This Week, That Year
Our weekly short column ‘This Week, That Year’ where noted historian Othello Panigrahi will provide you with a personal take on the events that have occurred this week in the years gone by.
A few are born punjus, some achieve punjabiyat but we all have punjabiyat thrust upon us – Shakespeare Singh Kairon in the famous Punjabi play ‘Barahwi Raat’
It was exactly 21 years ago, this week that the punjabification of the nation started in earnest. Yes, this week I commemorate the 21st anniversary of a seminal episode of Buniyaad – a TV series chronicling the lives and times of a Punju family through the partition and after. The series transcended language and culture in that one episode that played out this week in 1987 where JB (Abhinav Chaturvedi; other memorable roles – Nanhe in Hum Log and Gopal in Bhrastachar) passes away to the other world and his screen wife Mangala (Krutika Desai; other memorable role – Krutika in A Mouthful of Sky) does the rona-dhona routine. I remember this distinctly since the New Year’s Party that I was attending then was starting to warm up with the orchestra (lead singer in pair of dark sunglasses) playing ‘Julie Julie, Johnny ka dil tum pe aaya Julie’ when everyone headed towards the TV room. I followed them and found JB dying and the associated assorted grief. And, a nation of Punjus was born.
And before you could say tandoori chicken, the whole nation was doing ‘pairi paina’ to each other, women were skipping work to keep karwa-chauth fasts, Iyer families were naming their daughters Simran, Bengali weddings had sangeet and Mallu Christians were celebrating Puranmaasi ka Valentine’s Day, while the rest were rehearsing the steps of Shava Shava.
We are all punjus now. But we weren’t always.