Open letter to CM Sa'ab

Dear CM Saab,

A royal salaam! I had so many hopes and aspirations and still do when you won the state elections fair and square and with a resounding, convincing majority to change the state’s fortunes. Punjab is as much as your state as it is mine and I am deeply passionate about changing its fortunes as much as you and your bandwagon and the promising election manifesto that was laid out to woo all of us and sundry!

Captain Sahib, I am disappointed and this is not because I am an Akali and I am going to go down the familiar ‘tu’tu main main’ path that my horse is bigger than yours and so forth. Its actually my fault, I am an ordinary farmer’s wife from the village boondock’s and I had assumed that you would used this opportunity of visiting Defense minister who happened to be a Sikh to your advantage and your state. Sir, no one can match you in wit, or the excellent command of the language, you’re a historian (an author of repute and I have read every one your books plus the cooking special – have to cook you see) and the icing is that you are an army man; this could have been the diplomatic coup in your turban and your plume would have outshone all. But, your childish, churlish refusal to meet a fellow Punjabi who has risen to an exalted position of being a Defense minister of a country where you wanted to go preach and garner votes and advance your political fortunes while playing to the fat, rich NRI gallery.

Why did we not show our famous large –hearted Punjabi hospitality to a minister who was visiting? Why did you just brand him as a Khalistani? What are you planning to achieve by doing him a dis-service?

I am sure he has been thoroughly interrogated, vetted and probed and then was made the minister and to be childish to label him this without any proof was not expected of you! It’s like being in the playground of the school and as children do a tit-for tat reaction as his country had not let you in to convince and influence the floating voting Punjabi!

 Imagine the adulation and the far greater impact you would have had worldwide and the youth who would have idolized you more for rolling out the red carpet for Sajjan. In fact, just being your charming self you could have won every one over. Also, a country that has one of the highest populations abroad of Punjabis diaspora one could have worked for greater co-operation and also opened up industry, agriculture avenues.

I think, if I am not mistaken all those benefits are going next door, I mean to Haryana and we are left high and dry.

Doesn’t a soldier soldier on and make the best of the situation?

I don’t know much, but I wish you had welcomed a son of the soil, who is visiting Punjab as we speak and has been covered by the press and the media internationally.

He himself says , that there could have been a lot of co operation on civil, defense and that could have ushered in a much needed boost for the economy as you say we are in the worst debt since the crash of 29!

Me thinks , you protested too much and the egg fell on your face , but it could be the other way I could be horribly wrong too .

Yours truly ,

Pind wali bibi !

The Siren call of the Parantha

The forbidden fruit was not the apple. Nope you’re mistaken it was the parantha which keeps on saying take me, take me. It’s manna and literally the bread from heaven that miraculously saves us not from wilderness but just is the comfort food that engulfs and satiates one. This is what has happened to me, and the miraculous pile up of calories and woe beside before I know it’s summer.

My spring body is extinct or lost in transition it just refuses to recognize that its spring and everything is in full bloom and it should follow the norm. I think my eternal clock just skipped this part and it’s become elusive and is spring roll now. Summer heralds the arrival of all things white, floaty and flowing and one starts to show off one’s body in things that are getting tighter and smaller and are for the body fit woman of today.

Methinks, there is a hidden conspiracy between the clothes manufacturer’s and the dieticians. They are making everything smaller and I am frantically trying to consult a dietitian. And, every time I try to call her she is busy somewhere else and the receptionist in her thin squeaky voice says next Wednesday.

Is Wednesday an auspicious day, I wonder? Till then I have searched Google Aunty / Bhenji anything to make me lose the kilos that crept in slowly and steadily as my love affair with paranthas is ongoing. Its been going on for a while along with books and coffee. I think the deadly combination of these three has got me ready with spring rolls and my summer body as all the billboards proclaim is sort of missing in action this year.

Nor, do I have a magic wand nor do I have a reducer so I was goggling away and asking everyone and sundry to help me with their tips.

No one, I mean no one let’s you into the secrets; however all I got was bizarre answers, from soya biscuits to water with weird ingredients to speed up my metabolism and eating the cucurbits family by the kilos. All that one gains is more toilet time, and the pressure to walk so that one meets the quota of the fit bit steps so set. It’s like one is app’fied to live, eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom, take steps, be lulled to sleep with soothing music, and everything is monitored.

