Being Punjabi

A certain blog post gone viral , an open letter to a Delhi Boy, specifically a very Punjabi Delhi Boy had me thinking. I’m not from Delhi, never even lived there, but whenever I’ve stayed there for any length of time, the place feels excessively familiar. It’s the Naarth, and most people speak in a very familiar accent. There is a certain Punjabiness about the place, from the food(which is awesome) to the way people behave in traffic to the way people spend money, and also unfortunately the way people stare at women. This viral post (has a 1000+ comments right now) generalizes to a fault and has attracted vitriol from many defenders of the faith and rational commentators who point out that she well spews hatred and makes too much fun of Punjabis. The open letter is funny in places, and I agree with her about certain things, but gets a little nasty sometimes (the Gurpurab and partition references).

Reminded me however, that I am Punjabi. Specifically a Punjabi Brahmin. Almost seems like a contradiction, ‘cause Punjabis are supposed to be overtly masculine and Brahmins are well...not. Also, reminds me of the time I read in an old sociological study while researching for my project that Punjab is one of the few places that the Brahmin is not dominant, in fact rarely owns land and most are priests or petty shopkeepers. At least my ancestors were in no position to oppress anyone unlike some others( Hint: Tambrahms :) ). There are however, certain Punjabi stereotypes that don’t come off too well on me. As a friend pointed out, “You can’t be Punjabi.” “Why?” “ You well, READ!” I can be loud, I put lots of white butter on my pronthas, I relish rajma-chawal( and BUTTER CHICKEN) , am prone to breaking into bhangra in quad parties when a Punjabi song comes on, I can atleast understand the language, but I have committed the cardinal crime of being “intellactual”( said in a strong Punjabi accent). I was the toast of all my buas and masis and chachis for being the only child to be found reading in a corner when all others were busy playing something or the other. I can’t drink great quantities of alcohol without being affected, can’t play sports to save my life, and try not to lech at girls on the street. When I meet ‘REAL’ Punjabi cousins I don’t like it when they drive their cars having downed pegs of whiskey playing very loud music and driving very fast. (especially when those cousins are fifteen years old). I don’t think it is my right to control my sister’s and every other female cousin’s life because I am their big brother.

On the other hand, I love Punjabi weddings , with their sheer ostentatiousness and spirit of celebration with the whole extended family, and the bloody incredible food( and hopefully for me in the future, alcohol). I am obsessed with Pakistan, actually just Lahore, because my grandparents came across the border. I love it when they talk in Urdu sounding Hindi, or when my relatives from Gurdaspur( who never came from across the border) call a Minister a ‘wazir’ rather than a ‘mantri’. For that is my heritage, to all those who call Punjab’s culture agriculture, I would like to point out the stunning Punjabi poetry ( Bulleh Shah, Shiv Kumar Batalvi) which has come to me via Rabbi, and my mom, who explains them to me. Having learnt Hindustani classical music I appreciate things like the Patiala Gharana and the stunning Sufi Punjabi heritage which also comes to me via Pakistan. No way can I disregard Bhangra, which is awesome to dance to, and which has had awesome things done to it in ‘Caneda’ and ‘UK’ by overseas Punjabis. For after all, culture is not the exclusive preserve of the Bengalis. And only in Punjab do you have things like Gurudwaras which give away free meals as langar. I also remember the time in a train when Hindu pilgrims from Ludhiana going to Haridwar shared food with the entire bogie. And the language in the state is awesome, unlike Delhi where they just speak Hindi with a Punjabi accent.

I am Punjabi, and I’m not Sikh (though I have a few Sikh relatives). Why do I emphasize that? It’s pretty cool to be Sikh but I just am not, and I’m still Punjabi. We don’t wear Pugries and along with gurudwaras(everyone goes to Gurudwaras, the Golden temple is just incredible) go to temples too. We speak Punjabi, comprise 45% of the state’s population and exercise a pretty pervasive cultural influence(check Bollywood) but I still get the ‘how’re you Punjabi but not Sikh routine’.

Punjab to me was always Chandigarh. On moving to law school I saw the rest of it for the first time, and though there are certain things about it that I can’t stand, it is a pretty incredible place. Unlike the rest of the country, most people are not poor, people have a lot of money and love to spend it, and there’s a certain altitude to life which is fun. I may personally don’t feel that way because I’m too ‘intellactual’ for them and thus will always not be exactly like them. But there is a certain part of me that is, and I think that’s pretty great.

River of Smoke: A Review

I just finished ‘River of Smoke’ by Amitav Ghosh. The plot is superb, the writing is vivid and the expanse of his vision is vast. It is a sequel to ‘Sea of Poppies’, his previous book which was just as good. The thing about Ghosh in both of these books is the exuberant use of language. The language of the lascars, who were a kind of sailors from various parts of the Indian subcontinent is an odd patios of broken English, some words of various Indian languages and some surely made-up words. The language of colonial Englishmen in India( words like bobachee-connah, cuzzana, puckrow) the Chinese pidgin( Simple English with Cantonese Grammar, origin of Long Time, No see) and snatches of Cantonese in River of Smoke, they are all a delight to read. The books read like a Dickens novel, a vast catalogue of characters, most of them not very subtle but intensely interesting all the same. At times comical, at times desperately sad, these two books which are part of what will be the Ibis trilogy(Ibis being the name of a ship which brings together many of the characters) run through a variety of themes. Amitav Ghosh is definitely interested in the forces of colonialism and what they did to change the world and most of his books are connected in some way with that subject.

