Diary of a Punjabi woman
It is dawn in my village nestled outskirts of a sprawling city of Punjab; one of many trying to break into modernism and desperately failing like an aged prostitute who tries to mask her shortcomings by too much paint and cosmetics. How, I wish we had remained let our own identity be….
Fog lies on the landscape of Doaba, penetrating cold that seeps into one’s marrow. As the sky brightens, the outline of the surrounding landscape unfolds. My village’s landscape comes in the fore like a woman who hesitantly picks her veil and shows her hidden beauty. There are a couple of huge sprawling houses which dominate the misty skyline of my pind but the rest are the multi-storied haphazard structures of layered rooftops, draped with wires and all sorts of kundi connections and the laundry! The brick and concrete intermingles with the thatched roof and the occasional mud-plastered mixed with cow-dung thatched roof woven with bamboo sticks. Winter permeates and a mildewed atmosphere is everywhere, no matter how affluent the house is. The harshness of winter is stark, sparing no one. The sky changes from steel gray to faint translucent turquoise promising a warmer day but the aquamarine light has black silhouettes.
As another day begins, the village splutters into life, the morning sounds are heard. The daily sound which makes this cosmos is the same here and I think just the language changes but all over the world the flow is the same.
My village grapples with deep and volatile frustrations of poverty and hardships which threaten to ignite into violence and upheaval, simmering discontent is seen on the faces of my happy go-lucky villagers who try too hard to eke out a living faced by shrinking land-holdings, dwindling water reserves and invisible electric supply. Desire and anger both forms of fire, are incited and suicidal battles are fought in the name of religious hatred and imaginary boundaries are etched out tempting the balance of power in this beautiful state of mine.
I wonder whether the so –called custodians have ever taken out time to even visit their constituencies when not spruced took like a newly-wed alluring one with the mystique and promise.
When the sirens of the elections beckon they come back laden with tempting gifts and beguile us with promises of utopia. Hiding behind these masks of congeniality are the destroyers of the moral fiber of our society. We get corrupted, are corrupted but here I would like to just put forward one of the steps in the ladder which led us to this peak.
I got married into a traditional family of agriculturists based in this beautiful village nestled and cocooned in nature in proximity to the city but yet so far that it seemed that we all existed in a world of our own. Punjab, which is so dear to me and to every self-respecting Punjabi faces problems which seem to spiral out of control. Every politician, big, small, fat, thin fit or not so fit has cried himself hoarse from every platform that he is THE Angel Gabriel out to save Punjab from the clutches of the rest. I wonder when, we will all collectively start doing something in reality, rather than being loud gasbags. I could write hosannas and pages or even earn a doctoral thesis over ‘doing something’ but sadly the problems would still remain. The moral fiber of us is dead long buried under the debris of accumulated materialism and the nonchalance which is in our genetic framework now. I mean if you are reading this you are comfortable in life have everything going, if even if you would say, Oh lord! The prices, my budget is all astray! We would all blame the ruling party and take sides with the other party, but would willingly shell out money for the next car or the lighter shade of grey toosh shawl...
It’s interesting to note that I myself am guilty of this and read the paper cover to cover but do we do something to correct and trust me I procrastinate. Forget this for another time (see guilty, again).
Love, the most mysterious wonderful chemical reaction which strikes us all at one point of time has gripped my village. There have been numerous cases of love which are sprouting, every kudi / munda worth of his her hormones was surging ahead with lurve the wonderful feeling. Was it because of the increased financial independence or the fact that we were in the age of self proclamation of desires. The era where one loves silently purely has given away to increasing overt displays of affection and that was what was happening here. The local chaiwallh daughter’s who was happily married in the next village happened to come back for one of the routine visits which all girls make back to their parents. Well, she was walking to the fields next to the chappar on the outskirts where the ‘ ghora wala baba’ had his samadh. This was a lonely place which was knowingly not visited by the male inhabitants of village as all the women went there to do their business. It so happened, she went by herself that night with no one to give her company , except the crutch of the new generation the mobile phone blaring the new item song..Rajo, was walking back when she passed Satish who used to work with her in the cold –storage. He was easy on the eye, and a smooth talker. They started talking and one thing led to another. Easy accessibility over the phone and visits to the village led to an explosion of romance which made Rajo realize what she was missing in life. She wanted romance, love, excitement, escape from the drudgery of daily work, the lure of the forbidden love and the sexual tension she felt with Satish which was missing with her husband. She ran away from her husband’s love to be united with her one and true love. According to the latest reports, she ran at night and the next morning the pair was missing. Well, all hell broke and the case was being registered. Rajo’s mother was crying and lamenting the fact that her daughter had been born, she wished the the dai’ had killed her the day she was born. The chaiwallah wanted to kill his daughter because she had run away with a boy form the lower caste, the mohalla was all aghast over her running away. The poor cuckolded husband was ready to take her back, if she came back and denied everything. He was of modern thought you see, twelfth pass and agreed to give her another chance, being fair and all. What he had planned for her later was for another day, another thought...
Rajo was hiding with her lover with whom she thought she would have a better life, true love. The case when brought to be discussed in the panchayat meeting was more on the lines that the girl should be brought back and taught a lesson. I wonder, what teaching a lesson is. I don’t think we need to go in to the details of the new fangled emotions which are more on lines of a sexual buzz temporary and which fizzle out leaving one to face the harsh reality of the after morning.
Rajo yes had run away, yes she had committed adultery, yes she had runaway with someone of the lower caste (by the way Punjab does not still have castes tattooed on their foreheads). We do not have invisible numbers which are visible to our same caste brethren; yes she was guilty of all charges. She was the scarlet woman of our village and everyone was wondering about the audacity shown by her and no one said it but it just spelled one answer.
Actually, it was not wonder, it was the certain fate which was spelled out but was not spoken out aloud. The next morning, the pind was abuzz that Rajo had been brought back and then somebody had seen her near the chappar..
How did the girl and the young boy mysteriously die and how did they ever hang themselves on the peepal tree adjoining the samadh is a mystery. Mind you, this happened in daylight, where everyone is going to work, to school, the whole village is in motion. Women are coming back answering nature’s calls, men are standing in clusters scratching their groins and munching some twig doing their dental hygiene bit. It seemed my entire village was out in broad daylight basking in the mild feeble winter sun which was trying to break through the fog which has enveloped us.
Was it some sort of code where the bodies were found hung, next to the samadh where every Thursday young girls came to worship, light diyas, give parsad so as to make a good match?
The sad part is that we all have become so hardened and just live our lives so sheltered in our security zones that if someone has died or has been killed ; what difference does it make. Oh by the way, this was duly reported in the vernacular paper, my pind made headlines, albeit for one day.