Category: Punjabiat

Posts related to Punjabiat

mitti da bawa isn’t written by Shiv

Folk songs can be centuries old. They are passed from one generation to another. Many times, the areas of origin are known but who wrote it remains unknown. Yesterday I was in a ClubHouse room and someone sang mitti da bawa (Originally sung by Jagjit Singh & Chitra Singh). She also mentioned that it is written by Shiv. I had my doubts as Shiv was a recent poet and such a thing would of course be documented somewhere. I checked his complete poetry collection and as expected it was not there. That led me to turn to Google and all over the internet it was the same information that it has been written by Shiv.

Today I got a chance to spend some more time on this and came to know that it was originally recorded for a movie called Diva Bale Sari Raat. The movie was made by Harpal Tiwana and Chitra Singh sung it for that movie. The music was done by Jagjit Singh. The movie audio album covers attribute the lyrics to Harpal Tiwana. But it is well known that these lines are part of a lori and they are very old. This video by Deepti Naval mentions that it is a Balochistan folk song. So it could have been a omission on their part to not accurately attribute it. I put the same question to Amardeep Gill (Punjabi lyricist, poet and filmmaker) and he also confirmed that it is almost a century old folk. So it is very much a part of Punjabi Folk and most definitely not written by Shiv.

What I couldn’t understand is how could it have been attributed to Shiv in the first place. Shiv did write a poem with a similar title but it is different and goes like “sajjan ji asi’b mittRi de baawe”

Heer Waris Shah – PaRchol te Visthaar

If you are familiar with Heer Waris Shah you would know that in an attempt to make it the “biggest” Heer, many publishers got new verses written in the name of Waris Shah and completely spoiled the original text. This continued for decades till the research work dedicated to cleaning the text of this garbage was undertaken in both Punjabs and an authentic version was published. To give you an example, a very famous band, sung by many singers ਡੋਲੀ ਚੜ੍ਹਦਿਆਂ ਮਾਰੀਆਂ ਹੀਰ ਚੀਕਾਂ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਲੈ ਚਲੇ ਬਾਬਲਾ ਲੈ ਚਲੇ ਵੇ isn’t written by Waris Shah. Even Gulzar fell for it when he included it in the album called “Heer by Abida” he did with Abida Parveen

Now coming to why I am posting this, I got this book by Bakhshish Singh Nijjar a decade ago but never really got a chance to read it. This is a book of 500 pages and that was the reason I got it as I wanted to understand Heer Waris Shah in detail.

Finally, now, for a week or so, it was on my desk and I spent some time reading some random pages and it seems to be based on one such “sab ton waddi” edition of Heer. It contains such surprisingly vahiyaat stuff. See, for example this band supposedly about a dialogue between Ranjha turned Jogi and Sehti:

Same author has also published Heer Waris Shah text in a separate book and here is a look at the first band:

We all know that first band in original text is just this much:

ਅੱਵਲ ਹਮਦ ਖ਼ੁਦਾਇ ਦਾ ਵਿਰਦ ਕੀਜੇ, ਇਸ਼ਕ ਕੀਤਾ ਸੂ ਜੱਗ ਦਾ ਮੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ ।
ਪਹਿਲੇ ਆਪ ਹੈ ਰਬ ਨੇ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਕੀਤਾ, ਮਾਸ਼ੂਕ ਹੈ ਨਬੀ ਰਸੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ ।
ਇਸ਼ਕ ਪੀਰ ਫ਼ਕੀਰ ਦਾ ਮਰਤਬਾ ਹੈ, ਮਰਦ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਦਾ ਭਲਾ ਰੰਜੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ ।
ਖਿਲੇ ਤਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦੇ ਬਾਗ਼ ਕਲੂਬ ਅੰਦਰ, ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਕੀਤਾ ਹੈ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਕਬੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ ।

Now this book “PaRchol te Visthaar” does explain in detail about a lot of aspects of Heer Waris Shah but since it is based on a text that isn’t authentic, I don’t know how much sense it makes to rely on those explanations. If you want to read an authentic text in Gurmukhi, pls get the one edited by Dr Jeet Singh Seetal. He was the one who lead the work on finding the original text of Heer. It is available on Amazon. If you want to read it online, you can read on punjabi-kavita.com.

