Monday, February 23, 2009

They can't be taught to hate


The story of a mother and a wife in the days of terror in Punjab by Nirupama Dutt

When the young editor of a Punjabi Magazine was gunned down by Sikh Fundamentalists for daring to criticize the movement for a separate Sikh State, his passing was mourned by two women – his mother, a Sikh, and his wife, a Hindu.
The fact that Sumeet Singh, 30, was the son of devout Sikh parents was not enough to save his name from appearing on the dreaded ‘Hit List’ issued periodically by the fundamentalists.
One strategy used to by the fundamentalists to advance their cause was random killings of Hindu families in the hope that will flee the state. Similar tactics are adopted to bring moderate Sikhs “Into Line.”
“How can the two communities ever be divided?” Asked Mahinder Kaur, Sumeer’s mother. “A devouted Sikh, I am weeping for my son. And so is my son’s Hindu wife.”
Marriage between a Sikh and Hindu is not an uncommon occurrence in Punjab. Many Hindu have relatives who are Sikhs, and vice versa.
Indeed, until the turn of the century the common practice was for the eldest son of a Hindu Family to enter into the fold of Sikhism.
The latter in fact developed as a reformist movement in Hinduism to create a marital force to resist the Mughals in India.
When the country was partitioned into two nations in 1947, Sikhs chose to stay with India rather than Pakistan.
Mahinder Kaur’s family was one of the hundreds of refugee Sikh families that migrated from Pakistan at that time midst riots in which nearly a million people were killed.
“We lost everything we had and slowly we built our lives afresh”, said Mahinder.
Then 19 years old, she gave up her aspirations of becoming a lecturer in a college and instead took up a poorly-paid job as school teacher to support her family.
She later married Navtej Singh, an established writer in Punjab , who until he died of cancer four years ago, also ran a successful literary magazine in Punjabi called “Preetlari” (chain of love).
“Sumeet took up the editorship from my husband and supported us all”. Said Mahinder who has three more sons.
She refused to hold any of the customary religious rites for her dead sons. “If religion means violvence and killing of innocent people, we do not want any of it,” said the matriarch. Men indulge in violence and we women have to stop this madness.”
Poonam, her young daughter-in-law, after Sumeet’s death, took over the running of his magazine. “It was our bread-and-butter.” She explained self-disparagingly.
But No mere bread-and butter considerations were at work when she wrote here very first editorial.
“We will not hesitate to oppose fundamentalism of any kind.” It said, “Sumeet’s blood was been shed but our blood is still there. And are willing to shed it in the cause of humanity and secularism” Poonam, a talented actress who when Sumeet was alive used to shuttle between their home in Preetnagar village near Amritsar to the State Capital Chandigarh to act in plays, has no time now for the stage.
“I learned to edit and write”. She said. “I felt so strongly about communalism that the words came to me quite naturally without having to try.”
Working in an atmosphere where speaking out can result in death, Poonam did not mince words in condemning the fundamentalists’ politics of terror.
“But we will fight against this hatred to the end,” Poonam asserted.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Punjabi beauty

Rani Jindan (above and Gul Panag (right)




Losing To Gain




With beauty becoming the new sunrise industry, the entrepreneurial Punjabis are shedding their conventional lassi look to cash in on a new obsession, says Nirupama Dutt, as she contemplates life after Gul Panag




