First Visit to Punjab: Mehamaan Ki Khatirdaari Koyi Punjabi se Seekhe

Punjab is also called as land of five rivers. Usually Punjabi peoples are identified by their good behavior and taking extreme care of the guest. Today i am going to share you my experience with Punjabi's and my views on their nature. Being a south indian i don't have any friends from Punjab. From my childhood, I have very curious about Punjab peoples. I heard some great stories of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his son Duleep Singh. Even I have seen some of the Bollywood movies which are greatly describes about Punjab state and its culture.

Thank god, after 26 years, I got a friend from Punjab and my goodness he is my roommate. Within a couple of months he became little close to me. Its very biggest opportunity for me to get full information about Punjab culture and their traditions. Few days back he invited me to his home at Punjab. Commonly, i have maintained some distance from north indian friends, because its may be difference in our behavior or nature or attitude, etc.

Finally, i decided to go with my roommate home, so that i can come to know the nature, culture and traditions of Punjab. I was very excited to visit Punjab. I have seen many movies, which are beautifully shown the Punjab state, even i am also thinking in the movie style only.  We took bus from Delhi to Punjab. Punjab is very beautiful state, especially i liked Chandigarh city, which is very green and well planned. My roommate was told me that, he is living in village and i was thinking about the his village atmosphere, peoples and living of style. But, i was wrong, because its not like a village which he told me in room, its can consider as small urban area. That village area is looks like Greater Noida for me.

We reached our destination, i.e. Punjab. My roommate brother came to city to take us, because their is no government or private transportation facility to reach his place. When i met his brother, i really wonder, because his brother is really looks like very innocent and very silent in behavior but my roommate is having opposite kind nature. His mother and some family members welcomes us. The first floor construction work was going on his home. I was surprise because of some few things. In our south india, footwear's are not allowed to take in our homes and we never wear footwear's inside the home. Even in our Mysore Palace, footwear's are not allowed inside the palace. I was feeling odd to wear footwear inside home. Usually, we have common tradition that, whenever some one or even  we came from out side, we must wash our legs and hands then only we will enter home. But here is something different, we came from Delhi to Punjab but we didnt fresh-up, directly they offered Pizza to us and even we started to eating, i was really very uncomfortable moment for me. It may be difference in our culture and traditions, i may feel different, but it may be common for them, i dont know.

As you know that, i am research student and i am usually having much curious and having lot of questions in my mind. We planned to visit historical Gurudwara's of Punjab, were Mughal army attached on Sikh army. Usually, we south indian's whenever we took our friends to our home or native, we are very excited to explain to our village and place around us. But here was some thing different story, i am keep on asking many questions one by one but his answer was remains the same. I was quite wonder about these kind of answers. Their was a small water canal near o the Gurudwara, i asked him, what is this? what is the name of this canal? how old it is? his answer was "you dont know? its water canal and i dont have more any idea about it". By 2 pm we visited almost 3 major places. I asked him to take me for Chandigarh city to see the tourist places. He might be not interested to show the tourist places and he is not shown any interest in that. So, i didnt asked one more time. His parents are very friendly, especially his father. Night we visited his village gurudwara. I spend some good time with his father and he is so friendly. He explained me everything about the places which we visited today. That time i come to know all the historical facts about those places. 

Within a 2 day's i got mixed feelings in my journey. I like the punjabi food, they usually used to eat more heavy food. without ghee they wont take food. I enjoyed some of the food items like Pinni (laddu), desi ghree, lassi, makki da roti and sarson da saag, etc. I requested my friend mom to give seperate pickle and laddu for me. She given separate boxes of laddu and pickle for me, which i likes a lot. The time come when we need to return to Delhi. I said thank to his mother, father and his brother for kind hospitality.    

The senior peoples are still having that old trends along with the feelings for guests and they are looks like same what i thought. Whatever i thought about punjab peoples like, "mehamaan ki khatir daari karana koyi punjaabi logo se seeke", this word exactly matches to senior peoples of punjab. May be the younger generation may not have that kind of nature and attitude with them, it may because of modernization of the world or they are adapting the new culture, i dont know.

This is my first experience with Punjabi peoples and my first visit to Punjab. Hope you enjoyed my experience. Please free to share your thoughts in comment section.