Girls addicted to drugs in Punjab

A friend sent a link to a video that shows 2 girls smoking smack and cigarettes in what looks like a hostel room. Neither this is something totally new nor as a man, I have any right to say that girls shouldn’t do this. When boys are doing all this why not girls ? But something visual like this does make an impact and makes you think like where we are heading ?

The reason why I think it marks a new low in our society is something else. Alcohol and drugs related issues are not very new to Punjab. It was there since our grandfathers’ generation or even before. But even in those times women were the members of the family who saved the homes and families even in the cases where men of the house were drunkards or drug addicts. They worked hard to save whatever little they could. They would work in the fields, do small house hold jobs and what not. Aim was to keep the house running. But now when women have taken to drugs like this, it makes me really really sad about what our future holds for us.

Not sure how much one can do as an individual but most certainly all these things aren’t good signs.

May God save us from this disaster.

janam din mubarak Maan saab

I stared my first job in 2004 in Mohali and we used in live in phase 5 and then 3B2. There was a music shop in Phase 5 market (Opposite Khalsa Dhaba. I cant recall the name. Probable Some Audio Hut. It is not there any more. The owner guy closed it down and move abroad I think.). As I was a regular customer there Smile with tongue out so that guy was well known to me. Well before release of any of the new Gurdas Maan albums people started waiting for the audio CDs. Problem was that on release day companies would release only a limited number of copies and shops would run out of stock on the first day itself. In few hours in fact. Because that guy was known to me so he would keep my copy safe and when we went to him after office in the evening he will call me inside and silently hand over the CD wrapped in a paper. Such was this man’s magic. MP3 days had already started but people would make an exception in Gurdas Maan’s case and buy the original CD.

Been some time to all these things and last few years of his career haven’t been that great in my personal opinion but that doesn’t harm the respect, position he enjoys for being the biggest entertainer of Punjabi music in the modern times. There is no-one like him and it is not easy being GM. The kind of space he has enjoyed in the hearts of people of Punjab, not every one gets that. That is why aunties say “eh mar jaana aheja da aheja e pia”.

Je Gurdas nu tu mar jaana kehndi na,

Mar jaane di bhora keemat paindi na

 

janam din mubarak Maan saab…jeeyo !

ni nanaane beimaane – Ranjit Kaur

This song used to play a lot on radio during my school days. Yesterday from somewhere this line “aj tain mainu maar pawai nan’de” was running in my mind. Then I searched for this song and stumbled upon this live version by Ranjit Kaur. The YouTube description of the video says that it was in Canada in 1982. That makes this song almost three decades old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0HsVa4YWPU

I was not able to find the album version. So not sure even the album version exists somewhere or not.  Here is the album version finally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxcVr1iYSwo

It is written by Babu Singh Maan. The reason i am posting this song here with lyrics is to highlight how beautiful our music used to be before this “noise pollution” hit the industry.

I am posting the complete lyrics also. See the simplicity and beauty of words. It draws a complete picture of the rural life. Then see the simplicity of music; just harmonium and dholak. Ranjit Kaur’s amazing voice and the grace. It is a pure gem. Enjoy the beauty. You may post in the comments if you aren’t able to understand the meaning of any stanza. I will try to explain.

ni nanaane beimaane
akhan fer gi rakaane
tain hi veer nu kasooti looti lai nan’de
aj tain mainu maar pawai nan’de

tu hi khich dhooh ke mainu  teeyan wich lai ke gai
awein sangdi sangaundi ne main peengh jhooth lai
peengh chad gai hulaare siron chunni lath gai
pind sauhrian de mach gi duhai nan’de
aj tain mainu maar pawai nan’de

ghar aa ke kise ditti daar khamban di bana
kise chandre ne ditta loon sewiyan ch pa
khaure hasde hasaunde nu ki sapp sunghia
uhne ik meri suni na sunaai nan’de
aj tain mainu maar pawai nan’de

tu e bhain o bhara main begaanian di dhee
ni nanaane hunda sarian da ikko jiha jee
hor khaure us chandre de dil wich kee
aje firda e mathe watt pai nan’de
aj tain mainu maar pawai nan’de

mainu pata’i kahton ‘Maan’ mere kol na khaloye
uhde laajwar la la kahton sass leede dhoye
poore panj din aj saanu russian nu hoye
saadi kise ne v sula’h na karai nan’de
aj tain mainu maar pawai nan’de

(laajwar – neel (Blue), this Robin Blue or Amar Ulaja thing used on White clothes after washing them)