Humans of the World: From being a Party Loving Jehovah’s Witness in Fresno to Living the Organic Food Lifestyle as an Orthodox Sikh in Punjab

Meet Balraj Singh, who moved to the Punjab with his family with the aim of providing ethical and sustainable agriculture as the only way to a heathy lifestyle​

​My first trip to India after 27 years proved to be a short and hectic one, and I tried my best to make the most of it. Around a month prior to my travel to India, I accidently came across an interesting Instagram post from a white North American man who was showcasing how and why he had converted from being a Jehovah’s Witness to being an orthodox baptized Sikh. Balraj Singh, born Kyal [Balraj was the first name he was given, and his mother gave him the name Kyal upon leaving the hospital.], also shares on his popular Instagram channel how and why his young family had migrated to the Punjab, and especially in search of fresh organic healthy food, and a better lifestyle than in California.
 
I could see that his Instagram channel was gradually gaining a lot of interest and was growing [now has over 20K followers globally], especially amongst the Punjabi community, both in the Punjab and abroad, and also those who are curious about his remarkable journey from growing up with a Western lifestyle [which included being a DJ and a party animal!] to one who is now a devout Sikh living in rural Punjab.
 
The more I saw his posts and his discussions about his passion and love for organic, healthy, and nutritious Punjabi food, and his reasons for converting to and embracing Sikhism, I felt there was a brilliant opportunity to carry out a blog style interview with him. The fact that he is living close to the town of Phagwara, where I was heading to for my short trip, was even better to go and meet him in person.
 
We met in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel in Phagwara on a rather rainy early February afternoon. As expected, Balraj arrived attired in a signature blue bana, hair tied into a bun and complete with a Nihang Sikh sword and dress. He was accompanied by his student, Jassa Singh, a native Brit from Bradford, who has also taken the similar journey and decided to convert to Sikhism and give himself to Guru Maharaj. 

Balraj Singh in Phagwara: Photo Copyright Navjot Singh

​Nav Singh [NS]: Balraj and Jassa, Sat Shri Akal ji! First of all, thank you very much for your time and your efforts to come and see me from Chandigarh today. Balraj Singh and Jassa Singh, it's been an absolute pleasure.
 
Balraj Singh [BS]: Nav bhaji. Sat Shri Akal Ji. The pleasure is ours – thank you for hosting us.
 
NS: Welcome. Balraj, first of all, I just want to start off, if you can please tell the audience about yourself, your upbringing, and your background story before you embraced Sikhism.
 
BS: I would say who am I before Sikhi is just a Toronto guy. Right. You know, like my early life was spent in Toronto. I was born in Toronto at St. Michael's Hospital, and we lived in downtown Toronto at St. James Town and then Regent Park - St. James Town and Regent Park are two separate places and the first two residences of my mother as a single mother. I had a speech impediment and a hearing problem. I was delayed in my speech and my mom sent me to a special school. I grew up in a private school, attending private school in North York.
 
My mom used to work at Unilever, and eventually she kind of gravitated towards running her own thriving printing company, along with my stepdad. They had a thriving printing company most during most of my young life. It was a very entrepreneurial and multicultural upbringing, as well as a very religious upbringing. 

Kyal as a young kid, pictured in Canada. Photo Copyright Balraj Singh

​NS: Very interesting. I note that there is a strong Punjab connection with St James Town in Toronto, in that many of St. James Town's high rises were originally designed after the Second World War, inspired by Le Corbusier's towers in the park concept. The Punjab connection is that Le Corbusier's largest and most ambitious project was the design of Chandigarh, the capital city of the Punjab and Haryana States of India, created after India received independence in 1947.
 
Le Corbusier was contacted in 1950 by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and invited to propose a project. So that in itself is quite interesting I must say. So, all in all you had quite a multicultural upbringing, right? Because you're blessed with having a Punjabi and a Native Indian heritage.
 
