Punjabi Quotes

Nothing soothes an upset Punjabi like dairy products.

Flowers of sin, like some black sun, Bloom in my dreams Their perfume-sodden fragrance Spreading through each heartbeat.

These stupid biases and discrimination are the reason our country is so screwed up. It's Tamil first, Indian later. Punjabi first, Indian later. It has to end. National anthem, national currency, national teams - still, we won't marry our children outside our state. How can this intolerance be good for our country?

You can separate the idiots from the bloody idiots.

I saw it a few years ago in a bookshop but didn’t buy it.’ ‘I hate it when that happens. Book regret. You come across something and think, I don’t want that, and later, you’re obsessed with getting it and it’s no longer available.

Marble flooring is to a Punjabi what a foreign degree is to a Tamilian

In traditional Indian morality tales, wayward children were the primary cause of heart conditions, cancerous lumps, hair loss and other ailments in their aggrieved parents.

You waste everything because you’ve always had everything.

If you live in the river you should make friends with the crocodile. INDIAN PROVERB (PUNJABI)

Perhaps passion and excitement were meant to be secondary to a stable adult life.

Why be with someone who’s making the journey? You could be with someone who has already arrived.

Out of all the opportunities Britain offered us, choice was the most important thing.

Not a believer in the mosque am I, Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I. I am not the pure amongst the impure, I am neither Moses nor Pharaoh. Bulleh, I know not who I am. Not in the holy books am I, Nor do I dwell in bhang or wine, Nor do I live in a drunken haze, Nor in sleep or waking known. Bulleh, I know not who I am. Not in happiness or in sorrow am I found. I am neither pure nor mired in filthy ground. Not of water nor of land, Nor am I in air or fire to be found. Bulleh, I know not who I am. Not an Arab nor Lahori, Not a Hindi or Nagouri, Nor a Muslim or Peshawari, Not a Buddhist or a Christian. Bulleh, I know not who I am. Secrets of religion have I not unravelled, I am not of Eve and Adam. Neither still nor moving on, I have not chosen my own name! Bulleh, I know not who I am. From first to last, I searched myself. None other did I succeed in knowing. Not some great thinker am I. Who is standing in my shoes, alone? Bulleh, I know not who I am.

Let him find balance and moderation in all things; let him listen to himself and not the noise of others.

India belongs not to Punjabis, Biharis, Gujaratis, Madrasis, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, but to those beautiful creatures—peacocks, elephants, tigers, bears…

Then there were the people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konarak; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incomparable beauty, India.

i am not the whiskey you want i am the water you need

A girl whose name is Love Is lost. Simple, beautiful, She is lost.

I thought about my [Punjabi] family. The only nakshatram we think about is the division of petrol pumps when we have to see the girl.

India's linguistic diversity surprises many Westerners, but there are nearly thirty languages in India with at least a million native speakers. There are more native speakers of Tamil on our planet than of Italian. Likewise, more people speak Punjabi than German, Marathi than French, and Bengali than Russian. There are more Telugu speakers than Czech, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Slovak, and Swedish speakers combined.

You come across something and think, I don’t want that, and later, you’re obsessed with getting it and it’s no longer available.

Fiery-eyed and indignant, they would pen their stories for the whole world to read.

She tries to maintain a nondescript exterior; she learns the sideways glance instead of looking at people directly. She speaks in practised, precise sentences so that she is not misunderstood. She chooses her words carefully, and if someone addresses her in Punjabi, she answers in Urdu, because an exchange in her mother tongue might be considered a promise of intimacy. She uses English for medical terms only, because she feels if she uses a word of English in her conversation she might be considered a bit forward. When she walks she walks with slightly hurried steps, as if she has an important but innocent appointment to keep. She avoids eye contact, she looks slightly over people’s heads as if looking out for somebody who might come into view at any moment. She doesn’t want anyone to think that she is alone and nobody is coming for her. She sidesteps even when she sees a boy half her age walking towards her, she walks around little puddles when she can easily leap over them; she thinks any act that involves stretching her legs might send the wrong signal. After all, this is not the kind of thing where you can leave your actions to subjective interpretations. She never eats in public. Putting something in your mouth is surely an invitation for someone to shove something horrible down your throat. If you show your hunger, you are obviously asking for something.

There are two social classes in Pakistan," Professor Superb said to his unsuspecting audience, gripping the podium with both hands as he spoke. "The first group, large and sweaty, contains those referred to as the masses. The second group is much smaller, but its members exercise vastly greater control over their immediate environment and are collectively termed the elite. The distinction between members of these two groups is made on the basis of control of an important resource:air-conditioning. You see, the elite have managed to re-create for themselves the living standards of say, Sweden without leaving the dusty plains of the subcontinent. They're a mixed lot - Punjabi and Pathans, Sindhis and Baluchis, smugglers , mullahs, soldiers, industrialists - united by their residence in an artificially cooled world. They wake up in air-conditioned houses, drive air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned offices, grab lunch in air-conditioned restaurants (rights of admission reserved), and at the end of the day go home to an air-conditioned lounges to relax in front of their wide-screen TVs. And if they should think about the rest of the people, the great uncooled, and become uneasy as they lie under their blankets in the middle of the summer, there is always prayer, five times a day, which they hope will gain them admittance to an air-conditioned heaven, or at the very least, a long, cool drink during a fiery day in hell.

