The Tale of Five Rivers

Who are you? I dont want to talk about history of Punjab. There are many different versions. In the middle you start talking about religions. WHY? It’s very sensitive and certainly you do not qualify for that. You dont sound Muslim, of course. Do you know anything about Sufies? what is the definition of Sufi? I bet you don’t know that. things you are talking about sufis (Muslims) true or false, its behavior not belief. And where do you learn about Sufis that they bypass Prophet (PBUH)?
Real sufi doesn’t matter where he lives or lived, they speak different languages though but are same in faith. Writing an article and misguiding reader, how awful.

Ref sanatani #137

[Harimau ji,

Brilliant. I will name my sons Panchapakesh or Panchnadhishwar now pls suggest names for my daughters.]

The consort of Lord Panchanadhishwar at Tiruvayyaru (Pancha Nadha Kshetra) in Tanjore district is named Dharmasamvardhini. This name, shortened to Dharma, should pose no problems for anybody including Americans because of the sitcom ``Dharma and Greg``.

[BTW is it ok if modiy Panchapakesh or Panchnadhishwar to Panjapakesh or Panjnadhishwar]

Do so by all means.

Kindest regards.

Harimau ji,

Brilliant. I will name my sons Panchapakesh or Panchnadhishwar now pls suggest names for my daughters.

BTW is it ok if modiy Panchapakesh or Panchnadhishwar to Panjapakesh or Panjnadhishwar

With Lot of Regards
Sanatani

Sridharji,

What a foolish statement ``educate northies about south/SI/SI culture``?

When northies do not know their own culture what will they know about south?

I shall illustrate this better.

How many northies know the difference between Kathak and Kathakali most of them dont even know Kathak is the only NI classical dance.

Ask Punabis about the langoora or langoor dance and thy would think you are a monkey.

Ever since the Islamists came we have no culture to speak about and yes in some time the only Indian culture will be South Indian culture with a sprinkling of East Oriya/Nangla/Asom/Manipur/Tripura and West Konkani/Marathi/Gujju. thrown in.

You may not know this but there was a koke in pre-independence India to do something in Delhi you had run from Pillai to Pillai and the only one ones not appreciating this were the Nambiars, Nair, Naidus and Iyers

Regards
Sanatani

Nazar:
The generations born after partition certainly are more removed from Punjabi as it was, and they probably are semi-lingual in West Punjab, thinking in Punjabi and writing in urdu/ english.
But ``..generations born after the partition can neither read nor write in Punjabi, their mother tongue`` is incorrect. Before partition, Punjabi was written in 2 scripts- gurmukhi and Urdu ( and possibly a third? devnagiri or persian if I`m not wholly wrong about the third; with urdu predominating as the language that was taught, and gurmukhi restricted to the granth sahib and a few practitioners of gurmukhi). After partition, the Indian side completely removed all traces of Urdu and punjabi was written only in Gurmukhi and on the pakistani side, they used urdu to write it. So `not being able to read or write in punjabi` is strange and wrong, as punjabi was written in 2 different scripts and there was no such thing as a single `punjabi script` to use or discontnue anymore. It is of course terribly sad that because of this, Indians can`t read Urdu at all, especially the large North India belt where it was so common, and now we have to read our urdu poets in (bad) translations or in scripts like english/devnagri.

And how come no mention of the Punjabi revolutionary poet `Paash`, in the list of Punjabi poets? It`d be really nice if you can find some of his poetry and update this piece with it.
Regards

Re: # 134
Great narrative.
I always heard that Punjabi was used as long as 4th century AD. There are some writings found in Thasar that dont differ too much from modern Punjabi and the alphabet used was Devnagri, which is the foundation of GuruMukhi script.

# 131

Panj is persian for five. Pancha is Sanskrit for five.

A well written dirge of Punjabi language and culture. We should not forget that the land of five rivers which produced the humanists like the great Bulle Shah also gave birth to Illam Din, representing a cult which ultimately lead to the `Law of Blasphemy`, a sword in the hands of the bloody mullah hanging on every head. So the LOB and the `Enlightened Moderation` go hand in hand as the rivers of love are drying up.

And today we cry up again in the words of Amrita Pritam ``mein aakhan Waris Shah noon toon qabran wichon bol te aj kitabe ishq da koi agla warqa phol``.

