Indian Me

100% Punjabi Indian.

If I didn't like the food so much I mightn't have been so Punjabi but despite being away for half my life I'm still into saag (mustard greens) brimming over with butter and makki di roti (corn tortillas), and gajrela (carrots cooked slowly in milk till milk dries) - that's a hard to top dessert.

Mah di daal (black urad dal simmered with cream for hours) cholle kulche, samose, paranthe (especially alloo, gobi and mooli, of course besan with dried methi and green chillies). So most of those delectable palate pleasing, stomach destroying things I can find hither and thither, now more hither, thanks to Nidhi and Mama. But what I can't find is the non vegetarian Punjabi manna like kharode (trotters cooked in fiery sauce available only in the winter), tikke, fried fish, and chicken curry - now only if someone opened an Amritsari restaurant in the US!

And if it wasn't for the music I wouldn't have been so Punjabi either, but ever since I can remember remembering a dhol beat is the beat that I respond to. Bhangra and high energy, big bass is my music - therefore the affinity to Rock. Dirges, Ghazals, pensive ditties aren't for me. I need music that rocks me and that the bed rocks with.

Growing up in Punjab when Sant Fateh Singh led processions of spear and sword wielding Sikhs demanding Punjabi Sooba (linguistics based demand), we Punjabi Hindus somehow managed to remain unafraid of and un-alienated from the Sikhs, in fact felt closer kinship with them compared with non Punjabi Hindus, so it breaks my heart when I hear of Khalistan because my India isn't India until it includes my Punjab.