Listen: my father speaks Urdu language of dancing peacocks rosewater fountains even its curses are beautiful. He speaks Hindi suave and melodic earthy Punjabi salty rich as saag paneer coastal Kiswahili laced with Arabic, he speaks Gujarati solid ancestral pride. Five languages five different worlds yet English shrinks him down before white men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality.

Coming of age in such an environment, the educated elite of Punjab ends up disowning, in fact, ridiculing anything Punjabi, which includes the poetry of Baba Farid, Guru Nanak, Shah Hussain, Waris Shah and Bulleh Shah. Whereas the educated elite can quote verses from Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot, they are completely unaware of their local poets.

As her lips changed the geometry, Her smile turned to poetry.

It would be easier to be a criminal fairly prosecuted by the law than an Indian daughter who wronged her family. A crime would be punishable by a jail sentence of definite duration rather than this uncertain length of family guilt trips.

She does speak Bengali, doesn't she?" Morrow had asked over the phone. "Sure," I'd said. Actually, Amrita spoke Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, and a little Punjabi as well as German, Russian, and English, but not Bengali.

It has been said that Delhi is not a city, but a collection of villages... There were Tamil villages, and Gujarati and Kannadiga, and over everything, like a blanket -- like a blankety-blanket -- a vast and spirited Punjabi joy in living that kept the city together and made it one, made it as much as was possible a city.

People are sympathetic at first but when the illness drags on, they start avoiding you, like your bad luck is contagious.

she wondered why men needed all that space when their answers to everything were always ‘no’.

Mumbai is the sweet, sweaty smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It's the smell of Gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. Its the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the island city, and the blood metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and the waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and love that produces courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of hunderd bazaar devoted exclusively to perfume, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. That smell, above all things - is that what welcomes me and tells me that I have come home. Then there were people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konark; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindi, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsee, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incoparable beauty, India.

B. R. Ambedkar in his 1941 book Thoughts on Pakistan had urged that Indian nationalists should not object to the idea of Pakistan, because India would, he argued, be much better off with a “safe army” in which Punjabis were no longer so dominant (Ambedkar 1941, 93).

The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati turn their trusting faces to the sun say to me care for us nurture us in my dreams I shudder and I run. I am six in a playground of white children Darkie, sing us an Indian song! Eight in a roomful of elders all mock my broken Gujarati English girl! Twelve, I tunnel into books forge an armor of English words. Eighteen, shaved head combat boots - shamed by masis in white saris neon judgments singe my western head. Mother tongue. Matrubhasha tongue of the mother I murder in myself. Through the years I watch Gujarati swell the swaggering egos of men mirror them over and over at twice their natural size. Through the years I watch Gujarati dissolve bones and teeth of women, break them on anvils of duty and service, burn them to skeletal ash. Words that don't exist in Gujarati : Self-expression. Individual. Lesbian. English rises in my throat rapier flashed at yuppie boys who claim their people “civilized” mine. Thunderbolt hurled at cab drivers yelling Dirty black bastard! Force-field against teenage hoods hissing F****ing Paki bitch! Their tongue - or mine? Have I become the enemy? Listen: my father speaks Urdu language of dancing peacocks rosewater fountains even its curses are beautiful. He speaks Hindi suave and melodic earthy Punjabi salty rich as saag paneer coastal Kiswahili laced with Arabic, he speaks Gujarati solid ancestral pride. Five languages five different worlds yet English shrinks him down before white men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality. Words that don't exist in English: Najjar Garba Arati. If we cannot name it does it exist? When we lose language does culture die? What happens to a tongue of milk-heavy cows, earthen pots jingling anklets, temple bells, when its children grow up in Silicon Valley to become programmers? Then there's American: Kin'uh get some service? Dontcha have ice? Not: May I have please? Ben, mane madhath karso? Tafadhali nipe rafiki Donnez-moi, s'il vous plait Puedo tener….. Hello, I said can I get some service?! Like, where's the line for Ay-mericans in this goddamn airport? Words that atomized two hundred thousand Iraqis: Didja see how we kicked some major ass in the Gulf? Lit up Bagdad like the fourth a' July! Whupped those sand-niggers into a parking lot! The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati bright as butter succulent cherries sounds I can paint on the air with my breath dance through like a Sufi mystic words I can weep and howl and devour words I can kiss and taste and dream this tongue I take back.

You're not even trying to understand. You're just repeating everything I say.' 'REPEATING EVERYTHING YOU SAY?

I hate it when that happens. Book regret. You come across something and think, I don’t want that, and later, you’re obsessed with getting it and it’s no longer available.

A Punjabi mother, her son and food form a triad as sacred as Brahma, Mahesh and Vishnu, and cannot be interfered with as I learnt in the early years of my marriage. I

One pundit had asked her to visualize herself in the career she wanted while he chanted prayers to make her vision a reality. Her mind had gone blank, and this canvas of nothingness was the image sent up to the Gods.

