LISTEN TO YOUR INNER VOICE

 

BABA JI -General Gulab Singh of Pahuwind, a general in the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh/also     Governor of Peshawar-Humbled and proud of this lineage .

The family home

I  am not sure from where this streak of activism has sprouted within me?

 

Yes, I belong to a family where both “Nankas”(1) and “Dadkas”(2) have connections with Pind.

 

My memories of the Pind are all about sugar and spice and all things nice.

They are about balmy summer months of a blissful childhood with cousins.

 

The memories are poignant with laughter and jokes amongst cousins. Unlike the fancy European cultural holidays or the shopping trips to Singapore that are the norm now, our summers were spent between my Pinds of the Dadkas and Nankas (maternal and paternal villages)

 

Our  mornings would inevitably begin with a variety of  parathas i.e. Aalu, Dal wale or with Anda Bhujia  and curd, glasses of “khati”(3) lassi followed by a “queue” for the bath as despite the house being so huge, it did not have the mod cons of ensuite bathrooms that one expects now.

 

Then of course, the tryst with the ping pong ball in our “lamba”(4) kamra (5)which was like a school dorm with its row of beds and an argument about who would be sleeping next to whom?? The house has thick walls, so the windowsills were used for lounging in and reading and watching

 "Lal Anheri" the red storm, a peculiar phenomenon that occurred in the 70’s, a very strong dust storm that was completely  relentless; the staff would talk about it the following morning and tell us about how a woman from our neighbouring country, Pakistan had been blown into our village we would of course listen wide eyed and actually believed them. Till date, I am not sure if were just being fobbed off.

 

And then of course, there was the mango ice cream. The homemade mango ice cream churned in the old fashioned ice cream maker that involved  lots of ice and coarse salt ; lots of churning done by the  old faithful “Bhau”(6) Gyan whose family had been in ours for a fair few generations. I remember him as being an awfully skinny, very talkative bloke who was a butt of many jokes both by us- little imps and the rest of the staff but the jokes were never wicked? Or were they??

 

Then of course were the numerous pets that were my Dadiji’s pride and joy. They ranged from  pedigreed Sandy, the golden  retriever, Rita the German Shepherd and a few pie dogs , some cats and the most hated of them all- a particularly, ugly very ill-behaved pie dog called Sweety ...who was lovingly called “Teetan”by our granny. These pets were her passion, her true love, sorry papaji  .We were all resigned to this hierarchical order ; we girls ranked a dismal second last compared to, first, her cats and dogs , her husband , her grandsons,sons,daughters, granddaughters and then of course the daughters in law( our mothers)??

  

But we were not unduly concerned- our prime focus was to wangle the most amount of Cadburys nutties that  could be squeezed out from our  slightly frightening and very  quirky  Tayaji or get to choose which Pakistani television series to watch on PTV or Doordarshan. Knight Rider was a universal favourite, much to the annoyance of Janak , the “Khadu”(7)  cook and man Friday as we all insisted on watching it quite late in the night and would often want sandwiches or snacks at midnight ( there was no concept of a civilized 7.30 pm deadline in the India I grew up in the late 70’-early 80’s)

 

Janak   would grudgingly get our sandwiches but the amount of salt on the thinly sliced cucumber was “directly proportionate” to his “annoyance” so most days we ended up having very salty cucumber sandwiches downed with hot chocolate and if that was not enough, sometimes in a fit of pique he  would switch off the mains so we had to go to bed in the middle of an unfinished episode of the Knight Rider.

 

And then of course were the tales of “ghosts”. In a house as old as ours with a history dating back to Maharaja Ranjit Singh, there were bound to be stories ----tales of ghostly nautch girls dancing on the top of the Mamti ? Of ghostly apparitions floating around all of us as we slept under the stars??

 

Of course these tales had the effect of filling us with fear that led all of us to go en masse …”humming a song” to use the facilities after a final episode of the Knight rider and wait in a queue outside the toilet (This habit of humming I still adhere to, if I am scared even now at the ripe old age of 56 much to the perplexity of my two young adults)

And  of course, it did not help that the toilet had a stair case, a  spiral concrete stair case that led  down into the courtyard or supposedly into a tunnel that  allegedly runs all its length from our village to (please hold your breath) Lahore now in Pakistan -a good 26 miles from our house as the crow flies ?

 

 On course in the dark, with a flickering light bulb casting eerie shadows on the thick, white plastered walls, this little staircase filled my 10-year-old mind with palpable fear and gave all of us the shivers.

But come daylight, this was all forgotten and there were singing sessions and hide and seek .There was also the “curious case of the bee hives” that would magically spring up in the various nooks and crannies of the big old  house  and we have been bitten by a few bees every now and then and have survived without jabs and calls to 999.