Ref rsridhar #53

[``The word ``Punjab`` can be broken into ``Panch`` + ``Aab``. ``Panch`` means five in Sanskrit, ``Aab`` means water in ``Persian``, so it seems to be confluence of two cultures. ``
The word ``ab`` may have been derived from the sanskrit word ``abdhi`` which means ``sea or ocean``. So huge was the confluence of Indus and the 5 rivers that the early settlers deemed it a sea or an ocean.]

Whoa, whoa, whoa! ``Panch`` is Persian for ``Five`` and ``ab`` for ``water`` so ``Punjab`` is all Persian.

On the other hand, ``ap`` is water in Sanskrit. So, an all-Sanskrit pronunciation would have been Panchap.

One has to come to the REAL Land of the Five Rivers to get the correct pronunciation. I am of course referring to the delta of the Cauvery river where the Cauvery splits into five major rivers before joining the sea. Here you will find children (and grown men) named Panchapakesan (God of the Five Waters).

Of course, some of these Panchapakesans when they settle in Delhi and other similar God-forsaken places discover a sudden affinity for the OTHER Punjabis and start naming their children Rohit, Rohan, Kiran, etc. I am yet to see reciprocity from the Tanejas and Salujas for I haven`t heard of one single Panchapakesh or Panchnadhishwar among their children.

Thanks Urstruly for a wonderful and detailed reply (#123). I understand well that first hand experience shapes the thinking. Since different peoples experience differently, we have difference of opinion. As the time passes, human mind fine tunes, sharpens and sometime reverses the thinking for various factor, one of which is taking out emotionalism. In my case, for example, growing up in working class family and witnessing frustratingly the exploits of upper classes (elites) in a highly classed society should have directed me to avoid interacton with most people at this site who belong to upper middle to rich class. But I grew out of it. Now I have no problem interacting with KGS and Kinnaird background people although during my formative years, the total monthly income of my family was less than one month tution of one kid in one of these schools. On the other hand my first hand experience with Punjabi are mostly cultural and they are made in USA. It has always been either helpful or beneficial to me at gas stations, groceary stores, music stores and interacting with people coming from different religious and political backgrounds. Even at this site, I believe that I am more respected by Punjabis than others.

I have very clear and consistent record of opposing military in Pakistani political affairs from day one. That was the reason I joined chowk after reading about an article written by Musharraf`s son. Everybody who supports Musharraf and military rule using various kind of dumb logic is wrong in my opinion. I read the detailed proceedings of Punjab Assembly`s passage of the uniform resolution at hipakistan site you mentioned and came out perhaps more disgusted than you. At the same time, I have always maintained that Punjabis are first and foremost responsible for the conditions Punjabi language is in. I feel that the so-called Punjabi representatives in the Punjab Assembly behaved in the same despicable manner as they have been behaving towards mother language and culture. You, on the other hand, feel (correct me if I am wrong) that the so-called Punjabi leadership made the right decisions by degrading Punjabi language and culture and now making wrong decisions by supporting na-pak fauj and its grip on Pakistan. Considering this, I actually come out sicker of Punjabi leadership than you. I believe that only one good decision of Punjabi Muslims leadership in the last 150 years (since accepting Urdu language) was actually stand taken by Unionist party. As you can see that all these idiot steps by Punjabi leadership can not change my love for Punjabi language which has suffered as bad as Punjabis at the hands of so-called Punjabi leadership through history.

128#tahmed32

tahmed Norman invasion of England was in 1066, because of this French was the official language for 250 years, that’s reason we have 25% of English words are French in origin, mostly in government and law.

In Ireland Irish is first official language hardly anyone bothers to learn it, situation is similar in Scotland even though it’s separate country with it’s own language hardly anyone can speak it.

an interesting parallel of the panjabi vs. urdu/farsi language issue is to be found in europe that i recall reading about someplace: in 1088, the norman invasion led to a french-speaking nobility in england, with english-speaking peasants. So, when french words were used to describe something it tended to be considered more refined than english words for the same thing. Thus, words like beef and pork (french origin) gradually replaced perfectly fine anglo-saxon words that existed at the time as the english peasantry started mimicking their french sahibs.

Thusin india we had old panjabi/khari boli etc. words being replaced by farsi/turki words as they sought to communicate with their farsi/turki speaking sahibs (giving rise to urdu), with the british raj providing another round of replacement to change 19th century urdu to modern urdu. In this sense, urdu is indeed as much a language of the panjabis as modern english (as opposed to the pre-norman english) is the language of the english!!