Many of the politicians in Delhi and Karachi, too, had once fought together against the British; they had social and family ties going back decades. They did not intend to militarize the border between them with pillboxes and rolls of barbed wire. They laughed at the suggestion that Punjabi farmers might one day need visas to cross from one end of the province to the other. Pakistan would be a secular, not an Islamic, state, its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, promised: Hindus and Sikhs would be free to practice their faiths and would be treated equally under the law. India would be better off without two disgruntled corners of the subcontinent, its people were told, less

Yesterday, I was collecting words. One was up there, sitting in the bo tree, Another was in the banyan. One was wandering in my street, Another was lying in the earthen jar. A green word lay in the fields, A black one was eating flesh. A blue word was flying With a grain of the sun in its beak. Every single thing in this world looks like a word to me. The words of eyes, The words of hands. But I do not understand words I hear from a mouth. I can only read words. I can only read words.

There are many places you need to be, but there is nowhere to reach. There are many people you need to see but no one to meet. And there are many contacts in your phone but no one to talk. There are many masks in your closet but no face to please.

a country which would never exist except by the efforts of a phenomenal collective will—except in a dream we all agreed to dream; it was a mass fantasy shared in varying degrees by Bengali and Punjabi, Madrasi and Jat, and would periodically need the sanctification and renewal which can only be provided by rituals of blood.

(I also barely understood Punjabi, nor did I speak Hindi or any of the hundreds of languages spoken across the subcontinent.) It was a land of unknowns, a place that in my mind existed in the past, a history book of where our family came from. The thought of facing the place for the first time without my parents was suddenly making my heart race.

I don’t want to live and die a lie. So I sacrifice... I try... I live against the wind and pretend to fly.

I’m educated, I’ve done my nursing degree, I’ve got a job – this is the next step.’ ‘It shouldn’t be a step. Acquiring a husband, that’s what you’re doing.

She even dared to think that it was worth living the rest of her life for, this closeness with another human being.

I gave you all the happiness I couldn’t have. You loved your husband, your marriage. Good for you. I survived mine.

Blood is thicker than water. Or lassi. Or whatever.

The laughter that they shared filled the room, a shot of intoxicating warmth like the first hint of summer

Education is the back-bone of everything in life. If the backbone/roots are strong nothing will be able to destroy it and if the roots are damaged nothing will stand over it.

Do you remember? It was a full moon when we met. And today there is no moon because there is no (you) anymore in my life. I have expectations that the moon will come again, but will you?

Where perfumed rivers flow, Is the home of my beloved. Where passing breezes halt, Is the home of my beloved. Where dawn arrives on bare toes, Where night paints henna-beams on feet, Where fragrance bathes in moonlight, Is the home of my beloved. Where rays of light roam nakedly, In green forests of sandalwood. Where the flame seeks the lamp, Is the home of my beloved. Where sunsets sleep on wide waters, And the deer leap. Where tears fall for no reason, Is the home of my beloved. Where the farmer sleeps hungry, Even though the wheat is the color of my beloved, Where the wealthy ones lie in hiding, Is the home of my beloved. Where perfumed rivers flow, Is the home of my beloved. Where passing breezes halt, Is the home of my beloved.

I don’t seem to have said enough about the compensating or positive element of exposure to travel. Just as you discover that stupidity and cruelty are the same everywhere, you find that the essential elements of humanism are the same everywhere, too. Punjabis in Amritsar and Lahore are equally welcoming and open-minded, even though partition means the amputation of Punjab as well as of the subcontinent. There are a heartening number of atheists and agnostics in the six counties of Northern Ireland, even though Ulster as well as Ireland has been divided. Most important of all, the instinct for justice and for liberty is just as much “innate” in us as are the promptings of tribalism and sexual xenophobia and superstition. People know when they are being lied to, they know when their rulers are absurd, they know they do not love their chains; every time a Bastille falls one is always pleasantly surprised by how many sane and decent people were there all along. There’s an old argument about whether full bellies or empty bellies lead to contentment or revolt: it’s an argument not worth having. The crucial organ is the mind, not the gut. People assert themselves out of an unquenchable sense of dignity.

In the absence of democratic politics, the dominance of a predominantly Punjabi civil bureaucracy and army heightened the grievances of non-Punjabi provinces and the linguistic groups within them. Te entrenched institutional supremacy of a Punjabi army and federal bureaucracy, not Punjab’s dominance over other provinces per se, had emerged as the principal impediment to restoring democratic processes in Pakistan.

In many elite Hindu families in the Delhi region and the North-west, until about the time of Partition it was the custom for boys to learn Persian and Urdu and be literate in the Persian script, while the girls were taught Devanagari. Among elite Sikh families too, the boys would similarly be schooled in Persian and Urdu and know the Persian script, while the girls were taught Gurmukhi, the Punjabi script in which the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book, is written.

Kulwinder turned toward the temple and uttered a quick prayer in gratitude of pleasure. The sensation of contact, the anticipation of a kiss or brush of Sarab’s hand across her bare thigh – such moments were miniscule but they amounted to a lifetime of happiness.

Why did she always torture herself like this? Sometimes she got carried away and imagined little moments of Maya's life as it would be. Mundane things like paying for groceries or replacing the batteries in her television remote control. The smaller the details, the harder it hit.

