It’s night. Diwali is still lingering in the air. Meaning, every night there are a few diyas inside home that need to be … said good night to before I sleep.
Each time I do that, I remember an old poem from the lyrical land that was once #Punjab
Mothers of that land would not just blow the diya off. In fact my own mother taught me since I was this high. – I come from the Himalayas, so perhaps this is across India – you never blow a deepak, if need be, you fan the flame off. Gently, gracefully. That’s the decorum.
So it was with the mother’s of Punjab. Each night – a long, long time ago – they would fan the earthen lamp, sending him home to his mother for a good night sleep.
“Go home, o earthen lamp At the threshold stands your mother waiting for you”
Imagine! The bhaav, the sensitivity, the poetry in something as mundane as ‘switching off the light for the night.’
Imagine the warmth of the women who did this. The love in their hearts. To see life in a tiny flame. To visualise his mother. To feel her awaiting.
Ah! Kya log rahe honge!
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Of our Punjab I love the spirit, the josh, the jazba, the give damn and live it up. It is that. But not only. Punjab is a culture that has deep, deep roots into the most sensitive, the most emotional, the most poetic. That too, just like the earthen lamp’s mother on the threshold, awaits Punjab's return.