Khalsa at Vaisakhi 1699 in Anandpur. Then he asked the Panj Pyare to initiate him in turn.

Alone in the jungle of Machhiwara, having lost almost everything, he did not write of revenge. He wrote Mitar Pyare Nu, a message to the Beloved.

At the end, he named no man to follow him. He passed the Guruship to the Guru Granth Sahib and the Khalsa Panth.

Saint and soldier, poet and father, Guru and disciple. He remains, to this day, Mera Baja Wala Mahi: my beloved, the one with the white hawk.