The different countries of India can be identified by the way each pronounces this word—from the Punjabi “bhaanchod” to the thin Bambaiyya “pinchud” to the Gujarati “bhenchow” to the Bhopali elaboration “bhen-ka-lowda.” Parsis use it all the time, grandmothers, five-year-olds, casually and without any discernible purpose except as filler: “Here, bhenchod, get me a glass of water.” “Arre, bhenchod, I went to the bhenchod bank today.” As a boy, I would try consciously not to swear all day on the day of my birthday. I would take vows with the Jain kids: We will not use the B-word or the M-word.

It is well known that the term ‘Pakistan’, an acronym, was originally thought up in England by a group of Muslim intellectuals. P for the Punjabis, A for the Afghans, K for the Kashmiris, S for Sind and the ‘tan’, they say, for Baluchistan. (No mention of the East Wing, you notice; Bangladesh never got its name in the tide, and so, eventually, it took the hint and seceded from the secessionists. Imagine what such a double secession does to people!) – So it was a word born in exile which then went East, was borne-across or translated, and imposed itself on history; a returning migrant, settling down on partitioned land, forming a palimpsest on the past. A palimpsest obscures what lies beneath. To build Pakistan it was necessary to cover up Indian history, to deny that Indian centuries lay just beneath the surface of Pakistani Standard Time. The past was rewritten; there was nothing else to be done. Who commandeered the job of rewriting history? – The immigrants, the mohajirs. In what languages? – Urdu and English, both imported tongues, although one travelled less distance than the other. It is possible to see the subsequent history of Pakistan as a duel between two layers of time, the obscured world forcing its way back through what-had-been-imposed. It is the true desire of every artist to impose his or her vision on the world; and Pakistan, the peeling, fragmenting palimpsest, increasingly at war with itself, may be described as a failure of the dreaming mind. Perhaps the pigments used were the wrong ones, impermanent, like Leonardo’s; or perhaps the place was just insufficiently imagined, a picture full of irreconcilable elements, midriffbaring immigrant saris versus demure, indigenous Sindhi shalwar-kurtas, Urdu versus Punjabi, now versus then: a miracle that went wrong.

In the garden of life, Grows a sapling of pain, The deer of songs nibbles at it. The winds of seperation Blow through the night, A few leaves drop. A few leaves drop, Mother, they drop, And sounds stir in the garden. If a few birds of breath Should fly away, The deer of songs is afraid. But the birds of breath Will surely fly, Nothing can hold them back. Through the night In every direction They fly away.

The Most Dangerous (Sab Ton Khatarnak - Paash) The most dangerous occurrence is not a robbery of hard work, The most horrifying act is not a torture by the police, A merger of treachery and greed is not the most dangerous. To be trapped while asleep is surely miserable, To be buried under the silence is surely miserable, But it is still not the most dangerous. To remain silent in the noise of corruption is surely miserable, Reading covertly under the light of a firefly is surely miserable, But it is still not the most dangerous. The most dangerous deed is to be filled with a dead silence, Not feeling any agony against the unjust and bearing it all. Getting trapped in the routine of running from home to work and from work to home, The most dangerous accident is a death of our dreams. The most dangerous thing is that watch which runs on your wrist, but stands still for your eyes **A Translation of Paash's poem Sab ton Khatarnak by Jasz Gill

Weißt du, früher hatte ich voll die Schwierigkeiten mit dem steirischen Dialekt", murmle ich und betrachte jeden Millimeter seines Gesichts. "Zu Hause haben wir ja nur Urdu oder Punjabi gesprochen und im Fernsehen und im Unterricht sprachen alle immer hochdeutsch. Manchmal in Reality Shows mit diesem deutsch-deutschen Akzent halt. Aber Steirisch hörte ich nur von den anderen Kindern, die es wegen ihrer Eltern sprachen, und es gab echt viele Ausdrücke, die ich nicht verstand. Und da war dieses eine Mädchen, das sich immer darüber lustig gemacht hat, wenn ich nachfragte. Sie hat in der ganzen Klasse rumgeschrien, wie dumm es von mir war, dass ich es nicht besser wusste." "Als ob man sich dafür entschuldigen müsste, dass man mehrsprachig aufwächst", murrt Tariq. "Oder?" "Nuh hatte früher auch viele Probleme mit seinen Mitschülern. Die haben ihn immer wegen seines Namens geärgert, deswegen nennt er sich jetzt lieber Noah." "Oha. Als ob er sich selbst white washed." "Jap. Kinder können grausam sein.

People worship god. I worship this separation from you. It is worth Haj to a hundred Meccas, This separation from you. People say I am as brilliant as the sun, They say I am famous. What a fire it has lit in me, This separation from you. Behind me is my shadow, Ahead, is my darkness. I fear that it might leave me, This separation from you. No taint of the body is in it, Nor litter of the mind, All has been winnowed out, By this separation from you. When sorrow comes, bringing with it Loneliness and pain, I pull it close to me, This separation from you. Sometimes it colors my words Sometimes it weaves through my songs, It has taught me great deal, This separation from you. When sorrow, defeated, fell at my feet, Amazed at my fidelity, The world came out to see This separation from you. Love earned me fame. People flocked to praise me. It wept in my embrace, This separation from you. The world turned out to tell me, That I had been unwise. It sat me on a throne today This separation from you.