I am trying all this and am eating this dry roti that is a mix of all the grains one can think of; no one can be more demographically secular than me but the lure of the siren aka the parantha is too strong to resist. It’s just like the mermaid call that made all the ships sink and they took the treasure, here it’s my body!

Punjabis, swear by the simple parantha eaten with aam ka achar, nothing comes close to this simple pleasure and we all grew up on this before the pancake, crepe invasion but suddenly its muesli, oats, and dry brown bran infused multigrain toast thanks to the cholesterol, high blood pressure, stressed out me.

Today’s society is so cruel and unkind that we judge the other by the shape of their body, the skin, color and shape. If one is not the image as proclaimed by the media or projected as the ‘it’ image of the western wearing streaked hair, branded person you are not modern enough. Heaven forbid, your hair is in a bun you are categorized as a bhenji. WE are a society in a hurry that pre-judges, and labels and categorizes just because one is fat and isn’t thin or isn’t fair. Yesterday, I read the best line be like the gulab jamun it didn’t use fair and lovely to become rosgullas.

We need to accept ourselves, just the way we are (I did with my spring rolls and stubbornly defiant white hair) and then we can be tolerant of each other.

Remember ladies and gentleman, the parantha isn’t at fault its our outlook that is!  The lovingly cooked, maa ke haath, golden brown parantha understands when nothing else does! And, abou those kilos ,it doesn’t matter just get that kurta stitched a bit looser so you can breathe and not be like the mannequin that just doesn’t exist ! Live a little, smile a bit more , and go slow on eating the parantha , relish it and the pieces will all fall into place just like a puzzle .

Do we need hanky's?

I run an evening school and to sound clichéd it just gives me joy and happiness that can’t be measured in words nor can I say I did this for any recognition neither to use it to climb the social ladder (trust me this one has been said). And, as the school year starts I start to call up my all my friends and ask for books, stationary, clothes and anything they can give . Indians have this inbuilt mechanism, we hoard the whole year and then we spring clean to lighten the load and then to collect again. Maybe we all are magpies.

A lot of times, miracle happen, just like this year, an acquaintance who became a friend just donated her children’s entire library of books, the biggest encyclopedia set and clothes of various sizes and just about anything she could, she sent across!  The day, school started I distributed everything, books to the right kids, clothes to who ever needed them and then I was left with brand new set of handkerchiefs.

We all have grown up with them; we all went to school with them with a safety pin pinned on our uniform. If you’re going to say you didn’t well you missed out on the best memories or maybe I am ancient (which holds true).

I gave the set to my youngest set of girls who are really poor and just have nothing; they are my Radha and Lakshmi (twins). Their mother works in the fields and they are from U.P. and she is a young widow, with no hopes of going back and stands out like a sore thumb in this robust state. So these little girls of four had never known what a handkerchief meant, to clean the snot it was a rub with the back of the hand or to just use their shirts.

It was joyous to see their reaction! The fact they owned something that was new, bright and shiny and had a cartoon made on it, made them light up. Then to have something clean their noses made them laugh with sheer unadulterated joy! They looked at me when I explained what it was for and they said madam ji, aap pagala Gaye hain! 

With this line in chaste Hindi, the entire school started giggling and well madam jib also burst out!

Imagine how, we complicate life. Simple things are changed and we make them out to be so tangled and intricate.

We bind ourselves into so many knots and make it cumbersome. These children teach me to take life with a pinch of salt.

In fact, these children are happy with so little and it doesn’t matter if it’s new or is of the latest model. There is no rat race; none of them are worried about the latest model or of fashion. They are contended with what they have, what they are given and if it doesn’t fit; it’s given to the next child without even being told to. The sense of joy and contentment that these children have is more than one can fathom. Every day being with them is refreshing and makes me believe we can do with less. Life for us is now equated with things, material possessions, a person’s worth is by what he wears, the brands he has or what his outer cover is.

We think poverty is a crunch, it isn’t. It limits them but they far happier than us. Imagine being told now , madam iski kya zarrorat and then Radha , tells me that why should one buy a piece of cloth to wipe one’s nose? One just uses any piece of cloth , if needed.

Point hain .