Punjabi is more than just balle-balle

I have heard people say jokingly, “If you want to make an impression, speak in English. If you want to show courtesy, converse in Hindi or Urdu, but if you want to convey a strong message, prefer Punjabi”.

Born out of Indo-Aryan languages, Punjabi has borrowed its words from Arabic, Persian and Urdu. Guru Nanak is credited with giving immense importance to the language by composing his spiritual acrostic in spoken Punjabi. Guru Angad, the second Sikh Guru, selected letters from scripts prevalent in northern India to develop Gurmukhi (from the Guru’s mouth).

Punjabi is also written in Shahmukhi (from the king’s mouth), a script patronised by Punjabi Muslims. It’s a Perso-Arabic script written from right to left, like Urdu. The Partition didn’t even leave the language unscathed; Gurmukhi migrated eastward, while Shahmukhi is now confined to Pakistan.

My family has a deep-rooted association with Punjabi literature. My great-grandfather assisted Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha in composing Mahan Kosh, the first Punjabi dictionary and encyclopaedia. My maternal grandfather was a Gyani (an academic degree in Punjabi literature) at a time when the literacy rate was abysmally low in Punjab. I couldn’t receive formal education in Punjabi due to my schooling outside the state. I had to learn it all by myself.

Unfortunately, reverence for the language is conspicuous by its absence in the younger generation. My son and nephews are fluent in English and Hindi, but not in their mother tongue; reading or writing in Punjabi is a distant possibility. This is despite my efforts in goading them to learn the language. I feel worse when I see parents keep their children deliberately away from Punjabi, as if they were embarrassed of it. While serving with Pakistanis on a UN mission, I learnt that the situation was similar in west Punjab. There, too, Urdu got preference over Punjabi, the former being considered more sophisticated.

Language binds us to our culture and roots. Punjabis need to learn from residents of other states who take pride in their heritage; they don’t have an inferiority complex about communicating in Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi or Tamil.

In my despondency, remembering a childhood incident offers a ray of hope. My father, in his exuberance to develop my fluency in the Queen’s language, made me befriend a south Indian boy with whom I could converse only in English. One day, my friend came home searching for me and asked, “Bobby kithe haiga?” (Where is Bobby?). I had managed to teach him a few Punjabi words. Perhaps it is this determination and resilience that will save Punjabi from another invasion, a cultural one this time, the way it has beaten back invasions over the centuries.

As we celebrate Punjabi Culture Day today (March 14), let’s hope that the compositions of Waris Shah, Bulleh Shah, Sheikh Farid and the Gurus will be remembered more than the balle-balle songs that Punjabi has become synonymous with.