Diary of a Punjabi woman

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 allat one point of time has gripped my village. There have been numerous cases of love which