BS: Yes, so I'm half Punjabi, and from my dad's side, I am a Native Indian as my father is an Indigenous Native American from Nova Scotia. But in a multicultural melting pot like Toronto, it doesn't feel like that you are different from anyone as such because everyone's an ethnic, and so yes, it is very multicultural. This is why I just thought of myself as a Toronto guy.
 
Then at some point, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, we took a vacation to Mexico – it was my first trip overseas. With their business, my mom and dad started making more money and their business started taking off. So, because of the lifestyle that we were afforded, we took a trip to Mexico in the winter and were able to play Volleyball outside on the beach, this was a complete novelty for us coming from Toronto and when we returned from our vacation there was a blizzard. My mom had enough of the cold and started looking for a warmer place to live. She chose Escondido, southern California.
 
We lived there for two and a half years, and then from there, we moved to the Fresno area in California. Jehovah’s Witnesses began concentrated efforts to preach to people of foreign languages and organized special groups for this cause.  Because if this people kept coming up to my mother and asking if she knew Punjabi. We ended up moving to be in a foreign language group.

Kyal with his family pictured before his transition to Sikhism: Photo Copyright Balraj Singh

​NS: Did you learn Punjabi at home because your mother was speaking Punjabi at home?
 
BS: No. We didn't really speak Punjabi at home. In fact, I knew very little. When it started, when we joined the foreign language group, I took more of an interest in Punjabi and I learned a little bit, like enough to preach to the congregation in Punjabi. I learned some preaching lingo.
 
NS: So, you didn’t know Gurmukhi at that stage?
 
BS: Actually, I did teach myself Gurmukhi. Right, so I was 12 and I taught myself five letters a day and started taking a serious interest in Punjabi from thereon then. I wanted to be able to fluently read the Guru Granth Sahib one day, and that was a personal goal of mine. Interestingly, at that time I also wanted to be able to read the Watchtower on stage in Punjabi. I wanted to be one of those guys that could read it on stage and stuff.
 
NS: Truly multicultural – and yes, I love that!
 
BS: So, yeah, I learned how to read and write Gurmukhi long before I was able to speak Punjabi with any ease.
 
NS: Quite impressive! What happened after that moment? You were saying, you know, someone said, could you speak another language and then you did!
 
BS: Yeah, so then we [my mum and I] visited the different Punjabi groups in California, in Hayward, California, San Jose, Sacramento. During this time, we were kind of looking for another place to live. This was actually a very interesting moment for me. It wasn't pivotal to becoming a Sikh per se, but it was pivotal in my relationship with God.
 
In the year before, in San Diego, there were all sorts of Christmas decorations of baby Jesus and the reindeers in the Christmas markets. Us being Jehovah’s Witnesses were really criticizing and wondering why is everyone's relationship with Jesus as baby Jesus? To me it just seemed interesting to me. At that point I decided at that moment that I am going to do a fleece test. Just like in the Bible, where Gideon's fleece test was when he laid a sheep's fleece on the ground and asked God to make it wet with dew if he would save Israel. 
 
The next morning, the fleece was wet with dew and the ground was dry. Like Gideon, when he wanted to know, should he go fight? The fleece test showed that God had chosen Gideon to deliver Israel, it showed that God understood people's need for assurance and was patient with their doubts, and the fleece test showed that if people surrender to God's will and trust him, all will be well.
 
Basically, if a fleece left on the threshing floor becomes wet with dew while the ground remains dry, this will indicate that God will save Israel through him. So, if everything else is wet and this is dry, just give me one more. So, I said, like, it was a really big deal for me to move from San Diego to Fresno. I felt like I had finally arrived at my dream place. 

​NS: So, it seems that you fell in love with Fresno?
 
BS: Well, I mean I had a lot of friends. I went to the beach often, but I was like, okay; if I'm going to move from my dream place somewhere else, because Sacramento and Fresno are not as nice as San Diego, I'm going to do a fleece style move. So, if there's a baby Jesus and the whole reindeer and everything and the whole nativity scene, and there's two of each on the same street of the house that we want to buy, I will know that that's where we're supposed to go.
 