Chef Kishen dazzled the table. I, on the other hand, transport people to dazzling places. But I have never been able to cook like him. His touch was precise. As if music. He appraised fruits, vegetables, meats, with astonishment, and grasped them with humility, with reverence, very carefully as if they were the most fragile objects in the world. Before cooking he would ask: Fish, what would you like to become? Basil, where did you lose your heart? Lemon: It is not who you touch, but how you touch. Learn from big elaichi. There, there. Karayla, meri jaan, why are you so prudish? ... Cinnamon was 'hot', cumin 'cold', nutmeg caused good erections. Exactly: 32 kinds of tarkas. 'Garlic is a woman, Kip. Avocado, a man. Coconut, a hijra... Chilies are South American. Coffee, Arabian. "Curry powder" is a British invention. There is no such thing as Indian food, Kip. But there are Indian methods (Punjabi-Kashmiri-Tamil-Goan-Bengali-Hyderabadi). Allow a dialogue between our methods and the ingredients from the rest of the world. Japan, Italy, Afghanistan. Make something new. Channa goes well with artichokes. Rajmah with brie and parsley. Don't get stuck inside nationalities.

I had become something of a bird man – a passion that has remained with me – and could tell a Himalayan griffon from a bearded vulture and could identify the streaked laughing thrush, the orange bullfinch, Tytler’s leaf warbler and the Kashmir flycatcher, which was threatened then, and must surely by now be extinct. The trouble with being in Dachigam was that it had the effect of unsettling one’s resolve. It underlined the futility of it all. It made one feel that Kashmir really belonged to those creatures. That none of us who were fighting over it – Kashmiris, Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese (they have a piece of it too – Aksai Chin, which used to be part of the old Kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir), or for that matter Pahadis, Gujjars, Dogras, Pashtuns, Shins, Ladakhis, Baltis, Gilgitis, Purikis, Wakhis, Yashkuns, Tibetans, Mongols, Tatars, Mon, Khowars – none of us, neither saint nor soldier, had the right to claim the truly heavenly beauty of that place for ourselves. I was once moved to say so, quite casually, to Imran, a young Kashmiri police officer who had done some exemplary undercover work for us. His response was, ‘It’s a very great thought, Sir. I have the same love for animals as yourself. Even in my travels in India I feel the exact same feeling – that India belongs not to Punjabis, Biharis, Gujaratis, Madrasis, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, but to those beautiful creatures – peacocks, elephants, tigers, bears . . .’ He was polite to the point of being obsequious, but I knew what he was getting at. It was extraordinary; you couldn’t – and still cannot – trust even the ones you assumed were on your side. Not even the damn police.

My beloved. Your body is an entire galaxy; your moles and dimples a sprinkling of stars. I am just a weary desert traveller, my lips parched and searching for refreshment. Each time I am ready to give up, I look up, and there you lay in the stretch of midnight skies. Your hair billows around you and your hands fall away from your chest, revealing your pale, round breasts. At their tips, your nipples point to greet my puckered lips. I kiss them tenderly and feel the shudder of sensation rock through your body, your world. Between your legs, a flower is moistening itself, its lips plump with anticipation. Your body is an entire galaxy of its own accord. I explore you with my lips, grateful for my thirst to be quenched and when I reach your forbidden garden, my thirst becomes your hunger. Your long legs are draped around my neck, your hips thrusting against my mouth. My lips become wet with your dew. I press them inside you and feel the throb of your blood pulsing into your most intimate places. How grateful I am to have my lips against yours in this way, to connect these blushing parts of ourselves together.

The diversity of India is tremendous; it is obvious: it lies on the surface and anybody can see it. It concerns itself with physical appearances as well as with certain mental habits and traits. There is little in common, to outward seeming, between the Pathan of the Northwest and the Tamil in the far South. Their racial stocks are not the same, though there may be common strands running through them; they differ in face and figure, food and clothing, and, of course, language … The Pathan and Tamil are two extreme examples; the others lie somewhere in between. All of them have still more the distinguishing mark of India. It is fascinating to find how the Bengalis, the Marathas, the Gujaratis, the Tamils, the Andhras, the Oriyas, the Assamese, the Canarese, the Malayalis, the Sindhis, the Punjabis, the Pathans, the Kashmiris, the Rajputs, and the great central block comprising the Hindustani-speaking people, have retained their peculiar characteristics for hundreds of years, have still more or less the same virtues and failings of which old tradition or record tells us, and yet have been throughout these ages distinctively Indian, with the same national heritage and the same set of moral and mental qualities.    There was something living and dynamic about this heritage, which showed itself in ways of living and a philosophical attitude to life and its problems. Ancient India, like ancient China, was a world in itself, a culture and a civilization which gave shape to all things. Foreign influences poured in and often influenced that culture and were absorbed. Disruptive tendencies gave rise immediately to an attempt to find a synthesis. Some kind of a dream of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilization. That unity was not conceived as something imposed from outside, a standardization of externals or even of beliefs. It was something deeper and, within its fold, the widest tolerance of beliefs and customs was practiced and every variety acknowledged and even encouraged.    In ancient and medieval times, the idea of the modern nation was non-existent, and feudal, religious, racial, and cultural bonds had more importance. Yet I think that at almost any time in recorded history an Indian would have felt more or less at home in any part of India, and would have felt as a stranger and alien in any other country. He would certainly have felt less of a stranger in countries which had partly adopted his culture or religion. Those, such as Christians, Jews, Parsees, or Moslems, who professed a religion of non-Indian origin or, coming to India, settled down there, became distinctively Indian in the course of a few generations. Indian converts to some of these religions never ceased to be Indians on account of a change of their faith. They were looked upon in other countries as Indians and foreigners, even though there might have been a community of faith between them.6

