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Cry, the beloved country beckons
you!
 Dear Brethern
from beyond the five Rivers,
Yesterday
I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night. I was awash with
perspiration. I found myself in tears. I was weeping. This was
unlike me. I have been strong and sturdy. I have resisted the
might of Ahmed Shah Abdali and Robert Clive. I have given a hard
time to the likes of Indira Gandhi too. Today I was in tears,
shattered and heart-broken.
Like in the
times of Guru Nanak, today too, the scale is tilted in favor of the
rich and famous –the powerful and the feudal.
You know, my
people used to love me a lot. For generations they used to worship
me. They fought for every bit of me. The mud on my body used to
adorn the forehead of my owners. Today, everybody is deserting me.
Nobody seems to love me. There is nobody in the vanguard to save me
from the clutches of time and weariness.
After the jolted
awakening, I could not go to sleep. I kept pondering. I was staring
into the sky, which too was without stars. It was cloudy, dark and
hazy. It added to my misery.
Once upon a
time, my people who loved me most and worked zealously to protect my
honor lived on horsebacks. The saddle was their home and hearth.
They were proud of their vagabond life and meager needs. They
prayed while riding. Even while doing so, they aspired and worked
for nationhood and got it, albeit for a small span of 40 years. The
Moghuls fought them and held them in respect and awe. The British
too picked up battle, almost lost and then cheated them. The Indians
were clever. They understood them too well and tamed them.
Gradually, my
sons of soil grew out of their wayward lifestyle. Their possessions
grew and aspirations took a backseat. Pecuniary progress and
customary political power have become the only goals. Like toads
they are constantly worried about an imaginary brain collapse and
refuse to cross their self-imposed limits.
Today, if you
want a large portion of my body, you will have to approach the
powers that be. No one else matters. I am not the master of my own
destiny. I am at the mercy of some aliens pretending to be heirs.
The Big Brothers in
Chandigarh
and New Delhi decide my fate. The chieftain changes, but the stick
remains the same. All you have to do is to get in touch with the
right people. Promise them that you will look after me well. Make a
tall promise. Just promise. Do not worry about fulfilling those
promises. I am witness to a long history of broken promises.
You must prepare
a rosy picture of how you will pamper me with the latest technology
in the world, say something as spiritual as “heavens will come down”
or something as dramatic as “converting me into California”. It
would do a lot of good if you have a nepotistic connection,
euphemistically called a tie-up. In that case you can bite into a
major chunk of my body totally free. Your cannibalistic tendencies
must be quiet strong. There should be no room for my care and
grief. Even those totally dependent upon me should be treated as
dirt. They do not matter. After all, you would be doing all this
for my good!
If you are
slightly weak and less enterprising or low on finance or without
connections, do not go away. You can still eat a portion of
me. Get in touch with entrepreneurial builders from far and
wide. You should choose to be part of the mall mafia –as the
owner, may be a co-owner, the footfall number, also known as a
customer or the huge ugly hoarding selling ‘Guilty Jeans’ or
nouveau-riche bathroom tubs with models –men and women in various
stages of undressing.
At any point of
time, as for yourself, do not strive to add “more” to “some are
equal”.
 A few decades
back, I was happy when
Chandigarh was
shaped up. I was happy to have a designer city on my face. Today,
Le Corbusier must be an unhappy man. I am sure you know that this
city is still without a father, it is a city whose landscape has
been destroyed in the name of poverty, usurpation, political
correctness and land grabbing. The way it has come about, neither
the city nor its people seem to belong to me. If I am still around
and if I have to own this urban jungle, the life of its people may
have to undergo a cathartic metamorphosis.
I have a sister
across the barbed wire, -a real sister. She is perhaps worse off.
We deserted each other some fifty years ago. I have seen some
development in the name of progress. My sister is still living as a
heritage item. Her autocratic and democratic rulers want to maintain
her poverty with all its trappings. A major consolation is that she
has not been fully divorced of her legacy. To that extent, I envy
her.
While talking of
sisters, I cannot forget my daughters. Long ago, the proud men of
my soil used to travel hundreds of miles to save the honor of women
abducted by thugs and human traffickers. It was part of their
Dharma to do such deeds. Today, they and their women are busy
engaged in killing their own daughters, most of them unborn-and
ironically it does not shame them. I cannot find a place to hide my
face.
My young
children are leaving my shores in hordes. The followers of “Kirat”
are zombies addicted to easy life, always in search of greener
pastures far and wide. In distant lands, they reinvent "Kirat"
–hard work for survival and growth, desperately struggling to save
core values. Some have managed to take their parents and
grandparents as child-minders, nannies, helps and a few out of
gratitude too. Their connection with me is limited to listening to
‘mera maa diya hathan diyan pakkiaan rottian khaan nu barra hi
dal karda.” while drinking the finest liqueurs.
For a moment, I
want you to listen more carefully. Have you heard a dog mew or a cat
bark? I am forced to eating crow as my children are happily doing
this. They take pride in speaking an alien language. I have no
problems with any vernacular tongue but to disregard one’s mother is
pretty awkward and disgusting. I cannot remember whether my
children have ever done this in the past.
Some of my
special people are called leaders. They are best at palty-baazi.
Joyce Pettigrew refers to them clannish heads. She says that since
she has known them, they just don’t seem to grow. I think that they
are so pigeonholed that they have forgotten that their future is
intertwined with mine. If I don’t survive, will they?
In recent times,
I have seen democracy by the few for the few. In the name of
modernity, I often witness degeneration and a bludgeoning
sub-culture. I am very thirsty. My life sources have been drained
out. My intestines are poisoned. Earlier I used to breathe easy, now
I am looking for some savior to save the air around me.
I am on sale.
I am only a tiny fraction of the Indian sub-continent. Of me, what
will remain, I am scared to speculate. A big-time game of smash and
grab is on.
 By the way, I
have a lot of admirers all across the world. Quiet a few of them
have gone places with sheer determination and sincerity. This makes
me glad. They also include those for whom exigencies of life and
mortal fear of the state forced them to desert me. Some have
completely forgotten me and have become part of something else.
Some still love me. Their children come to see me during holidays
and excursion trips. Some of my enthusiastic paramours spend a lot
of time and money indulging in intellectual masturbation on the
Internet worrying about my future but fail to muster courage, energy
and drive to counter the neo-imperialists who are dishonoring me and
eating into my vitals.
Some of my
superficial lovers come and make the right contacts with people who
govern me. They indulge in politics and become part of the
well-oiled machine. I am not sure whether they are part of the loot
or are they naive enough to be sitting ducks for lecherous leaders.
I do wonder that if they put their act together they have the
potential to put me back on the map in a more recognizable way.
Am I male or
female? Nobody knows. I don’t know. Nobody is sharing my grief,
neither men nor women, neither young nor old.
I have been
cogitating about writing to you for a very long time. Every time I
decided to wield the pen, I thought my condition would improve and
maybe the need to bother you may not arise. Now I have a clear idea
that I am on the oxygen pack. My time is near. So, with great
difficulty I thought it necessary to share my situation.
In the intensive
care unit, yours truly,
Punjab
Post Script:
"The
power of speech emboldens me to speak out my heart", said Allama
Iqbal, when he complained to God. His Shikwa got a reply. You are
all children of God and are as compassionate as a Punjabi should be.
I hope I have not written in vain. I hopeyou will do something.
Please do something.
Punjab
writes through the pen of Jagmohan Singh. The writer may be
contacted at
jsbigideas@gmail.com
9 January 2008
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