By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
At the heart of his memories from the events of Aug. 5, 2012, Pardeep Kaleka remembers two young children.
Two young children who, in the aftermath of the shooting at the Oak Creek Sikh Temple last summer, went looking for their father.
“While all the adults were, ‘I don’t want to come out of my hiding spot,’” explains Kaleka, whose father was one of the seven who died that day, “these two kids did.”
Those two children eventually found their father, who was also killed in the attack. But they found Kaleka’s father – Satwant Singh Kaleka, the founder of the temple – praying.
“He was shot five times,” Pardeep recalled during his presentation at a prayer breakfast at Veterans Terrace Sept. 25. “He should be praying.
“I would be praying,” he added. “I think he saw what had happened. I think he was praying for the world.”
Kaleka, through his work as a teacher and with a non-profit organization he started called “Serve 2 Unite,” thinks children may be the best ambassadors in spreading the message of acceptance and respect for all in this world.
It was that message he shared at the prayer breakfast, which was organized by the Burlington Area Association of Churches and Ministers. The hour-and-a-half long event featured not only area priests and pastors, but Rabbi Michael Remson and Kaleka.
The Burlington High School A Capella choir sang a number of selections, including the song “Love Heals,” right after Kaleka finished speaking.
Kaleka was the featured speaker at the event, and the choir drew a humorous comment before he settled in.
“I was like, ‘why are you out of school?’” Kaleka said.
While Pardeep Kaleka was born in India, he grew up in Milwaukee. In his own words, he dreamed of changing the world.
“I know that may sound naïve to some people,” he said. “To people in this room, I don’t think it sounds that naïve,” referring to the common message of acceptance at the prayer breakfast.
Kaleka said, like most children, he dreamed of being a superhero as a child. That ended the first time he tried flying – and broke his arm.
“I quickly found out that was all in my head,” he said. “I didn’t give up on my dreams of changing the world.”
Next he decided he wanted to be popular, changing everything about himself to fit in with the right set of people in high school. It was his father who pointed out the obvious.
“If you need to change so much for your so-called friends, maybe they aren’t your friends,” Pardeep recalled.
Eventually, as he became the victim of bullying and jokes, his friends drifted away, he said.
And yet, he still dreamed – of being educated, knowing everything. That came to an end when a professor his senior year at Marquette University made a suggestion.
“He said, ‘son, do me a favor,’” Pardeep recalled. “Pick out any book you’ve got there. Rip out three pages – one from the beginning, one from the middle and one from the end. Read them very carefully.
“Once you have, you’ll understand the book, and you’ll have more time to live life,” the professor added. “Life is the best teacher of all.”
Kaleka decided to become a police officer, but after four years of finding out the world was not black or white, he knew he couldn’t change the world there, either.
“After four years, that was too much grey,” he said.
So he turned to teaching. And there, he found so many of the at-risk students he taught at NOVA – Northwest Opportunities Vocational Academy – weren’t necessarily worried about education. As he explained, it was hard to justify homework to students who were wondering if they’d even eat dinner that night.
And just as he was about to give up his dream, Pardeep recalled, the events of Aug. 5, 2012 took place. Six were killed, one critically injured. He then remembered a story he was told about Buddha as a child – when Buddha was still Siddhartha and a growing boy.
That boy and another prince went to an archery lesson together, and after Siddhartha hit the target three times, the other prince searched for a way to top him. To do so, he shot a swan out of the sky – and tried to claim the swan as his.
Siddhartha pulled the arrow out of the swan, and began to heal it.
“The swan does not belong to the person who hurts it,” Pardeep recalled. “It belongs to the person who heals it.”
That message is one he is now spreading to children all over – both through school and through his non-profit organization. The goal is that children, without bias and adult cynicism, can find a way not to hate because of skin color, religion or creed.
“I hope you go out with a purpose,” Pardeep said to those in attendance. “I hope prayer has a purpose. I hope that purpose is to heal.
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