The Early Life of Punjab

Once a flourished household, today's Punjab holds loneliness and grief in its village alleys. Gone are the days when small kids used to run pointless here and there in these lanes, often hitting an elderly person on their way. Now, we do not see the young chaps going to the fields very early morning to address water into their cultivations. A faded beam of light guides your way in these barren walkways. It seems like a curse in which everyone just vanished in thin air. No sound of children studying in the street schools, no smell of cow dung, no enquiring eyes following you from a distance, absolutely nothing at all.

The Punjab today is almost vacated by its inhabitants as these birds found other lands to exist and flourish. Blame the development or the corruption or the Government, now no one wishes to stay in this once a princely state of India. Two decades have gone by seeing people board planes to foreign countries, leaving their flocks and fields as it is.

A silent and a rather peaceful re-partition era of Punjab witnessed by us all, admittedly. No blood shed yet the red marks of a wounded heart can be seen in the eyes of the people here, those who could not make it to any other country. Reasons could be anything, poverty, age, lack of opportunities and what not. Let's not get into the actual statistics. The real part to notice is the dilemma of a society, yearning to find its support and fighting not to get faded away in the dark realm of reality.

It was a joy to witness the prosperity once this land had and the abundant culture its people imbibed in their shades. Even as a young chap, I could understand the rural, raw Punjabi dialect in one go. Although, I always hesitated to speak the language as we were brutally made fun of by the local kids as well as my cousins. The houses bore a royal yet earthy touch in its walls and barracks. The paint job would vanish sooner and would only be re-painted on some special occasion like a marriage or the birth of a new member in the family. The culture of the joint family could be seen as all the relatives would flock the house and remain stayed there even after the event would end. Such was the hospitality seen here. People of all age groups, elderly to the kids, would sit in a common area and enjoy the event through out the day and night. 

Not being able to witness such things again brings a strange type of grief and sadness in the heart. I wish the people of Punjab, settled abroad, could at least come often and let their kids know the real culture and richness of the state of Punjab.