 

But then, unlike the world today, we had no mod cons of mobile phone, kindles and  computers and yet life was full of wonder and joy; the simple pleasures of playing word games , singing songs ,writing in our daily diaries ,listening to sakhis and folk stories and  getting through the piles of homework that was mandatory during the summer break .

And on cue each morning, we woke up to the sound of the morning prayer "Asa -di-vaar"(8) from the loudspeaker of the blessed gurudwara in the village.

 

In contrast to this historic old red brick haveli with its illustrious history was my maternal granddad’s village home. It was sprawling in its own right with a huge central court yard that would come alive at night with its rows  of “manjis” (9)ready for bed time .

 

The servants  would first spray  the “vehra”(10)  with water, then out came the “manjis” with their massive mosquito nets and four big and tall pedestal fans on all four sides of  row of beds as summer times in May and June were stiflingly humid .

 

Of course, the bed time was not complete without partaking the  massive steel glass full of the sweetest, creamiest mango shake, churned by my dear Bhabhiji-the best mango shake maker in the world   It is  fairly obvious that the theory of an early dinner being  healthy is moon shine!!   I have not seen more healthier and stronger cousins than my four strapping maternal cousins. One of them who to date  my favourite ,my dear Ajinder Bhaji  indulged my sister and I by taking us to watch the  rare Bollywood film in  the nearest town  on his  “Massey Ferguson” as opposed to the white Fiat parked very grandly in the drive since cars were quite scarce those days.

 

I of course ,I cannot forget the parathas dripping with freshly made white butter and the “Boauli” the strange curd like milk tempered with jaggery the taste of milk a few days after the birth of a calf? Does any of you remember that?

 

And then of course are the stories  and the Sakhis- my earliest memories of my Naniji telling us Sakhis(11) of the four Sahibzada’s ,Guru Nanak Dev ji and  Guru Tegh Bahadur ji, the reciting of the Japuji Sahib  and  the Chaupai Sahib that I have not forgotten till date .

 

A recurring memory is of a big tub of iced water filled to the brim with  small, sickeningly sweet Dussehri Mangoes.My siblings and cousins in our loose sleeveless ,printed muslin frocks gorging on these mangoes with the juice dribbling down our face and frocks ..Of course this surfeit of mangoes led to the consumption of copious amounts of “kachi” lassi a concoction of fragrant Rooh Afza and iced milk to ward off the effects of heat generated by the mangoes or else we would break into rash .

                                        The Nanaka clan 

 

This along with the memory of noisy rounds of “pithu garam”(12) and “hide and seek” fill my heart with an ache of days long gone

 

 Many of these lovely people who filled my childhood with joy and love have long gone, the last patriarch my mamaji having left us a few months back.  Most the old retainers have gone but the bricks and the walls remain, and these walls echo with the sounds of laughter and carefree abandon of my childhood.

 

 The last time I visited, I could swear that I felt the loving presence of my Naniji draped in her big white chiffon dupatta and I had this  sudden feeling of almost being enveloped in her comforting hug; I could almost smell the “nani”(13) smell and I could have sworn I saw the commanding presence of my grandfather in his impeccably  starched white kurta pyjama and Pagri (14)as he played hide and seek in the courtyard with us.

  

I ,along with my generation are very lucky to have witnessed this blessed simple organic life of the Pind ..so when I think of this “Virsa”(15) being destroyed by an arrogant, nasty government, my heart fills with a mix of rage and sadness but it also enthuses me with an  energy to give a voice to all those people who feed us every day .

                                         The Courtyard 

 

And though I live across the pond and do not personally have any  land (of course a topic of conversation in itself – this Patriarchy  that very much exists in the world of farmers) my heart still beats for that piece of land, my pind, my happy place that will always live in my heart .

 

So therefore, I speak up.

So, therefore this activist in me has surfaced

 

Let us all of us listen to this inner voice and speak up NOW

Let us all become activisits 💪

Glossary

Nanakas(1)...................Maternal Home

Dadkaads(2).................Paternal Home

Khati(3)........................Sour

Lamba(4)......................Long

Kamra(5).......................Room

Bhau (6)......................Saluation

Khadu(7)......................Colloquial term for someone from the hills

Asa-Di-Var(8)....................(Prayer from the Guru Granth Sahib)

Manjiis (9).......................Rustic  Cot 

Vehra (10)......................Courtyard 

Sakhis(11).............................(Religious stories

Pithu Garam(12).............A game 

Nani (13)..........................Maternal Grandma

Pagri(14).........................Turban 

Virsa (15).........................Heritage