Every day like the sun which shines bright, we have a
long queue of interesting visitors standing outside the gates who come forth
with their problems, ordinary mundane problems, health issues and the usual attar
dal scheme and some come just to gossip and pay respects.
Yesterday, one of them who had just come back from
phoren came to pay her respects. She is a young woman who had turned her life
around. Nikki (all young girls are called this in Punjab) had been our maid and
when she got older she was married off. She has two children but was married to
a no good alcoholic, wife beater of a rascal. She eventually divorced him and
taught her self ; elementary English and later on enrolled herself into a
beauty parlor to learn the tricks and got a diploma. Nikki was very
enterprising and ambitious; she also managed to get a visa to work as a maid at
Singapore and went on a contract!
This was her visit back and she was wearing the gold
bangles, gold chain, a few gold rings and a diamond ring and gold baaliyan / loops
that are the trademark of every Punjabi returning back from’bahaar.. Oh, did I
mention Nikki is a young fair striking Nepalese Indian citizen so she looks
very western in her appearance.
We kept on
talking and admiring her jewelry and even told her to be careful while visiting
family in Ludhiana for fear of chain snatching that is very common in Punjab. She
then told us, her brother had refused to take her with him, as he knew the
groups of boys who were involved in petty crime would target them and would beat them if they resisted.
What she told me, made me laugh. Actually, these
thieves also have honor, and a policy albeit a strange one.
She told us that last week in one of the many streets
of our crisscrossed village, a gang snatched off an old woman’s earrings. They
threw her down and went away, after a short while they came back and threw the
earrings back at her and told her to stop wearing these artificial earrings as
that wasted their time! This checking is done at the corner Uncleji’s dukaan that
doubles as the village goldsmith too.
They actually came back, returned the earrings and
issued a warning in the village cautioning the women to wear only real jewelry
and no artificial gold look a like stuff as that wasted their time!
It was such a funny laugh. Imagine, the instructions
and the code being laid down by the thieves! Standards in Punjab have gone up
and the beggars so commonly found at the red lights of every intersection also
do not take alms if they are less than 10 Rs. Gone are the days ,w hen one
could appease one’s conscience by just slipping a few coins.Now days, with
inflation they also have their standards and need a minimum just like the
farmers who need a minimum support price to sell their crops.
Bhagkton, what do you say to this? Honour among thieves
; taking a cue from our beloved neta who has set the standard for the society….
No comments:
Post a Comment