Therefore, we went to Hayward and San Jose, and all those were fun places. There were quite a few Jehovah’s Witnesses there who were of Punjabi decent. Also, there were a lot of people who were interested in Punjabi, and they did a lot of parties, they had like little Bollywood nights, Bhangra nights, and for me it just was a lot of fun! I loved it!
 
NS:  That's where you did the DJing, right?
 
BS: No, not yet. However, I really wanted to move there. That particular year [we are talking around 2005/6], there was no Baby Jesus and no reindeer. I don't know, people's sensibilities and relationships with Christmas decorations completely changed. I was like, last year these decorations were everywhere, and this year they are not. So, we ended up going to a small-town called Kerman on the outskirts of Fresno.
 
There in Kerman we found the perfect house. Right on that street were two Baby Jesuses and two reindeers. Though the house was nice, it was the worst place I ever wanted to live. Kerman was this small town with 6,000 people in the middle of the super-hot Fresno desert, just surrounded by fields. I thought to myself, “oh my goodness, this is so boring! 

Balraj Singh with his son: Photo Copyright Balraj Singh

NS: At that time, you were still not into Sikhism, right?
 
BS: Right, yeah, I was still a Jehovah's Witness but in Kerman there was no community of Jehovah's Witnesses doing foreign languages, and no Punjabis [and no pretty girls or parties, too!]. We were the only ones. So, we decided to start this group of preaching to Punjabis. So, our territory was all of Fresno, Bakersfield, Turlock, and all these cities all around Fresno within a six-hour radius. At that point, I knew that's where God wanted me, and I started to really develop a close relationship with God. That’s where I ended up meeting my wife, and a lot of good things happened. Years later, I was even DJing there.
 
NS: Your wife is ethnically Punjabi or another race?
 
BS: No, no, she's just an American from California, and her parents are of mixed heritage, and she probably has Native Indian from her dad's side and her mom's mixed with European heritage.
 
NS: Wow and you both live here, enjoying the Punjabi life.
 
BS: Exactly – we have been here for the past six years, and we both embrace it with open minds. It took a while to adjust but we love it here! Our life is meant to be here. We may go back for a vacation to the US, but we both know that our future is here as Nihangs. It's kind of what we wanted years ago when I moved to Santa Barbara and that's where I really connected with the Punjab.
 
I first arrived here when I was 14 and visited my grandparents from my mum’s side and I just fell in love. I felt very at home at my ancestral land.

Balraj Singh with his wife and son in traditional princely Punjabi attire after his conversion to Sikhism: Photo Copyright Balraj Singh

​NS: How did you get into farming?
 
BS: We had a farm in Fresno. However, 3 or 4 years after we moved to Fresno, my mom decided she wanted to do something else as the printing business started to wane. At some point we were one of the few people that could print high quality business cards with UV coating on the front; however, we realized that soon everyone else started doing that, so the market become saturated! Therefore, we had to look for different business ideas, and my mom thought about starting a wedding business. The idea was to buy a property that we could use to host weddings.
 
Thankfully that property that we bought came with an additional 18 acres of farmland. To keep the property value up we started farming because letting the trees rot would not have worked! That’s exactly how I got introduced to farming – this would have been around 2005-2006. We carried out conventional farming of raisins. We were signed with a packer, who sadly did not pay us the amount we needed for the raisins one particular year on time. They didn’t give us the advance to be able to pay our laborers and so we were under contract with them so we couldn't go with another broker. My mum then decided to sell the land to the end consumer and that's how we started organic farming. We kept all the raisins ourselves in storage and called up people and just started selling directly to the end consumer.
 
Right after I got married, after 2010, we started to diversify our crop. We started to grow more things and then I started to broker organic groceries. I started to travel around California picking up organic groceries.
 
NS: That is hard work but still quite impressive. Kudos to your mother for the entrepreneurial spirit. California is popular and famous for raisins, isn't it?
 
