Born and raised in the suburbs
of Washington DC,
Sartaj graduated with an electrical engineering
degree from Virginia Tech. He currently
utilizes
his engineering expertise to aide towards identifying solutions to
complex
technical problems with one of the largest engineering firms in the United
States.
Aside from his professional
life, Sartaj is an active member
in the local Sikh community of Washington
DC.
He is known to help by working closely with
youth groups, outreaching to Non-Sikh organizations to strengthen
community
bonds, as well as being a principle organizer for Guru
Gobind Singh
Foundation’s annual summer youth camp.
However, Sartaj is also known to
be an instrumental advocate
for bringing educational awareness to society about Sikhism. Whether in Blacksburg
or Washington DC,
he has aided in bringing attention to sensitive issues to many various
Sikh
advocacy groups. Considering himself as
one of the many “trench workers,” some of Sartaj’s silent contributions
have
been vocalizing misrepresentation of Sikhism in the Eternal Blade (link
1, link
2) and
Hitman 2 (link
1, link 2)
video games, identifying slanderous material about Sikhism distributed
at Bhangra
Blowout, as well as co-organizing a youth lead memorial service
for Sgt.
Uday Singh of the US Army. He
has volunteered with the Sikh American Legal Defense &
Education Fund,
and played an active role in organizing the Sikh Council On Religion
&
Education’s Capitol
Hill Heritage Dinner.
In 2000, alongside his friends,
Sartaj
started to experiment with
the idea of filmmaking. Several years
later in 2003, he went on to release the underground smash hit Gatka 1: The Experimentation. This
short film became an Internet highlight
among the Sikh community and was viewed throughout the world. Later, it went as far as to be featured on SikhNet.
After creating several more
shorts, Sartaj formed Dashmesh
Pictures as a creative outlet dedicated to portraying Sikhism in
a
positive
manner. Sartaj is passionate for
creating this organization, which is open to all, so that the next Sikh
“Steven
Spielberg” can be found.
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