(Download Complete Book)
Samah Dvaar
The Palette of Punjab
By
Tipu Salman Makhdoom
(Translated from Punjabi)
First Chapter
Dedicated to the Harappan People
Chapter 1
The Unchanging Tapestry
A young man rode his horse,
paused along the path to pluck and eat radishes from a field, then mounted his
steed once more. Arriving home, he unwound his turban, drank water from a clay
pot, and lay down upon his cot.
Were someone to present this
scene as being from a Punjabi village and ask me its era, I would find myself
utterly perplexed. This tableau could have unfolded fifty years ago in a
Punjabi village, or a hundred, five hundred, a thousand, or even two thousand
years past. For millennia, the rhythms of life in Punjab have remained
steadfast. The same farmers, the same fields, the same plows and oxen, the same
horses, the same water pots, the same families, and the same rivalries. This
timeless consistency of circumstance has shaped a life equally unchanging, and
thus, for thousands of years, the stories of Punjab have echoed the same themes:
feuds over harvests and the division of water, romances sparked at horse races
and festivals, the joyous celebrations of weddings, and the mournful wails of
funerals.