Your inner Punjabi-ness lies deep within you, hardcoded in your DNA

IT’S 2023. Meditation is cool, and Punjabis are confused. Why would you be quiet? Why not just find yourself between laughs and ‘tikkas’ at a buffet table?

Now that I have you hooked with a stereotype, let’s get the others out of the way: the wild dancing, the heart on the sleeve, the country bumpkin, the fancy cars, the larger than life weddings. They are all true, but also insufficient. Like Chicken tikka masala is “Indian food” to someone in London, but does not even begin to cover the whole universe of Indian food.

Also, it’s 2023. “Culture” is defined as what is trending on Instagram. Food delivery apps get you food from every part of the country. Malls look the same everywhere. You are watching a Korean web series with subtitles. Your grandparents have passed on and wedding rituals have been outsourced to Bollywood. Is there anything Punjabi, Gujarati, Malayali, Bengali or Tamilian about your way of life anymore?

Thankfully, there is. Deep within you. Hardcoded in your DNA. It shows up in the words you speak when pushed to the edge of happiness, sadness or anger. It is in how you dance when no one is watching. It is in the instinctive decisions you ascribe to your “gut feel”, the terms of endearment you whisper to your partner, your “comfort food”, and your people who feel like home.

For me―a guy who grew up in Rajasthan, graduated from a college in Karnataka, and thinks of Delhi as home―that instinct shows up every day in ways I cannot explain. I find it in my tendency to say something inappropriate when it is funny, unmindful of the consequences. I am a comedian today, but everyone in my family agrees I have nothing on my grandfather’s sense of humour, most of whose jokes would be rejected by the fashionable woke culture. Sometimes, whether onstage or at a party with strangers, I tend to go with the flow and hit that sweet spot of inappropriate and hilarious. If someone takes offence, I evade responsibility and blame it on my grandfather. You see, I come from a lineage of people who made jokes into a mode of communication. People who retained their sense of community by sharing food and laughter in the face of invasions, riots and refugee camps. Our funniest memories involve laughing at things we would scoff at today. I am somewhat happy my grandfather passed on well before the woke era, and is indeed resting in peace.

That’s my big worry, by the way: grandparents passing on. It is they who are the custodians of every culture, simply because they lived closer to when that culture was created. Long back, I was in Amritsar, shacking up with a college friend. The morning I was to leave, his grandfather casually asked me if I had breakfast. I had never met him before, so with the formality typical of Indian guests, I feigned hurry and refused. He pointed a finger at me, looked straight into my eyes and in the deepest of voices, said, “You’re not leaving without breakfast.” It was a tone that was warm, hospitable and stern. It assumed a relationship closer than what really existed. I realised that is what we do, remembering the many times I met a new person with a hug, when a handshake was more apt. I mean, every community loves its food, but we are probably the only ones that use it as an ice-breaker.

There is a reason why Punjabi farmers protested most strongly against the now repealed farm laws. At the heart of it, beyond the world of profit and loss and power, was an agricultural community’s connection with its land. It was identity over business. The fact that the protest site became a centre of food, music and poetry tells its own uplifting story.

At this point, it just feels wrong if we don’t mention Pakistani Punjab. Especially the part that is relegated to history: the prosperous and democratic Punjab under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, with Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and the British making Lahore a cosmopolitan city. I have been told it is the remnants of that culture that made present-day Delhi, with refugees who came with that characteristic appetite for life. And probably why I go down a rabbit hole of Lahore food vlogs when gripped by insomnia.

Lahore and Delhi might have both come under assault from change and majoritarianism, but the age-old Punjabi instinct has travelled to Canada, Australia and the UK. It is like some farmer scattered his seeds, and the wind took a few of them far and wide. They thrive in newer ecosystems and climates, with their core DNA giving them the resilience to do so.

Which is why in 2050, when the world is operated by bots and drones, you will probably see a Punjabi guy eating tandoori chicken from a takeaway in Alaska, asking a passerby if he wants to join in.

Vikramjit Singh is a writer and standup comedian