PS: as an aside, even the rise of mullahism in pakistan is being reflected in the language of the Bakistanis - as dionysus jokingly referred to the arab-worshipping mullahs - with perfectly good urdu words being replaced by arab words (e.g. namaz being replaced by salaat, ramzan by ramadan. however, this trend is too limited (mostly to religious words, and by those who come most in contact with arabs in mosques etc.) to be of any significance.

dionysus: i agree that panjabis have traditionally had an inferiority complex with respect to their culture. and, as with all inferiority complexes, the reason was pretty obvious: panjabis were traditionally a rustic people, whereas farsi was the language of the court. while the panjabis did have their day as rulers (as modern day names of indian states like gujerat attest; and as that most underrated of ancient battles - the Battle of Multan where panjabis finally turned the tide on Alexander the Great and stuck an arrow in his behind or someplace for good measure as well after he had beaten the then mighty persian empire and also the lands of egypt and central asia) ), they became a conquered people for several centuries at the hands of the turk and other invaders. Like all conquered people, they lost pride in themselves.

Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon wrt panjabi culture that is taking place today in that most unlikely of places: UK and the US. This is not just with the expat panjabi community, but with western people as well - popularized not only by movies like Monsoon Wedding (sold as part of mainstream movies in video stores) but also by panjabi folk songs (now on CDs played by US teenagers, most often as an intermix with english e.g.) and the bhangra which has also gained popularity in the west.

So, Panjab is rising again - not as a martial race or victors or any such rubbish, but as a source of cultural richness that is being appreciated not just in the subcontinent (in Dhaka, the shalwar kameez was considered high fashion by their women a few years ago when i used to go there - and the dress is known to them as simply ``panjabi``) but around the world.

I tend to agree with urstruly (normally i dont, but once in a while he gets it right - like the broken watch that is correct two times a day) that the panjab assembly has disgraced itself by not standing up for democracy. One day the panjabis will get fed up with all this hypocrisy and may even take to the streets - as they did when they finally got fed up of Ayub Khan`s self-promotion with his ``Decade of Development`` and kicked him out of office in disgrace.

re: Kushwant Singh`s interview narrated in post #109 by warpster
Even though this may annoy some Punjabees, i do not think KS is as great a writer as some other Indians have been (R.K. Narayan comes to mind easily). KS is just famous, that is all.
Now, what is our Sardarji talking in the following passages taken from that post:

``What about Punjabi music? Cinema and songs are incomplete these days without a Punjabi
touch.

Our religion is entirely music based. We have 31 ragas....``.
So, Sardarji is saying that Punjabi music has 31 ragas! That would be news. And, what does he mean by ``Our religion`` ? Is he talking about a special Punjabi religion that i am not aware of? As i said once before, this is one senile sikh.
I do not know why KS is given so much importance at his age! The guy has done nothing much to deserve this kind of attention.
Sridhar

re:#108 by dionysus
``Veeresh, why does every Sikh yatree from India I meet in Lahore hate India with a passion? Does the Sikh hatred for India worry you at all,...``
The Pakis i have met in USA have all felt bad about the state of affairs in their native country. This cuts across region. If u met some sikhs in Pakistan that do not have a good opinion about India, u must remember that such an opinion is not shared by every sikh. After all, one such person is the PM today and thousands of sikhs join the Indian Army every year. Another prominent sikh (Montek Singh Ahluwalia) left a cushy job to join the Planning Commission.
Anyway, most of u guys are stuck in a groove and find it difficult to come out of it. I am reminded of an incident when i was watching an Indian News Channel with my Paki friend in New York many years ago (Pak did not have any channel of its own, so every Paki was forced to view this channel in New York and suburbs). Newsreader was a Sikh woman (her name ends in Simran; can`t recall her full name). My friend turned to me and said that Indian govt was just keeping the sikhs happy by giving them cushy jobs like the one given to the newsreader!
That pretty much sums up the Paki mentality. There is a general feeling (perhaps fostered by your media and books) that sikhs in India are an unwilling part of the diaspora. Nothing can be farther from the truth. I think u must worry about your own country`s future, which is not very bright at the moment.
Sridhar

re: #114 by dionysus
Forgot to narrate another incident that happened in and around 1996 i think. My Paki Mohajir friend and i were completing our Residency from a New York hospital. Pakistan Day was fast approaching. My friend bemoaned the fact that there was so much disunity among the Pakis that there was going to be 2 different venues for celebrating the same event! ``Yeh Sudharney wali kom nahin hai`` was how he put it. He also had a lot of unprintable urdu words to describe Pakistan. I had to pacify him. We went to watch a hindi movie later on.
Something is bothering u my friend. U need to take a break.
Sridhar