I knew it was useless praying to my own God because He would not be at the First Christian Girls’ School. He would not even listen to me unless I had my head covered and I was sitting on the carpeted floor of the temple listening to the drone of Punjabi prayers. He did not understand English, which was the only language we were allowed to speak at school. It was the language of my thoughts once I left our flat every morning and stepped onto the school bus.

His stare was hateful. She uttered a quick prayer for him. Let him find balance and moderation in all things; let him listen to himself and not the noise of others. Noise. That was all the Brothers had created.

ਸਿਆਹੀ ਦੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੰਝੂ ਪਾ ਕੇ, ਮੈਂ ਵਰਕਿਆਂ ਉਤੇ ਦਰਦ ਉਕੇਰੇ ਨੇ ਦੁਨੀਆ ਆਖਦੀ ਏ ਸ਼ਾਇਰ ਧਾਲੀਵਾਲ ਨੂੰ ਪਰ ਅਸੀਂ ਮੈਂ ਸ਼ਬਦਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਜਜ਼ਬਾਤ ਪਰੋਏ ਨੇ ਪਰ ਅਸੀਂ ਮੈਂ ਸ਼ਬਦਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਜਜ਼ਬਾਤ ਪਰੋਏ ਨੇ

Mohabbat de kone vich asi ik duje diyan aankha ‘ch guaach gye, Na jaane kadon gallan-gallan ‘ch ik duje diyan baahaan ‘ch saun gye, Tu hai rab mere lyi soneya, te rab vangu rehna dill vich mere, Na chaunde si ik duje ton vakh hona, vakh hi ik duje ton share-aam ho gye, vakh ik duje ton share-aam ho gye.

Poonam, 54, is a senior United Nations official. She joined the elite Indian Administrative Service as a 23-year-old. ‘ No, no, I am not afraid. I think I wanted to be thought of  as a nice person . . . not someone with a bichhoo [ scorpion ] in her mouth that comes out suddenly, so I didn’t speak up. Like you know that aggressive Punjabi woman, I didn’t want that to happen. I think it was all these  things  –  what will so-and-so think, how they won’t see it from my point of view and thinking that the  whole  relationship  will fail. So many fears, imagined or real, who knows . . .    I just want to please, please, please. I have never been able  to communicate or talk openly and clearly with people who matter to me, who I love, my family and friends, about what I want. I would get small small ideas from outside like keep your own account – but I was so scared to say it. Even today. Slowly I am changing with little little things. What TV show to watch, what food to eat.

A strong woman wears a salwar kurta, a sari, pants   or a dress. A strong woman speaks in Hindi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Kannada or English. A strong woman is vital, joyous and alive with dreams, hopes and thoughts. A strong woman can love and care deeply for her family. A strong woman chooses marriage and family, early, late or never. A strong woman chooses to stay at home and never work outside the home or chooses a career and family passionately. A strong woman chooses to compete and excel or not. A strong woman chooses what and when to sacrifice for her family and society. A strong woman cares and pleases but also knows when to stop. A strong woman is not by definition oppositional; she chooses when to collaborate, when to oppose, when to support and when to be a solo player. A strong woman is unapologetic about her choices, yet she has the wisdom to know when she has wronged someone and the humility to say ‘I am sorry’ without making ‘sorry’ her life mantra.

The management of the family and their affect during this period is heavily gendered in a series of conflicting moves. The masculine military manages the external business of dying, much as the men do in a traditional Punjabi household during a regular funeral. Thus the men in the family are rendered passive during military funerals. They are reduced to the helpless feminine, merely receiving instructions from the military. The father weeping helplessly at the side of the grave or breaking down during the ceremonial handing over of the cap and flag juxtaposed with the composed and stoic military reflect other emasculations. The way women grieve is a point of concern for the military. A brigadier from the military directorate, which organizes funerals, explains this preoccupation. The soldier’s family, especially the mother and wife, are very jazbati (emotional). The soldier has gone through training; he is more educated and less emotional. Grief affects the zehen and can demoralize and stop future generations [from joining the army]. We don’t want to distress them [the family] further, so sometimes it is best that they do not see or touch. We want to save them from pain and distress. 183/378

Sharav was a Punjabi businessman in Delhi, bound to his roots and family, confident of his place in the world, certain of the future he wanted. Samara was a rootless free spirit who wanted to travel the globe, having adventures. Delhi had been nothing more than a pit stop for her. They didn’t belong together, he argued against his dejected heart.

