Some Observations After Visiting Punjab for the First Time in Over a Decade

[californiasardar1]

- Agriculture is no longer the dominant industry in Punjab. The dominant industry is surely IELTS test prep. Seriously, everywhere I looked, in every village or town or roadside, there were advertisements or offices for services to assist with IELTS prep, obtaining a study visa, etc. It is impossible to overstate how obsessed the typical Punjabi is with going abroad.

- It is extremely rare to come across a Sikh man with an untrimmed beard that is not gray or white. Basically everywhere I went, I was the only person with an untrimmed beard who wasn't a bajurg.

- While I expected the lack of young Singhs based on my last visit, this time I noticed a conspicuous lack of young people in general. Pinds were filled with big, mostly empty houses (in most cases, nicer houses than I will ever be able to afford in America) with a couple of elderly people living in them. Mind you, I am not talking about pinds near Jalandhar whose residents have been going abroad for a century. I am talking about pinds in the "backwards" parts of southern Malwa. Also, I was at a (smallish) wedding reception, and when I glanced at the dance floor, I noticed that it was 95% aunties in their 50s and 60s.

- To the extent that you still see a fair number of paghs around, it comes down to two things: 1) there are a lot more old people than there are young people, and 2) the bhaiyas working in the fields like to keep their heads covered.

- Today's Punjabis speak a different language than my parents. They use different kinds of Punjabi/Hindi words for certain things than my parents did, and they constantly insert English words into Punjabi sentences (even when there are perfectly good Punjabi words they could use). They also abuse English words. For example, if they say someone easily gets "mixed-up," they don't mean to say that they get easily confused. They mean that that person "mixes well" socially with others. They also say things in cringe-worthy ways like: "tension naa lai."

- Somehow, every person I came across who remotely knew of my family also knew I was unmarried and knew of some kuri who was interested in acquiring a green card ... I mean, interested in marrying me.

[realist17]

I head this from someone (cant remember) but they said Punjab will slowly be taken away by the deras belonging to nirankaris, radhaoswamis and etc. it was also said that it will be reclaimed but dont the exact details. 

[Dsinghd]

Bring others into the path of Sikhi by love.

[realist17]

20 hours ago, Dsinghd said:

Bring others into the path of Sikhi by love.

It depends how. You can preach it or you can be real about it-represent. 

 

[imhosingh]

Who knows what the future brings...for 1000s of years the jews didn't have a land in the middle east..they left the area..then along comes a Austrian bloke with a moustache, persecutes loads of them and then they end up with a homeland in the middle east.

Kaljug is over 100k years. The depletion of sikhi from the Panjab has only accelerated since partition <100yrs . There's still plenty of time for a  homeland and sikhi to thrive again in those parts or globally 

[californiasardar1]

I actually think that the exodus of Sikhs from Punjab may be a blessing it disguise. It may have the unintended consequence of "de-jatt-ifying" Sikhi.

Maybe if jatts become a small enough proportion of Punjabi Sikhs, they will no longer dominate, and it will open the door for a more open, diverse Sikh community that is unconstrained by tribal identities and has a real potential for growth.

[ChardikalaUK]

9 hours ago, californiasardar1 said:

I actually think that the exodus of Sikhs from Punjab may be a blessing it disguise. It may have the unintended consequence of "de-jatt-ifying" Sikhi.

Maybe if jatts become a small enough proportion of Punjabi Sikhs, they will no longer dominate, and it will open the door for a more open, diverse Sikh community that is unconstrained by tribal identities and has a real potential for growth.

If that ever happens Sikhs will easily be a minority in Punjab. Jatts are 60% of our population I believe. 

[ChardikalaUK]

On 7/9/2023 at 8:23 PM, californiasardar1 said:

 Today's Punjabis speak a different language than my parents. They use different kinds of Punjabi/Hindi words for certain things than my parents did, and they constantly insert English words into Punjabi sentences (even when there are perfectly good Punjabi words they could use). They also abuse English words. For example, if they say someone easily gets "mixed-up," they don't mean to say that they get easily confused. They mean that that person "mixes well" socially with others. They also say things in cringe-worthy ways like: "tension naa lai."

 

Languages and societies evolve all of the time. You can't expect Punjab to be the same place it was back in the 1960s - 1980s. 

 

[realist17]

18 hours ago, imhosingh said:

Who knows what the future brings...for 1000s of years the jews didn't have a land in the middle east..they left the area..then along comes a Austrian bloke with a moustache, persecutes loads of them and then they end up with a homeland in the middle east.

Kaljug is over 100k years. The depletion of sikhi from the Panjab has only accelerated since partition <100yrs . There's still plenty of time for a  homeland and sikhi to thrive again in those parts or globally 

There's controversy surrounding this subject. Some say he was warning the world when it came to some Jews which ended up in him getting the 'blame' in killing Jews. While majority of us say he was responsible for the holocaust. 

Both Britain and Germany were involved in Indian affairs when it came WW2.

But history is history. I just hate the fact that some European countries cover &lt;banned word filter activated&gt; up. Guess its true the winners always have the last say. 

[californiasardar1]

15 hours ago, ChardikalaUK said:

If that ever happens Sikhs will easily be a minority in Punjab. Jatts are 60% of our population I believe. 

 

Sure. But it might be a situation where we take a step back to eventually take two or three steps forward.

 

In any case, it seems to be a matter of "when" rather than "if." Jatt families in India seem to have few children these days, a large proportion of the young people are in foreign countries, and most of the young people who are still in Punjab dream of going to a foreign country (even if they can't tell you the first thing about the foreign countries they obsess over).