For years, the magic mirror refused with step-motherly determination to reflect the face of the Punjabi lass as the most beautiful. Even while the Punjabi woman reveled in the conceit of being `the fairest of them all’, her sultry counterparts from the east and the south continued to pass the ultimate glamour test and walk way with beauty contest titles. The belles from the north didn’t seem to have what it takes to walk the catwalk and win the crown.
But no longer. It was the gorichitti Gul Kirat panag who walked past contestants from other states, proud as a pea-hen in the blue and green frills of an outrageous evening gown highlighting fair `n’ shapely things, to be judged Miss India-Universe 1999.
Gul is not the first, though. The past few years have seen the rise of the Punjabi beauty. The reasons for this are not hard to find. Beauty has become big business, more so with a thriving international market for sultry sirens from exotic India. With things being so, how can the entrepreneurial Punjabi not be in the fray? Business is in the Punjabi blood and enterprise comes easily to them. So does mobility, more so in the international arena. A apocryphal tale that did the rounds when Neil Armstrong set his foot on the moon, was that no sooner had the astronaut landed, he bumped into a sardarji who ran a dhaba there. Taken aback, Armstrong asked the Lunar entrepreneur: ``When did you come here?’’ Pat came the sardarji’s reply: ``Right after partition.’’
Given such a reputation, the cat-walk, no doubt, is a cakewalk for the average lassi lass. Many of the Punjabi glamour gals – including Gul and Manpreet Brar, Miss Universe First Runner-Up, 1995 – are from defence families, but fashion and beauty have had a great following among civilians for more than half a decade. After a long spell of terrorism, Punjab’s return to normality in the early ‘90s ushered in many changes. The consumer culture reared its head after lying dormant for years. Live-in-Style exhibitions moved from town to town, designers stores opened by the dozen, mega music concerts attracted thousands, and every city –from Ludhiana to Amritsar – boasted of beauty contests and fashion shows.
So much so that fashion and beauty contests appear to be the only mass movement in the state these days. Beauty contests are organized by groups as improbable as the friendly-neighbourhood property Dealers Association or the various market committees. The Chandigarh Press Club is a regular venue for ramp shows, a beauty parlour can be found in the dusty tracks of Chheratta, a basti on the outskirts of Amritsar, and a slimming centre at Manimajra a town close to Chandigarh.
It is serious business, so serious that even humorist jaspal Bhatti does not make light of it. ``Beauty was always there, but it was hidden, mouths the popular idiot-box comic. ``Earlier, we would say that anyone who would look at our women would be blinded. But now, with fashion shows and beauty contests becoming a part of life, we let our beauties be ogled at. The change is in the attitude.’’ Agrees pawan Malhotra of the World Punjabi TV Channel: ``The shedding of inhibitions has brought our girls to the forefront. Beautiful they always were.’’
In spite of the Khalas beauties having made a mark, the mention of the Punjabi beauty queen still causes titters. All because the archetypal Punjabi beauty does not quite fit in with the feminine mystique of a Persis Khambatta or an Aishwarya Rai. The adjectives that accompany praise for the Punjabi beauty are handsome, well-made, strapping and defiant. Remember the famous Assa Singh Mastana song of yesteryear, Balle ni Punjab diye sher bachiye (Bravo, the lioness lass of Punjab)?
Feminine, elegant, delicate and graceful are adjectives that have eluded them, mainly because the daughters of the soil are part of an agrarian ethos. Along with agriculture, the border state of Punjab has nurtured a martial culture over centuries. It would be unfair to expect the fair sex to remain unaffected by the vigours of the Jai Jawan Jai Kisan ethos. No wonder then that the achievers of Punjab bring to mid the cane-wielding Kiran Bedi or an Abida Parveen beauting the male qawwals at singing Sufi poetry, and not pretty little things sashaying down the ramp.
Pretty they always were, but there was nothing little about these young things. Jagjit Singh described the Punjabi belle with the popular song, one of the few of his limited repertoire in Punjabi: Dhai din na jawani naal chaldi, kurti mulmul di. A free translation of this lie would be that the blossoming youth of the lovely lass won’t let the muslin blouse last more than two days and a half. A classic case of bursting at the seams. This bounteous image finds echo in the persona of the Punjabi film heroine, who seems to have a bust size at least five points more than her IQ.
But now the well-fed Miss comes chiseled just right. Ask Manpreet Brar and she says that genetically, nothing has changed for the Punjabi kudhi. ``It’s wrong to assume anything, just because you are seeing more and more Punjabi girls who are thin these days,’’ she says. ``But this too, is limited to big cities like Mumbai and Delhi. Girls from smaller towns in Punjab are still the same – tall and voluptuous. That’s because they aren’t bothered about their looks.’’