2 March Mental Wellness Day DON'T SIT BEHIND CLOSED DOORS YOUR THOUGHTS WILL EAT YOU UP अजी बुए बारी पीड़ के न बैठो तुआनु अपनी सोच चबा जेगी (खा) ਅਜੀ ਬੁਹੇ ਬਾਰੀ ਭੀੜ ਕੇ ਨ ਬੈਠੋ ਤੁਹਾਨੂੰ ਆਪਣੀ ਸੋਚ ਚਬਾ ਜੇਗੀ AJI BUHE PHEED KE N BAITHO TUANU APNI SOCH CHABA JEGI

rule the Punjabis, intimidate the Sindhis, honour the Baluch and buy the Pashtun.

That Pakistan should face a particularly acute challenge in forging a coherent national identity will scarcely surprise those who have long pointed to its artificiality as a nation-state. Indeed, at independence, the country was largely bereft of the prerequisites of viable nationhood. The exceptional physical configuration of the new state, in which its eastern and western territories were separated (until 1971 and the secession of Bangladesh) by more than a thousand miles of Indian territory, was an immediate handicap. So was its lack of a common language. Its choice of Urdu—spoken by a small minority—to serve as a national language was fiercely resisted by local regional groups with strong linguistic traditions. They expressed powerful regional identities that separated the numerically preponderant Bengalis of the country’s eastern province from their counterparts in the west, where Punjabis dominated over Sindhis, Pashtuns and Balochis. Pakistan’s national integration was further handicapped by the lack of a common legacy grounded in a strong nationalist narrative informed by a mass anti-colonial struggle. Yet, these severe limitations were judged to be of secondary importance when set against the fact of a shared religion—Islam—held up by Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), as the real test of the Muslim ‘nation’ that would inherit Pakistan.

This avoidance of voiced aspirates in the languages of the North-west suggests that modern Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi and Pashto have what looks like a Dravidian substratum. Even Burushaski, a ‘language isolate’ with no known relatives from the remote Hunza Valley, has aspirates, though not voiced aspirates, and a dental-retroflex distinction.

wondered why men needed all that space when their answers to everything were always ‘no’.

Sarab mistook these as tears of relief, but Kulwinder had been transported to the past, when she had given this boy her blessings. He had turned out to be a monster, but at one point, she had called him her son.

For the first time in their lives they could openly share their most private thoughts and know that they weren’t alone. I helped them to discover that, and I became willing to learn from them as well. Those women were used to turning the other cheek when injustices were committed because it’s inappropriate to get involved, or to go to the police and betray your own. But they didn’t hesitate to help me and put themselves at risk when I was in danger. They know that they’re capable of fighting.

Let him find balance and moderation in all things; let him listen to himself and not the noise of others. Noise.

He observed the awkward position the Pakistan Army had been forced into in Waziristan. Tribal uprisings had taught the British empire to maintain a light footprint there, to maintain control by providing cash subsidies from the relative safety of Peshawar. Independent Pakistan’s generals were mostly ethnic Punjabis—effectively foreigners when they toured Waziristan. They had internalized Britain’s lessons. Through a system of local political agents, and through I.S.I.’s construction of forward operating bases during the anti-Soviet Afghan war, Pakistan had developed its own Islamism-influenced system of light presence and heavy subsidies, with an implied guarantee of autonomy for local tribes.

While he read, spun, walked or wrote, Gandhi was under the watch of ‘convict warders’, the prisoners who had been in Yerwada for a long time and whose good behaviour allowed them to supervise new entrants. The first warder assigned to look after Gandhi was a Punjabi Hindu called Harkaran, who had been convicted of murder, and already served nine years of a fourteen-year sentence. Harkaran was a master of stealing and hiding trifles, as indeed were many other prisoners in Yerwada. As Gandhi was to wryly write later: ‘If the whole of the jail yard were to be dug up twelve inches deep, it would yield up many a secret in the shape of spoons, knives, pots, cigarettes, soaps, and such like.’ Harkaran, ‘being one of the oldest inmates of Yerwada, was a sort of purveyor-general to the prisoners’. If an inmate wanted a knife, spoon, pot or pan, he knew where and how to get one. Harkaran watched over Gandhi during the day. At night, he was replaced by a powerful Baloch named Shabaskhan, also convicted of murder. Gandhi thought the authorities had deliberately chosen a Muslim to balance the Hindu. Not that he minded, for Shabaskhan’s build reminded him of his friend Shaukat Ali, while he told Gandhi on the very first day: ‘I am not going to watch you at all. Treat me as your friend and do exactly as you like'.

Rockefeller’s researchers did not initially inform the Punjabis that their pills would prevent women from bearing children. McGoey describes the villagers as “shocked,” “dismayed,” and “resentful” to learn that the medication they credulously consumed was intended to render them infertile:

are Punjabis. We only eat fresh food in this house. Got it?” Her tone brooked no argument.

We are Punjabis,” he stated, as though she weren’t already aware of the fact. “We say it like it is. We’re loud, shiny, and love our drink, but we wouldn’t change a thing. Pun-jaa-bii!” He rally-cried the last word with a raised fist, peering around as if expecting a cheer, maybe a spontaneous bhangra dance.

and used the dough to make wheat tortillas, which Biba labelled “flat rotis no self-respecting Punjabi would ever make.

