Punjab and Saanu ki

It’s been ten days and again and again I go back to the movie, I watched Udta Punjab. It’s a depiction how four lives are entwined due to the addiction of drugs and the scourge that is gripping Punjab. The movie has been discussed to death, we have had post mortems, loud debates censorship editorials and enough has been written that we could fill the library of Alexandria. I have followed it closely because I believe in the freedom of speech, freedom of viewership, for me to censor something is akin to inciting and instigating the viewer to download or better still to just set up a torrent like I do.

The public should be allowed to judge what the movie is all about and one should be confident that the voter would not be influenced in the forthcoming elections. It’s not about AAP, BJP or the Alkalis.

Every one of my friends and I have a large number of friends on my face book account who are Punjabis and family are vehement and vocal of how Punjab has been ruined and we are a generation that is forever lost. How drugs are the sixth rivers? How the Akalis have ruined Punjab? How every seventh Punjabi is a drug addict? How in the streets of every rural village of Punjab, every street is lined with drug addicts, boys and girls, old and young. How we all are going to be zombies and how the next generation to escape the demand s, stresses and the excesses is losing it to the chemical poison.

I asked on my face book what we as Punjabis can do? You know just as normal human beings and not colored in the blue or saffron hues or the white. How could we correct what ails us? I had an interesting day, 12 people liked what I asked / wrote and seven wrote back out of the 423! And, we proclaim ourselves to be worried about Punjab. We want to usher in an era of growth, prosperity, we want to miraculously get rid of the menace of drugs, addiction, hopelessness, usher in castles of prosperity and growth.

Every day I read the papers, tall claims are made but does anyone actually do anything? We just love bashing the other party, as we are so pure, and so without fault, and that we have all the answers. I just want to ask not because I was asked by the Akali party or by any politician nor do I have any ulterior motive, what were the statistics when the other party’ was in power?

Why did they not stop the infiltration when they had their own party in the center? Yes the previous PM has been the wisest of them all, he is the Dumbledore of them all. But Sir, why did you not whip up a magic spell for us to save us from the impending doom? If we are, and we are an agricultural farm based economy why are we not given more benefits? Why is our wheat ok for consumption, but when we ask for higher rates we are slammed with statistics that it’s not fit, or the pesticide rate is high. How is that we were ok and suitable for green Revolution and were projected as a study all over the world are, are now shunned?

Where did I go wrong as a Punjabi? I believe in the spirit. Show me, someone who is as large hearted, spirited as a Punjabi (and I do not mean any pun here). Why is it that we have a don’t die, never give in philosophy, too rise up against any adversary but we are in the recent portrayed for all negative that happens?

Should one start pointing fingers at other states to show oneself in a better light? Is that what we need to do? Sell the state to the media barons who manipulate, to address the situation.

In the last few days, we came third in the national games, how many were drugged there? We had a good success on the recruitment for the armed forces; we still contribute a high percentage to the country’s coffers. How is that the good is never highlighted?

Is it just what you want to see, what is shown to you, what is bombarded at you, repeatedly on a shuffle that oh this person died due to a drug over dose, farmer’s committed suicide?

Why do we all sit helpless look at the other side like a dodo, burying our head in the sand? Forget national pride, we don’t have pride in saying we are Punjabi.

We are Punjabi when we listen to crass, rude, double meaning, vulgar songs with mustache twirling and standing in a white kurta pajama on our jeep, with definitely a revolver stashed somewhere always having some connection which is our safety exit to a foreign country preferably Canada. We are Punjabi, when the zameen is worth close to 1.5 cr and we can cut a colony by greasing palms in PUDA. We are Punjabis, WE are Punjabis, when we can come back from America or Xanadu and claim that our land is being usurped by the villagers. We cry loud, bad mouth, cry ourselves that land is being eaten up, but do we want to pay taxes, no, do we want to live here, no, do we want to understand the system, no, we just want the prevailing theka and that should be deposited in the bank so it can be converted into dollars or pounds and if the farmer says, sir you need laser leveling, he is bad mouthed. And gets to hear how we are fleecing them. And how nothing like this happen back home.

Well stay there. Why do these spring proverbial chickens only surface during elections? Why do they come and influence the voter in our villages? Do we go en masse to America or England or Canada to fight and play dirty in the council elections?

Why can you not follow our laws? Till we don’t spend on education, on general awareness which is not the onus on one person , we cannot progress. Also , I feel why should some one be allowed to tarnish my state what ever hue they want ?

Yes , I have my share of my problems, yes I have poverty , drug use, feticide, pesticide over dose , no heavy industry , no infrastructure , what are you doing to help me ?

And , if all you can do is shower negativity on my parade why don’t you leave, kind Sir?And hopefully next time you do reply , rather than look away and say saanu ki .

It’s the saanu ki that brought us here .