I am quite the Pan-Indian (I know there is no such term, but read on and I’ll explain). I speak no languages other than English and Hindi. The Tamil that I don’t speak comes from my mother, an Iyer. It’s so pitiable that when I used it in Trichy recently, the shopkeeper replied in Hindi. The Malayalam that I didn’t learn from my father has spared me that strong accent.
In my father’s time in the Indian Air Force, official policy required an officer to be fluent in both English and Hindi. (My father’s efforts to learn to speak Hindi have been hilarious, and I’ll reserve posting that for some other time). However, there were a whole lot of Sikhs also at that time. (As a well known saying in the pilot fraternity goes, “Only Surds (Sardars/Sikhs) and birds fly naturally”.) So Punjabi was the un-official second language. To get ahead in life one needed to speak assi-tussi.
I think it important to state at this juncture that my getting married to a Punjabi lass has absolutely nothing to do with getting ahead. I also state that it has every thing to do with me loosing my head. From a cool bachelor with an ultra-cool nickname of Kat, I was transformed overnight into Pati ji. To complicate the matters further, though it brought me joy, I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy. So we are a Tam bram, Mallu-Punju mix; hence the term Pan-Indian.
When you marry a Punjabi, you marry the whole family. It’s a culture thing. And a very complex experience. Like tenure in the Siachen Glacier, it’s to be undergone to be believed. Passionate about everything, from the weather to cricket, films to politics, they live their lives at full throttle. I should know, I have been married into their ilk and have been valiantly serving for over a decade.
They greet each other with a hearty Hello ji and a bone crushing jhappi (hug) but come anybody even a few minutes elder it’s a Paeri Paon (I fall on your feet). In fact, when I first heard that absolute gem Sir ji, I almost did a Paeri Paon face first.
Their language is colourful and spicy, a lot like their food. It’s rich with phrases. Swear words intersperse ideas, and even punctuate sentences. There is no gender bias in this, the women use Khasma nu khaani (Spouse-killer) while the guys go into raptures with BC or to be more precise PC (sister f…er). I know some people who use five -six of them in a sentence. They mean no harm, its rather like a punctuation, so daan’t mind yaar.Some of them have a particularly weird habit. They repeat every thing they say. That’s once in Punjabi then in English. Like Main othey gaya see, I waant thare you know. Tay phir main unu kutya, thaan I thrashed him.
Moving on to their food; it’s simply mind blowing and mostly meat and chicken. Off course, most restaurants have gone overboard on the masala bit; the Brits having adopted the fictitious Balti or Tikka masala as their most popular dish. Trust me when I say that cocaine can’t come close to the levels of a high you can reach when Pammi Aunti ji serves you a keema mutter with parathas. The food will be rich and hence, their Haalthy figures and rocketing cholesterol levels. The bypass operation, I suspect is a status symbol. At least that’s what I felt when my FIL underwent his. The conversation at the Escorts Lounge went some thing like” Tch tch, tussi fifty dey ho and no blaackage”.
The Punjabi male really comes into his element at a wedding. At a wedding he wants to get drunk in the first 45 minutes, all while gorging and glutting on Naanveg. Incidentally, drinking, actually make that getting drunk, is a big macho thing. One song even goes this away; Kunda khol basantariye, tera tol sharabi aaya (Open the door, baby, your drunk hubby is back home). Then he starts dancing. The start-up phase involves keeping all hands up, everybody giving each other the fore finger, and lifting your knees alternatively; all this while they let out war cries like ‘hadippa’ and ‘Brrrrrrup’. Finally, every guy screams ‘Chak De’.
Having said that let me acknowledge this; rhythm and the punju are made for each other. You see toddlers doing the bhangra and elderly matrons doing the gidda with consummate grace.
Then there is their astounding ingenuity. A Punjabi is never ever stuck for ideas. They even have a term for it; ‘Jugaad’. I have come to understand it as an alternative path to salvation. Practically, Jugaad means shoehorning a 2000cc diesel engine into a Maruti-800 bonnet. Jugaad means sticking a thin plastic film on to your CD tray and preventing a wobble rather than shell out 2500/- for an authorized SONY repair job. Some of you would know that in the villages of Punjab Jugaad is a vehicle. It is used as a public carrier. It’s a three wheeler welded together using scrap metal and is powered by a water pump; ……..yeah a water pump.
There is so much more to tell about them, the shagun tradition- they’ll pull out 500/- buck notes and press it into your hand for mundane reasons, like you’ve bought a toothbrush or you’ve come to their house for the first time this month etc. There is this obsession with 10,000 watt music systems which they cram into their tiny Maruti Zens (I’m told that’s true even in Southhall which is North West of Karol Bagh). Not to forget their weird pet names for each other. I know a guy whose wife’s name is Dollar (maybe Dilawar Kaur or something) and he has a she-dog named Begum. But these are the modern guys. Earlier, every boy was a Kukku or a Laali and the girl was a Laddo.
Now before you start off about political correctness; this little piece isn’t really ‘a pull them down’ one. Their industriousness, ingenuity and large hearts are on record. There was an entire generation of them on both sides of the Radcliff line who suffered partition. Uprooted from their homes, transported to a new place, loosing lives, limbs and property; the trauma was colossal. I don’t know how the guys in Pak Punjab are doing, but for the ones here life is wadia, and everybody is doing aalrite.
Finally, since I know that someday my wife’s relatives will read this on their Paantium PCs, and since they still feel that Pammi da Madrasi Jawaai bada decent hain ji. I better stop.
Katspeakeasy 