Punjabi Songs

  

I posted something on the trend in current Punjabi songs.

I'm not entirely sure why but it brought to mind the following anecdote. The crux was I was a Bengali while my partner was not and I preferred salwar suit over sari.
Calcutta those days had two nomenclatures of people. The first division was of course Bengalis and the other non Bengali. Within the city most non Bengalis were considered Marwadi. Outside the city to the north of India were the Punjabis and to the south  were the Madrasis. Through various applications of logic I was in the Punjabi grade by marriage. By the way, I was in a nationalised bank if that makes any further sense to you: read conservative.
At that time I worked in a department headed by a rotund boss bustleing around the whole day. He headed the salary section of the whole of head office and he and his team's greatest achievement was getting the figures to match at the end of each month before salaries could be disbursed. . Matching debits and credits are a natural phenomenon which is why it was so perplexing when finally the figures matched it seemed as if someone had pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the magician's hat.people from all 8 floors would have taken a round by then , checking for signs of hope or despair on the boss' face. At the climax would be the roar of victory and the victory lap as well.

The morning Indira Gandhi was shot, we came to know through telex before any external news and astonishingly I found my boss almost running to my side."Madam"  my boss said," you better get out fast." I was moved by this consideration for being a woman. Then I noticed I had been singled out among the women. In the same reasoning as before, Punjabi and Sikh became equated. No part of me was now Bengali.My boss even sent along someone as my escort. It was a mess going back.But my biggest fear was for my small son...whether the driver had been able to reach the school.There were no cell phones.

I don't remember who reached home first. My son had been taken in by some people who lived along the bylane near his school. (The driver avoided using  the main road which had turned into a nightmare, with people and vehicles running abreast). Eventually, my driver couldn't exit the bylane also. A family there called my son in and Sat him down on their khatia . They also gave him some juice to drink and generally made him comfortable and tried to keep him calm. These good people were a sardarji family, probably taxi driver family. When all you have are prayers, the ONE God answers in different ways. If you want to know, my driver was Muslim. The school was Christian.This was my Calcutta.

On reaching home, I had to face frantic phone calls from lord and master who was in  Spain on work and " oh so worried" ." Me too" I wanted to say, but it was firmly decided the whole fault of stressing him out was my intention  not  the days events., The call ended with strict instructions not to leave home. "No, we won't, " I said, not adding fuel to the fire by stating I had plans to paint the town red.

Aditi