A letter to my readers

Dear Readers

Thanks for dropping by! :)

Are you a non-Punjabi (like most readers of this blog) and didn't understand a word of all the poems I posted yesterday? Please do not feel excluded. Yesterday morning I discovered the transliteration link of Google and found it very easy to use. It fired me up to put the Punjabi poems and quotations I've collected over the years, online. My diary- a cheap pocketbook in use for twelve years- has long been in tatters. I had been procrastinating about salvaging my collection before the diary finally succumbed to its wear and tear. Yesterday's enthusiasm did the job. I'm not finished though, only about half-way through. So, there will be a few more Punjabi posts yet.

I can't tell you how satisfied I felt yesterday. Typing in Punjabi, taking care of the spellings, the bindis, the tippis, the adhaks, I felt the same tenderness that one must feel when they caress a baby. I caressed Punjabi words the whole day yesterday!

There is this poem by Firozdin Sharaf, a very famous Punjabi poet of the early 1900s, in which he paints an idyllic picture of Punjab. He says:

Mauj laayi daryaavaan sohni, baag zameenaan falde
Sharaf Punjabi dharti utte, thhumak thhumak paye chalde

(pronounce the 'thh' of 'thhumak' as in 'thhanda pani')

Translation:
The rivers make Punjab festive; gardens and fields flower
Their gait has a lady’s grace; Sharaf! What beauties they are!

I totally adore the words 'thhumak thhumak'. Like them, each of the poems I posted yesterday have some words, phrases or lines which always overwhelm me with a love for the sounds of Punjabi. Yes, I really, totally love my mother language and yesterday, I felt a sense of completion when I saw the 'Punjabi collection' label in my Labels-list. An important part of my identity had finally made an entry on my blog.

I plan to translate each of the Punjabi poems, idioms or sayings on my blog into English, so that my non-Punjabi readers too can partake of their delightful imagery, wisdom or wit. I will notify you as and when I do it.

Also, my dears, I will soon be moving to my own url, http://www.japindergill.com/. Now that the book is finished, I want to give undivided attention to my blog. The regular readers of this blog have seen me grow from a confused-struggling college student to a confused-struggling Software Engineer to a confused-struggling writer. Now that we have reached the stage of calling ourselves a 'writer', shouldn't our blog reflect that too? So from now on, you can expect a regular stream of short stories here, starting from Monday. Of course, I will continue to post my confusions and struggles whenever they arise- where else would I vent them? :)

So, see you on Monday now, with a new url and a fresh new story.

Take Care!

Japinder