Brar, who herself has shed some pounds over the last couple of years, thanks to an hour of free-hand exercises daily at a South Delhi gym, says if you are to survive in the glamour world, you’ve got to be with the times. ``It’s as simple as that if short hair is in, don’t expect to make an impression with a well-kept mane,’’ she says. ``What sells today is a tall and slim look. If you are buxom, forget fashion and check elsewhere.’’
Punjabi puttar, and Delhi-based fashion designer, Ashish Soi agrees, though he quivers at the idea of famine looks. ``Thin is in, but it doesn’t mean anorexic,’’ says Soni, like a true-blue son of the soil, adding that North Indian girls are generally tall, fair and well-built, and famous for their good looks. ``But what we need today is someone who’s tall, thin and well-toned… someone who’s comfortable with her body,’’ he says.
And now with the utterly butterly sohnis I the fray, with the right vital statistics to boot, the Punjabi beauty has finally arrived. But Rohit Chawla, who has shot more beauties with his roving lens than any man alive in India, does not approve of the wholesome perfect woman. ``Normal is not beautiful,’’ he says. ``You need some quirk in your personality to make it big these days. A crooked smile, maybe!
Chawla says that except for Anupama Verma, who’s really thin, and Pooja batra ---``she’s so tall, but still doesn’t look horsy’’—he’s quite allergic to Punjabi girls. ``Who wants a gora-chitta face? A dusky and sultry Bengali girl is what Idian beauty is all about,’’ he says. It’s a view, ironically, even Gul seems to share. At her maiden press conference in New Delhi, the new Miss India waxed philosophical o the subject. She defined beauty as ``a reflection of the inner self,’’ and cited Dimple Kapadia and Arundhari Roy – both non-Pujabis—as examples.
Chawla believes that today, more than beauty, it is the packaging that counts. ``Look at Gul. I have never met her, but what I could make out from TV, she’s doe her homework pretty well. Where does beauty come into the picture?’’ he asks. Chawla makes sense when you hear the routine set for Gul by her maasi and mentor, Komal G B Singh, popular television anchor and Republic Day voice. Singh felt Gul had ``perfect physical attributes’’ but zero exposure to showbiz, so she packed everything into her niece’s preparatory routine – from discussing Pokharan to practicing reiki, from perfecting her gait to working on her smile that appeared ``vacuous’’ at times. ``I called up everybody I knew to ask for help for Gul, so much so that `Komal has a novice niece…’ became a standing joke in town.’’ the found aunt recalls.
Of course, there are other who will say there can be o one as pretty as a Punjaban. Art historian Pran Nevile goes back to the 18th and 19th centuries to show how the European travelers considered Punjabi women to be the most beautiful among their peers in the sub-continent.
``A woman appreciated for great beauty was Kani Jind Kaur, popularly called Jindan, who was the youngest wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Her portraiture in the wall paitings is breathtaking,’’ says Nevile. Delve a little deeper into history and there’s Anarkali for you, who with her famed looks led Prince Saleem to stage a revolt against his father, the mighty Akbar! Lahore still has a monument to this beauty who was bricked alive ad there’s a whole bazaar named after her.
With times chagig and beauty not being regarded as the proverbial curse, the Punjabis are only too ready to change their concepts of modesty and vital stats to capture the market as best as they can. Making the most of opportunities is a way of life for the progressive Punjabi, whose life must come accompanied with power, position and pelf.
If the macho Punjabi farmers can turn from wheat to farming gherkins and strawberries, the determined women of the land can certainly set a few things right with the body and mind. Says Ruchi Malhotra, Miss India Asia-Pacific 1995: ``Thin is in, and the rule doesn’t change for anyone, whether you are a Punjabi or a Maharashtrian.’’ Fashion designer Ritu Beri, quite a looker herself, agrees that the concept of a Punjabi beauty has changed over the years. 11In the past,’’ says Beri, ``she wan good-looking in the traditional way with perfect features --- big eyes, straight nose and a well-shaped mouth. She could be speechless for all one cared. But today, it’s more than what meets the eye. She has to have some personality, be interesting, and have oodles of self-confidence.’’
Well, all that can be achieved. And quite easily too. Gul’s maasi, Komal G B Singh, succeeded so well that in a swift follow-up, she has decided to teach television, political and showbiz wannabes the fine art of being stage-savvy. Don’t think other enterprising Punjabis back home are not emulating this example on a larger scale. With raw material available aplenty from Bhatinda to Tarn Taran, from Sangrur to Hoshiarpur, polishing, packaging and patting into shape should yield a bountiful harvest. Beauty could very well be the industry Punjab is looking for. So dance and rejoice to the refrain of that popular song: Passe hat ja zalima ve, main Punjaban jatti aayi (make way O Cruel One, I, the Punjabi lass, have come).



