Commentary on Punjab

Vinod, Mritunjay, and I went Punjabi tonight. Vinod and I each drank two Foster’s beers. That’s Australian for beer, maybe you heard. The restaurant was called Urban Tadka, a Punjabi “bestro” – that’s Indian English for you – contraction for best bistro. My friends described it as the kind of place one could pull off the highway to eat in Punjab. In my head I called it a Punjabi roadhouse. Before dinner, I ate some raw sugar cane. It was a small piece, cut from the large cane stalk. One must peel off the husk before munching on the innards. The cane is very woody, and you just chew out the juices and are left with some flattened woody strands. Then we had some spicy grilled vegetables. One eats spicy dishes first, and then the following dishes will be less spicy, to soothe the palate. We had rotis, including a buckwheat roti. Roti is the unleavened bread one uses to eat with – I’m not really into forks anymore – when in India, do as the Indians do. You just scoop up the slop with the bread between your fingers. We had some yellow dhal, and something orange with the usual kind of Indian feta-like cheese. No rice. Punjab grows wheat, not rice. This is country food that poorer people used to eat, but now we’re eating it because it’s delicious. Kinda like pizza, I guess – food thrown together by the poor that ended up being delicious.

Adorning the walls were a plow, a picture of a tractor, and some benches with a sort of hemp latticework for the seat of the bench. Vinod said that in the old days, for good times, people in Punjab would sit on these benches and much on the full, huge stalks of sugar cane. They would talk and just hang out. Kinda like having a coffee today. Before I leave, I’ma munch on one of those full stalks. I promise. Also adorning the walls were walking sticks with carved handles. Vinod said the patriarch of the family carries this stick to let all know his position.

I always think of Punjab as being like the Midwest. It is India’s richest farmland, called India’s bread basket, and Punjab is traditionally India’s richest state. Many Punjabis have migrated to the U.S. and Canada and continue to send remittances, adding to Punjab’s wealth. My theory is Punjabs, traditionally being wealthy, were the most educated and the most able to emigrate and fill the high skill jobs Indians are so famous for filling in the U.S. – doctoring, engineering. They’ve been doing it the longest, are the best at it, and the most successful. Just a theory.

Punjabis, having the tendency to be rich, also have the tendency to flaunt it. They’ll buy a bigger car than they need, and they are fond of tying their cows and buffaloes to their cars or their houses, so it is on display to everyone in the neighborhood that this family is rich enough to have plenty of milk, a dietary staple in Punjab.

Haryana is a state that split from Punjab in 1966. Haryana is not as agriculturally rich but is still rural. And my coworkers said people from Haryana tend to be big, rough, and tumble.

Maybe you’ve also heard of Punjab being part of Pakistan. Well, it is. The region of Punjab is split by the border, and the Partition, when India and Pakistan split in 1947, was especially bloody in Punjab, with trains full of Hindus leaving Pakistan, to be slaughtered at the border, and trains of Muslims leaving India, to be slaughtered at the border. Partition sounds like some of the most brutal ethnic killing ever in the world, and it’s always described as “slaughter.” Lahore is in Punjab, Pakistan. Sikhism is centered up here in Punjab, India, and there continues to be ethnic slaughtering because the Sikhs are pissed they didn’t get their own country or state.

After dinner, I made my third go round with paan – the leaf with the earthy and super minty mixture on the inside. Although I had vowed to never eat pan again last Wednesday, I thought Friday was a fine day to break this vow. I’m getting used to this paan, and maybe it is true that there is nothing I won’t eat. At lunch today, my boss said he’d never seen anyone so easily take to the food of the new place, and my boss, when he studied at University of Pittsburgh (and I don’t know that I’ve ever pointed this out, but my boss loves Pittsburgh and tells me almost every day), said he didn’t eat the food there like I do here. And he’s not even vegetarian.

After our paan, we went to the beach. Down at the dead-end streets at the Juhu Verasova Beach, there were lots of kids (twenty-somethings), mainly guys, standing around their cars drinking beer and mixed drinks and some people doing so at the beach. Wearing my yuppie uniform, complete with my polished black leather shoes, I walked along the beach. You can’t swim at the beaches in Mumbai. The water is too filthy. For some reason, most kids weren’t drinking at the beach, just on the dead end street. Seeing all these kids drinking at or in their cars, I wondered about the prevalence of drunk driving crime. Vinod said it was pretty rare to get arrested for drunk driving in Mumbai unless you’re in an accident. In Delhi one is more likely to be pulled over for dwi.

We went back to Vinod’s for a few minutes. I took some pictures, tried to teach them what it means to be gangsta, explained what a wife-beater undershirt is, which lead to me telling them about the show Cops, and then about rap lyrics, selling drugs, and America’s ghettos.

Today was supposed to be my last day at the guesthouse, but I got an extension until Monday. I came home and Babu looked happy to see me. I said “three more days,” and he said “Yes.” He had a friend over who was wearing only a towel around his waist. This dude probably came to use the shower. I’m pretty sure Babu is a village dude, and this sweet pad of an apartment is probably more luxury than any of them could imagine themselves in. Dude was probably using the shower. Another friend came over to. I introduced myself to the first one. “Eric,” I said. “Thank you,” he said. He doesn’t speak English. Babu’s probably not supposed to have people over on Friday night, but I don’t care. Let the dude have his fun.

Comments