From the migration of girmityas( or Indian indentured labourers) to places like Mauritius and the actions of the British in India in the early part of the 19th century everything was about the opium trade. The British grew opium in India and exported it to China where it was illegal, but smuggled through with lax regulations and bribes paid to mandarins, it became a part of Chinese life with millions of people addicted. On the other hand, the poppy growing in India ruined more than a few farmers, many of which had no choice but to put their a thumbprint on a ‘girmit’( mispronounciation of agreement) and become indentured labourers in various countries where their descendants still live today. The world as described in ‘Sea of Poppies’ is sort of familiar sometimes, from rural Bihar to colonial Calcutta, though the deck of the Ibis feels delightfully foreign. The upper caste almost-Sati who runs away with the untouchable man, the young daughter of a French botanist who speaks fluent Bengali and prefers a sari to a dress, the ruined scholarly Zamindar who is sentenced to labour as an indenture, the mulatto from Maryland who looked white enough to be a sahib and second mate of the ship, the mysterious half Chinese half Parsi prisoner. The book is a cacophony of such characters who are led to these paths because of the irresistible forces changing the world they live in.

‘River of Smoke’ to me though is even more brilliant because it is just the force of his writing that hits you. As Amitav himself pointed out in an interview, Indians for some reason don’t know very much about China, or the people inside it, their vast different regions, their history. So when we reach Canton in the time just before the first Opium war, there is no frame of reference that I have that I had with the first book, since a lot of it is set in India. Some it is on the ocean, some of it is set in Mauritius, but the description of the city of Canton(modern day Guangzhou) with the Fanqui or foreign quarter is absolutely enervating. China, its people and the kind of place it was then is painstakingly drawn out in my imagination due to this man’s enchanting writing. The Parsi merchant , along with the other English, American merchants around him are all smugglers of opium who have millions of dollars worth opium waiting to be sold to China but can’t because the Chinese have realized the havoc that it created and persevere on the right to control its sale in their own country. But this as Ghosh points out, is the time of Adam Smith, and Free Trade as an inalienable right from God are concepts which the merchants and the British use as their excuse to justify their actions. This is historical fiction at its very best, the research is immaculate, the books are entertaining, and he literally creates pictures in your head. There is a secret to this, which he has stated elsewhere, the trick to good descriptive writing is not just what you write, it’s also how much you leave out. He describes just enough for one to successfully imagine. And also the man loves words, and playing with them. And by the end, you will too.

Day Dreaming

Have you ever had the urge to retreat within yourself? To run away from the outside world which is chaotic, overwhelming and unwelcome. To go away to a calm, comfortable place. Like when standing up to speak, facing a hostile audience, or a questioning teacher. You don’t know the answer, to whatever they ask and you implore someone to take you away so fast that no one notices that you’re gone. Instantaneously you vanish, or are pulled away and seconds later you are on an island, or a canyon, where there is no one but you. Or, my favourite place to get away, a place in my head. Literally, inside my head, a small room. The rest of my body goes on doing whatever I was doing, as if on autopilot while I, the real me reaches a comfortable room, where I can lie down in peace. I am, of course a miniature version of myself now. I am safe, from the outside world, and not bothered. My body is not endowed, with my consciousness, but responds in certain pre determined ways to outside stimuli, while I, relaxed and refreshed, can get back to control it, when I want to.

Too Late

Putting something off. Procrastination. Everyone does it. Some people more than others. I’d like to think I’m one of those people who’ve made it an art form. There are certain things you keep putting off again and again before you eventually do them because they just have to be done. For example, a project has to be submitted eventually, for if you don’t you have to do that subject next year. But there are certain things you put off, so well, that you end up never doing them, because there’s nobody holding a gun to your head forcing you to do them. Three months ago, based on an email conversation with a friend, I set out to write a blog post. So, the obsessive wikipedia reader that I am, I was sent an xkcd comic which apart from making fun of people who look up wikipedia for everything, pointed out that if I start clicking on the first link in the text of any wikipedia article and continue clicking on the first link of every corresponding page(excluding italics and parentheses) I would reach the wikipedia page on philosophy. The route I took, to get to the philospophy entry was so funny, I thought I should write a blog post about it, and there it is set out below.

Scooby-Doo!_The_Mystery_Begins
Warner_Premiere
Direct-to-video
Film
Recording
Process
Milk
Mammary_gland
Organ_(anatomy)
Biology
Natural_science
Science
Knowledge
Fact
Information
Sequence
Mathematics
Quantity
Property_(philosophy)
Modern_philosophy
Philosophy

Postponing writing a blog post seems hardly alarming but I realize I’m running away from a variety of things and not doing them at all. I, for one, procrastinate, when something becomes a burden, a task I have to do, soon, and I just don’t do it, and shut it out of my mind. Sometimes pushing the thought away means I’ve procrastinated about something to the extent that I can’t go back, I’m too far gone, I have to face the consequences of my actions. And then I regret, because unlike writing a blog post, there are some things that once put off, cannot be repaired. It seemed easier at the time, but if I’d tackled it head on, I wouldn’t have replayed the scenario over and over in my head and wondered ‘what if’.