BS: Yes, it is. Fresno is famous for its raisins. We had Thompson Seedless Grapes, which are perfect for making raisins. That’s where I also learned all the tricks of the trade, including packaging, labeling, the price, promotion, place, all that kind of marketing stuff.
 
NS: Interesting. So, where did you find the Punjab connection then?
 
BS: OK, first, I'll just touch on how we got into organic food. We were transitioning to organic food, but that was purely for marketing. My younger brother was born when I was 16 in 2006. My mom got pregnant with my little sister. So, with her being pregnant and being with my little brother was hard on her to manage, physically and mentally.
 
Sadly, my younger brother almost died. He had the cord around his neck, and so I was a nervous wreck about both my mom and the baby. He had a cold front in the room. I guess that's kind of normal, but at that time, which seemed worrisome to me. Yeah, of course. My mom was just feeling really bad all the time. She just had no energy. I hadn't seen her like this.
 
But she really wanted to homeschool her children, which led her to the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, where she taught herself about eating organic, how important it is for the intelligence of the children. Her employers also suggested that if she was experiencing issues with energy, she should try an elimination diet. This involves removing most foods from her diet and gradually reintroducing them to identify which ones might be causing her to feel unwell.
 
Remarkably, in just like a week or two, she was like a different person. I thought, “wow!”. So that's what started the actual journey to being organic. From there we sold organic produce, then we had our raw food cafe, an organic restaurant. At that time, I still wasn't connected with the land. I didn't care about it at all. A few times we almost sold the farm. I was totally happy to let it go and never see it again.
 
NS: The land in Fresno?
 
BS: Fresno, yes. It wasn't until I moved to Santa Barbara, and I really spent time there, and I really spent time in nature and my life kind of slowed down, that I really started to appreciate the land. There are a few reasons why I wanted to move to Santa Barbara. I mean, why I wanted to move to Punjab. One of the biggest reasons is when I was 14 and I came here, my grandmother always asked me, are you going to move here with me one day? I said yes. So that was one of the big reasons, plus I really enjoyed it.
 
Right, so my Nana Ji and my Nani Ji [grandparents from mum’s side], they would spend six months here and six months in Canada.
 
NS: How do you manage to keep this lifestyle so religiously [excuse the pun!], and especially when kids these days are all surrounded by fast food chains like McDonalds, KFC etc. even here in India.
 
BS:  It was a very slow journey. Yeah. I was the last person to accept organic food! I saw my mom change and I was happy for her. But I was still going out and eating at Carl's Jr. and Wendy's and everything else related to fast food. One time I caught an E. coli infection from eating a burger and that was the last straw for me. Then I was like; okay, no more burgers. I'll just eat steaks!
 
I would even go and get a $40 steak at Flemings or treat myself to expensive food which I realized was doing no good for my body and organs and mind. Expensive food wasn’t as good as the organic food from the farm and that corn fed beef was lesser quality. There was also an unfortunate episode where I was involved in three car accidents in three years in a row, so my body became very sensitive. I could feel my pain, I could feel things that were going on, and I started to realize that I was not feeling good when I ate certain type of processed food. After that third car accident, I thought this must be bad luck and I need to get out of here! So, it was a combination of factors that led me to leave Fresno.

Balraj Singh and his family in Punjab. Photo Copyright Balraj Singh

NS: You could say that age old saying of “Ou of something bad something good comes out!”, right?
 
BS: I guess so. Bad luck? For sure. yeah. A few months later after that third car accident I was in Santa Barbara. I started a powerful meditation practice and moved there for the best Feng shui of the location. I didn’t want to eat or engage with anything that took away my meditative bliss, so this helped me to stick to organic food and healthy lifestyle habits.
That's ultimately also what brought me to Sikhi. Because I would do lots of practices. I would do sadhana. I would have these sprays and sage. Everything's always keep the perfect environment. But then later, when I started reading the Japji Sahib morning prayer, I noticed; oh, my goodness, like, I'm feeling great all the time now. So, I started seeing how Sikhi, the discipline of Sikhi, everything about it, from keeping our turbans to our face and everything, really helped keep the and in my body.
 