Monday, February 2, 2009

Keeping Kuhl(s)













Known as kuhls in Kangra, these canals, which bring water from melted snow and rain to theplains from the Dhauladhar ranges, have become polluted due to rapid urbanisation. AnAustrian doctor, backed by local women, has launched an initiative to keep the kuhlsclean for providing safe drinking water, writes Nirupama Dutt


MOVE into the countryside in the hills and it is common to see women washing clothes by narrow streams gushing alongside roads. The song of trickling water is the continuous magical music of the Kangra valley in Himachal Pradesh, which is crisscrossed by thousands of irrigation canals. Locally known as the kuhls, these canals bring water from melted snow and rain to the fields and hamlets in the alluvial plains that slope down from the snow-capped Dhauladhar ranges of the western Himalayas. These community-managed kuhls date back to the pre-colonial Katoch dynasty (1690 to 1805).
Hill women outside a wheat mill run by kuhl waterPhoto: WFSThe kuhls bring water to the fields and hamlets in the alluvial plains that slope down from the snow-capped Dhauladhar ranges Courtesy: J. Mark Baker
Today, however, the kuhls are in danger. Rapid urbanisation, changing lifestyles and socio-economic factors have led to an increase in the levels of pollution in these waters. At many places garbage, plastic bags and bottles are seen floating in the open kuhl water, and even the drinking water, sourced from here, is not safe anymore.
"A few years ago when the number of patients with water-borne diseases and various allergies started rising, I was alarmed that all was not well with the water," says Barbara Weiser Nath, an Austrian doctor, who has been living and working in the area since the last 25 years. Nath, who married a local sadhu, runs the Nishta Rural Health, Education and Environment Centre at Rakkar village. The centre has a clinic that provides free medical help to 20 villages in the area. Besides, it has helped build six toilets at the local government school.
With the population increasing manifold and the rural areas turning into suburbs of Dharamsala, the major town in the region, the water of the kuhls has become contaminated. Over the last few years, the area has seen a lot of construction activity. Stores selling consumer durables, beauty salons, restaurants and large shopping areas have mushroomed. As tourists from home and abroad frequent the valley, there is so much vehicular traffic that one can be held up in a traffic jam for an hour or more. All these factors have contributed to the increase in pollution levels here.
So Nath, through the centre, decided to launch an initiative to clean and save this largest traditional network of community-managed irrigation systems. The first thing that she did was to engage a private firm to collect water samples and get them tested. As expected, the samples were found to be polluted.
Mohinder Sharma, director of the project, elaborates: "The water from melted snow and rain is stored in tanks and then sent through pipes and narrow streams to villages and fields. This, besides an odd spring or two, is the only source of water. When we presented the report of polluted water to the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) Department, they said they would conduct tests themselves." Sure enough, even the IPH samples indicated increased levels of pollution. This prompted the department to clean the storage tanks and ensure that water was chlorinated from time to time.
The reason for the pollution of water is that only 12 per cent people have toilets in this area, and people defecate in the open. The rainfall is the second highest in the country, next only to Mawsynram and Cherrapunji in Meghalaya. "The rainfall makes the natural filtration ineffective, and all the waste and dirt is washed up into the kuhls. The water showed pathogens, the bacteria found in human waste.
Besides, animals also litter the kuhls. If this continues, the ground water will be so contaminated that it could cause damage to the crops," adds Sharma. It is interesting to recall that with the massive earthquake in the Kangra valley in 1905, which had a high human toll and which had led to roads and bridges being destroyed, the original gravity-flow irrigation system was damaged extensively. At that time the British colonial government had got soldiers in the military engineering services to repair it so that irrigation would not be interrupted.
However, J. Mark Baker, a research associate with the Sierra Institute of Community and Environment in the US, who has done extensive research on the community-managed irrigation, points out in his book, The Kuhls of Kangra, that the recent rapid changes pose a threat to these kuhls. Through the centuries, the villagers have participated in the cleaning and maintenance of the kuhls, with the kohli, the caretaker, having the supreme authority. The pipes, tanks and open kuhls need regular mending of leakages to ensure the flow and distribution of water.
Interestingly, while one man always occupied the position of the kohli and others did the maintenance work, most of the kuhls have a female deity, called kuhl mataji (mother goddess of the kuhl). Before the onset of the monsoon, a puja is performed to receive her blessings. The kohli begins the puja, which is an integral part of the annual cycle of kuhl management. Now, women are strengthening their participation in the kuhls' maintenance. Thanks to Nath's initiative, they have joined hands to create awareness about keeping the kuhls clean, and educate villagers about the importance of proper sanitation and clean drinking water.
This is being done at the village-level through mahila mandals (women's groups) and youth clubs. Youth clubs are autonomous village-level groups to encourage welfare activity. There is government provision at the block level for mahila mandals. NGOs in the state have rejuvenated these groups so that they provide not only a political platform to women but also become a pressure group for implementation of schemes, and participate in gender sensitisation activity. All women above 18 can be part of these groups.
Mishro Devi (48), president of the Rakkar Mahila Mandal, says: "Most of the women wash clothes in open kuhls, and rashes and allergies had become common. Things had become so bad that baby snakes and insects would emerge from the piped drinking water. Our members did a house-to-house campaign, cautioning the villagers to boil the water and also take care not to litter the kuhls.
Kiran Bala (17), a youth club member from Rakkar, adds: "The boys and girls of our club have been demonstrating how taps and filters have to be cleaned, and the message has spread in at least a dozen villages covered by the Rakkar water tank." The tank is above Rakkar and it serves 12 villages, including Rakkar Sidhbari, Mauli and Sidhpur.
Shekhar Attri (28), a resident of Sidhbarhi village, explains: "We always boil the water and then filter it through the candle filter at home. But all the households do not follow this practice. Many simply can't afford to do this."
Informs Sharma of the Nishta project: "Cleanliness is especially important during the summers and the monsoons when the water gets more polluted. So chlorination of the water and cautioning the villagers during this period is a continuing process. We also test the water during this period with equipment brought from a company in Delhi." — WFS