Yes, besides English, I can stutter my way my into Russian, Turkish, Arabic, French, and some Farsi, Urdu, Punjabi and a bit of Kurdish.” He laughed at himself. What he liked best about the next was that she didn’t deny it, yet spoke immediately. “I like the rhythm of your speech. It’s interesting.” She blinked, looking sheepishly sincere, then added, “I, um, have to be careful sometimes or I’d find myself imitating it, answering back in the same rhythm, or some facsimile of it.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it as well. But sometimes I know just how you’ll say a sentence, before it’s out, and I want to say it too, like wanting to dance with you.

Gautam Bhatia, an eclectic architect, wrote a series of articles for India Magazine on ‘Punjabi Chippendale’ and ‘Sindhi Baroque’ that well described that period of real estate growth.

They talked about the lives they had left behind in Calcutta: your mother's beautiful home in Jodhpur Park, with hibiscus and rosebushes blooming on the rooftop, and my mother's modest flat in Maniktala, above a grimy Punjabi restaurant, where seven people existed in three small rooms. In Calcutta they would probably have had little occasion to meet. Your mother went to a convent school and was the daughter of one of Calcutta's most prominent lawyers, a pipe-smoking Anglophile and a member of the Saturday Club. My mother's father was a clerk in the General Post Office, and she had neither eaten at a table nor sat on a commode before coming to America. Those differences were irrelevant in Cambridge, where they were both equally alone. Here they shopped together for groceries and complained about their husbands and cooked either our stove or yours, dividing up the dishes for our respective families when they were done. They knitted together, switching projects when one of them got bored. When I was born, your parents were the only friends to visit the hospital. I was fed in your old high chair, pushed along the streets in your old pram.

These Punjabi girls .. such a bloom when they're young. But do they age as we do?

This great region—the birthplace of Indus Valley civilization, Mauryan Empire, Ranjit Singh’s Empire, and the secular and pacifist philosophy of Sikhism—has been destroyed in the past forty years by pathetic leadership and crude amalgamation of religion and politics. Consider this: Punjab can boast of two Nobel laureates out of a total of four for the whole subcontinent, if we leave aside Mother Teresa. Such is our intellectual achievement in spite of the perpetual myth that Punjabis are all brawn and no brain. But . . . what happened at the time of partition destroyed Punjabis totally on both sides of the border. And I don’t mean just the refugees. They, of course, are still traumatised by the genocide. But . . . do you think the millions who indulged in murders, rapes, and plunder on both sides were able to just shirk off their feelings of sin and remorse? It... would have been impossible. Just look at the figures of growing alcohol and drug consumption in post-partition Punjab. I believe the guilt and remorse propelled a lot of people towards the path of alcohol and drug abuse.

The best explanation for India’s shortage of fast bowlers is not religious or physiological: India has 30 million Punjabis of its own and an awful lot of tall people. It is cultural. India’s biggest cricketing heroes have been batsmen, from Nayudu to Gavaskar and Tendulkar. Some see in this a continuation of the old British snobbery favouring gentleman-batsmen over working-class bowlers.

It was a misalliance. Gargi’s diet was literary sarson ka saag; Jeannie was American apple pie. Gargi wanted appreciation for what he wrote; Jeannie never bothered to learn Punjabi and was therefore unable to become a part of her husband’s claque. Gargi was gregarious, open-hearted in his hospitality, with not much in his kitty to be open-hearted about; Jeannie cherished the privacy of her home and could not stomach people dropping in at all hours. She also had an enormous appetite for food, which embarrassed Gargi for the simple reason that his friends might think he did not give her enough to eat at home. It was Gargi who took the irrevocable step to break up the marriage by committing adultery. Gargi wrote an emotionally charged account of his lustful encounter with one of his girl students in a garage, through the window of which could see his wife and children. It was a detailed and lusty account of the love-making, describing even the size of her breasts and her nipples. And that was the end of his marriage with the beautiful Jeannie. In

In almost every place, however, lives were saved because ingenious or brave help came from the other side, while other lives were prolonged by doctors true to their profession. As long as we two brothers are alive and our rifles have bullets we will never let you touch the Muslim patients in this hospital.48 Addressed to assailants storming (and, soon afterwards, leaving) their Amritsar hospital, these words spoken by Dr Parshottam Dutt on his behalf and that of his brother Dr Narain Das reflected the gallant spirit of many unknown Punjabis, Sikh, Muslim and Hindu, of March 1947.

Battle-itch, hate, contempt and greed. The ingredients were waiting to be utilized, and a strategy presented itself to John Lawrence. Recall, with due care, the Sikh love of war. Stir and use the dislikes: Sikh resentment of Muslim rule, Muslim resentment of Sikh domination, Punjabi disdain of the Purbiah. Spread word of the chance to plunder Delhi under British protection.

Lajpat Rai, by this time a member of the Central Assembly. Writing a series of articles in the Tribune (November and December 1924), Rai argued that since Punjabi Muslims were unwilling to grant weightage to Hindus and Sikhs, Punjab should be partitioned into Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority portions. (He proposed a similar solution for Bengal.)