NS: As we know it's not easy in the West to integrate, obviously, because of work and cultural aspects. How do you manage that lifestyle? Do you believe, sometimes being like, if you go back to Canada or something, you may need to reverse back. Are you going to stay in Amritdhari for your whole life?
 
BS: No, I don't feel like I'll ever revert because it was something I wanted since I was there in America. I started the path of sovereignty there. In Santa Barbara, one of my mentors was Dr. Barre Lando, whom I spoke about in one of the reels. He taught me a lot about sovereignty. However, basically, it was just about really being careful with the way I spoke. Really being careful with what I consented to and really making conscientious decisions.
 
NS: Yeah. Interesting. I have seen that you have also been involved in doing charity work and helping locally. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
 
BS: Yes, so my people give donations to us, and we try to give in return. Recently at the haveli we donated 50 blankets to a local charity for the homeless. That's just in the last few weeks that people have started to ask about donating, and especially from overseas. If people donate, then we turn that into goodwill such as distributing food or some other initiative and including education as well. I have music that I want to make. I have books that I want to write.
 
I thought what I really need to do is really help people understand why they need to be eating organic. I wanted to show people where I came from. It is important to note that I didn't come here to do this for gaining likes and shares on social media. The first few years I was here I wasn’t involved with social media because I was focused on doing Vaid seva and working with people one-on-one. Through this I saw the necessity to educate people on my history and why I feel organic food is so important.
 
NS: What's your vision? What's your mission with the work that you're doing, you know helping out communities and educating about Sikhi?
 
BS: So basically, the way I see it is for Punjab. The work I am doing is for the benefit of Punjab’s future. My wish is that people should invest in Punjab’s sustainability – there is a lot to gain from this land. Rather than immigrate to overseas countries, why not invest in your own homeland? This state could become a model for what is cohesive coherent living around the world – we have everything here! Fertile land, organic food, weather, resources, and much more. But most importantly it is the people that will make the difference. Who knows, maybe in 10-15 years this land will prosper.
 
So, this is an excellent opportunity to show how society could function if there are small farmers, how the farmers could be supported, and how the consumers could be supported. Essentially that's really what I want to show. I want to show kind of a model for the work to adopt. Because if we don't have healthy food, if we don't have clean pure food, clean water, and clean air, then we have no choice but to just kind of eventually go into some kind of technological chamber or something and have nanotechnology help our lungs and our eyes and everything.
 
NS: Where do you get organic food here in Punjab? What comes from Punjab?
 
BS: As far as organic goes, nothing. So, Kerala, like different places in India where organic farming is popular is where we get all our bulk staples, you know, all our grains, pulses, oils, spices. We import them here into Punjab.
 
That's why right now I'm building a database, like just recently. Like my social media has only been quite active and kicking off since January 2025. I am in the position now where I can find these organic farms directly because of my work on social media, and people are approaching me to introduce me to these organic farms or shops in Punjab. In the years past, I've gone online, tried to find every database. Many times, when I would arrive there was no farm, and no one knew what I was talking about. That’s when I realized that if I could find organic farmers, I could put together a verified list. Recently, I met an NRI at my local gym in Phagwara who moved back from Australia, and he wants to do organic farming. He informed me that he wants to have goat’s milk and everything. That’s the kind of connection I want to keep on building via my social media because I know there are always going to be people that were going to do this or have a certain need for organic food.
 
NS: How do you find them?
 
BS: That's what the social media is really about. I really want to find these people, and like I said sometimes they approach me and want to show the farm to me. I want to create a database. I want to figure out how can we support these farmers and how can we get this stuff into the hands of people who need it, who are willing to buy it. right now, because everyone needs it. 

Balraj Singh in Phagwara, Punjab: Photo Copyright Navjot Singh

​NS: But how can we get it to the hands of people willing to buy? Mind you, it is very lush green here in Punjab, right?
 
