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An inner strength, combined with fearlessness and a
phenomenal capacity for hard work, has made Punjabis among the most
enterprising and successful people in the world. Adventurous by
nature, Punjabis are scattered all over the globe and have prospered
everywhere.
The year was 1947. The
time, mid-afternoon of a day in November. The place, an arcade in
New Delhi’s famed Connaught Circus. A ten year old boy stood
against one of the pillars of the arcade, selling cigarettes from a
tray. Hurrying past him, a gentleman stopped by a pick up a tin of
State Express 555. When he dropped a hundred rupee note in the tray,
the boy replied, “I’ve no change.” But the gentleman
wasn’t listening. He was, instead, staring hard at the boy.
“Haven’t I seen you before? Where are you from?” he
asked. And the boy replied, “Lyallpur. Now in Pakistan.”
They got talking and it
turned out that the boy came of a family of Lyallpur well known to
the gentleman from his well known to the gentleman from his
childhood. What he did not know was that the family had migrated to
Delhi in the wake of the partition and were living in a refugee camp.
A wave of sympathy wept the gentleman off his feet. “Never
mind if you have no change,” he said. “Keep the money. It
might help. Your brother and I were class fellow at college, you
known…” The boy stiffened visibly. “Thank you very
much, Sir,” he said. “But I’ve been taught not to
accept anything that I haven’t earned.”
That’s it. The
boy’s remark reflects the notables of the Punjabi character –
self-respect, self-reliance and a near total absence of self-pity.
Around the time that man
landed on the moon, a joke was busily doing the rounds in north
India. It seems that the first thing Neil Armstrong noticed on the
moon was a Sardaji ka dhaba (a Sardarji’s roadside
stall). Transported with delight at seeing a fellow human, the
Sardaji rubbed his hands together and burst out in greeting, inviting
him to a typical Punjabi repast saying: “ao ji aao, badsahao,
ki kyhao ge? Matar paneer, dal makhnani, chicken curry, dundi
da raita….” Such is the Punjabi reputation for
intrepidity that nobody would have been particularly surprised had
such a dhaba (stall) actually existed on the moon.
The history of the Punjab
of the Punjab has had a lot to do with the building of the
no-nonsense, practical Punjabi character. This State has borne the
brunt of every single invasion down the centuries. Constantly
exposed to peril, for even living in apprehension of being torn away
from loved ones, these are factors that have toughened the physical
and moral fibre of the people. They are both brave and hardy.
Punjabi men make excellent soldiers. An underlying fear of losing
their land to invaders has made them intensely patriotic too. Their
women share these sentiments in full measure. They are not duly
scared. They may get lonely and emotional but never will they bar
the way of men going to battle. A Punjabi folk songs runs something
like this:
If you will go to battle
front,
O rider of the blue
horse,
Carry me in your
haversack.
Where the night overtakes
us,
O rider of the blue
horse,
Pull me out and take
me in your arms….
Even more than legends
and folk tales, the folk songs of Punjab are a mirror of the rural
Punjabi way of life. These songs have no reference to the sea, for
Punjab is landlocked. But rivers and wells and boats and boatmen
figure again and again. So do sword and spear and battle, the tall,
well built, handsome warrior and his enchantingly beautiful
sweetheart. There are light-hearted folk songs about little everyday
things. The sheer joy of living is reflected in many songs, but so
are domestic squab-bless and intrigues. And certain relation-ships,
notably that between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, come in for a
lot of genial invective.
Punjab suffered great
damages and destruction at the time of the partition but within a
fewone of the most affluent states of India. This enviable position
was worn, not by chance, but through sheer hard work. In recent
years internal strife had laid it low again but now things have
settled down and Punjab can hope to return to its impressive tally of
achievements. Years, it had become it used to provide 22% of India’s
wheat and 10% of its rice and a good part of all the milk produced in
the entire country, while owning five per cent of India’s total
bank deposits.
