Essay: Life in a Punjabi Village

Essay: Life in a Punjabi Village

Life in a punjabi village

 

Outlines:
1-Introduction
2-Familiar occupations of the villagers.
3-Its special features; quarrels and feuds, occasional fairs, places of meeting, etc.
4. Advantages of living in a small village.
5. The drawbacks of village life.
6. Conclusion.. 

Who can live in heart so glad As the merry country lad!.
This is how poets have sung the pleasures of living in a village. Life in a Punjabi village is not so attractive, but it has certain charms of its own. These attractions are appreciated by town’s people more than by country people.
Villagers in the Punjab are all alike ‘and so is the life in them. The village rchopal’ is the meeting place where elderly people meet in the evening to have an interesting conversation about the local problems. Sometimes when the schoolmaster is present, this conversation takes a political turn. They talk about things happening in big cities like Lahore or Karachi. Young men have other things to interest them. They talk either about their quarrels or their love affairs.
The life in a Punjabi village is centred round the big zamindar. He passes most of his time either in talking, or in settling the village disputes. Rest of the population mainly
consists of cultivators. The life of a cultivator la In no way pleasant. He works from morning till evening. He gets up early in the morning, eats a simple breakfast and then goes to his Fields with his team of bullocks. When he Is busy In tilling the soil or reaping the harvest, his wife Is busy with her cooking, washing, sewing and quarrelling at home. The children play about in the streets or go to the village school to run errands for the schoolmaster.
When the sun sets, he returns home. He takes his supper and then settles down to smoke his hookah; the only means of refreshment in a village. Besides the cultivator, every village has a blacksmith, b carpenter, a potter, a barber, a weaver, an oilman, a grocer, a mason, a physician and sometimes a very qualified schoolmaster. Fairs are an interesting feature of the village life in the Punjab. These fairs are generally held either at the tomb of a saint or after the harvest time, The villagers put on . their colourful garments and take a day off from their busy life. They dance, sing and hold wrestling matches, and “fleet the time as carelessly as they did in the Golden Age."
Village life has many attractions. Articles of daily use like butter, milk, eggs, vegetables are cheap. People are simple and sympathetic. They will lend you a helping hand for the mere asking. They will share your sorrows as readily as they share your joys. The life in a village is comparatively quiet. There are no disagreeable sights, smells and sounds. which are so common in big cities.
This is only one side of the picture. Village life has its drawbacks too. The people are ignorant, superstitious and fdnd of litigation. They enjoy very few facilities of modern life. There are no schools and hospitals, no theatres or gardens. The cultivator lives a life of woeful poverty. His house is like a stable; the children are ill-fed and uneducated.
Now, when we have become free, we should do something to improve the conditions of the people living in villages. In fact, these people are the backbone of our economic life. With a little attention towards sanitation and education, Villages can become the pride of Pakistan. It Is to be hoped that things will change in the near future.