BS: Though it may be green here, but it doesn't mean the soil is fertile. So, on my haveli for example, we had to bring a lot of soil in. We brought it from some of these farms I found because we were raising the level of the ground so we could build the big structure, and it would never get flooded. I then tried to grow stuff in that soil, and nothing grew! What you will see in some of the farms here in Punjab is they have these big piles of black fertilizer. One may think that's compost. However, it is not, and what it is, is all this garbage that you see, it gets taken to these big places where they burn in, and then that ash gets brought back to the fields. So, this is all garbage ash. Then they just get into it, and then it looks nice and black; and you may think “wow, this is fertile Punjabi soil!”. Don’t be fooled, it is not.
 
Therefore, yes, I mean the plants are very nice and green. But very few people have the concept of how to build soil. So that's the first thing we need to understand, is how do we increase the organic matter in soil? That's why I believe that permaculture is so important.
 
Because if you're doing fields and crops all the time, you need to disc everything so you can easily seed everything. So, every time you disc it, the organic matter dissolves very quickly. It is an agricultural implement that is used to till the soil where crops are to be planted. It is used to chop up unwanted weeds or crop residue. So, you can have all the old weed, and you can disc it in, and you think, oh, I'm feeding the soil. No, it's just going to dissolve because the sun's going to bear down on it and it's going be next to nothing.
 
So, what you need is layers, and layers that haven't been distant. That itself takes leaving the land alone. But then how do you grow things if you're doing that? That's why we need permaculture for this. Because the growth of organic matter when you do it that way is like 5,000% quicker than if you do it this game. Don’t quote me on that figure though!
 
NS: Is this proven?
 
BS: Yes, there's a documentary you should check out called Symphony of the Soil.
One can learn a lot from watching it because its deep dives into one of the most important life support system components—besides water and air. The documentary is critical in getting a sense of what soil is and what it is composed of. Soil, except for food production, rarely gets mentioned in studies, articles, and documents on Climate Change. It is worth watching and learning about. Once you know the science of soil, anything magic can happen!

Jassa Singh in Phagwara: Photo Copyright Navjot Singh

NS: So, your plan is to stay here for the foreseeable future?
 
BS: Yes, I really like India. I really like the laws here. The only thing I don't like about is the corruption, and especially when people don’t follow the laws. However, I do believe the laws themselves are great and I think here in India people admire that. I do truly believe that Punjab is the bedrock of agriculture and that we, as Punjabis, can really build something that could truly be a model for the world when it comes to authentic organic food and fertile land. I really like what the Indian government does to protect small farmers, and they do go through various lengths to make sure that people like NRIs for example can't come and just kind of push local people out of their ancestral land.
 
NS: Was there anything else you or Jassa want to say?
 
BS: These days I’m focused on teaching the art of Peaceful Living as per Guru Har Rai. Great value was placed on being prepared, keeping fit and healthy, as well as reciting our sacred bani. Yes, if there is anyone else similar to Jassa who wants to come and stay here with us and learn the different things that I have to teach, meditate and learn rope yoga, then they are welcome to do so.
 
NS: Jassa, can you elaborate a bit more about your experience as how it might pertain to others who might be interested?

JS: Yes, I am from Bradford, and I spent some time in Croydon, south London before I moved to Phagwara and be an understudy to Balraj. Since I have started, I have really noticed a big shift in my mind and my body. Just being here in person and eating organic homemade food, enjoying the fresh rural air and the healthy lifestyle has made a huge difference. Staying away from processed food and refined oils have been a big part of the transformation in lifestyle. The rope yoga has been highly beneficial to align my spine and be able to stand taller.
 
The whole journey of being able to learn Gurmukhi, enjoy a healthy lifestyle, and be able to embrace peace and tranquility has been a gamechanger for me. In terms of strength, the rope yoga poses have helped build muscle and increase strength, have helped improve flexibility and a range of motions, the fresh air has helped breathe more deeply, which can improve lung capacity and reduce anxiety, and most importantly this lifestyle has generally improved my posture.
 
You can follow Balraj’s journey on his Instagram Channel on WatchMeTriumph