Punjab boasts a thriving
bicycle and wool industry in cities like Ludhiana, Amritsar and
Jullunder. Yet it remains a predominantly agricultural State, with
vast tracts under traditional crops like wheat, paddy, maize,
sugarcane, mustard and cotton. Other minor crops include chic-peas,
lentils, fodder and sunflower. The ox-drawn plough has generally
given way to the tractor, which not only takes the drudgery out of
agricultural operations but also doubles as a private vehicle, taking
the produce to market of the family to the nearest fair or wedding.
To robust spirit and
prosperity of the Punjabis is mirrored in a Punjabi Hindu wedding
which is nothing if not a grand but scaled down chaos. Surprisingly,
this kind of chaos takes months to plan and the family and friends of
the bride and groom would much rather be in it than out of it. True,
in cities, the push button hotel wedding a becoming increasingly
popular but old ways and values are alive and well in a State that is
still overwhelmingly rural. There’s fun and feasting and
confusion and lights and decorated pandals and song and dance
and always that tend to overreach one’s means so nobody can
point a finger at the show. The dholki is very much in
evidence as are special wedding songs and dances – bhangra
for the men and gidda for the women – to announce to the
world in general that a wedding is on.
The bhangra and gidda are
basically the purview of the Sikh community and vigorous as they are,
they pack a lot of punch and colour into these. But otherwise Sikh
weddings are far simpler and more sober than Hindu weddings. The
ceremony takes place in the morning whereas Hindu weddings are
traditionally celebrated at night. The ambience is quieter too and a
lunch wraps up the proceedings well before the evening shadows begin
to fall.
FESTIVALS
For dwellers on earth,
the movements of the sun make big news. According to the Hindu
calender, in mid January the sun enters Capricorn, the tenth sign of
the zodiac and begins what is called the uttarayan or its
journey in the northern hemisphere. All over the country the first
few days of uttarayan are hailded as a highly auspicious time. Its
opening day is particularly sacred and goes by the name of makar
sankranti. The people of Punjab hold a celebration on the eve of
makar sankranti and call it lohri. Lohri invariably falls on
13th January and right through the gorgeous winter day,
village women and children go around collecting dry twigs and
branches to make a bonfire. The bigger the better. Come evening and
the bonfire is lighted with family and neighbours singing and dancing
around it. Seasonal goodies like popcorn, reori, peanuts and
lengths of sugarcane are tossed into the fire as an offering. A
family with a new bride or a new born baby celebrates lohri with even
more gusto. And city folks are not to be left behind. Almost every
street corner has its own bonfire.
Punjab celebrates its
holi and Diwali, its rakhi and karva chauth with
great enthusiasm, the same as many other States of north India. But
for the vast community of farmers, the culmination of a whole year of
toil is baisakhi, the harvest festival. Baisakhi falls on the
13th of April every year and heralds the time when the
rabi crop is joyfully gathered and brought home. The observance of
Baisakhi is a very old and hallowed tradition. The day begins with a
mandatory bath, preferably in the river, followed by prayers and
offerings made to the household deity. Generally, harvesting begins
on this day with farmers bringing home the first few ears of wheat
from their fields. These are ceremonially offered to the gods and
later distributed among family and friends to seek their blessing.
Making chappatis or
boiled rice on Baisakhi is unheard of. The order of the day is
festive food like poories and parathas to be eaten with
kheer and gur ka halwa. Semolina or flour pooras
are made and soaked in a syrup of jaggery instead o sugar. Homes are
decorated with garlands of bright orange and yellow marigold and
mango leaves. The afternoon sees the beginning of a fair that
carries on far into the night, packed with excitement and music and
colour. But what really marks the day is bhangra performed by
gaily dressed male dancers gyrating to the vigorous beat of drums and
mouthing bols (words) while their exuberance finds expression
in the constant refrain O balle, balle, balle…
Gurpurab comes around the
same time as Diwali. It is the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak,
founder of the Sikh religion. The day is marked by prayers and
devotional music with devout Sikh thronging to their temples, the
gurdwaras. A sober, dignified festival.
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