Bhola Singh Shamiria
There is no fixed standard of beauty. In some areas the black color is given predominance and in other areas the white color is preferred. Our songs or folk songs explore a lot of black and white. Someone says ‘Mera Kala e Sardar kill the whites.’ Someone says ‘Kala Kant Na Saherin Mere Babla Ghar Da Mal Dru.’
In the year 1982-83, boys and girls from the African continent lived with us in the hostel of Punjabi University, Patiala. He was also enrolled in one or the other course in the university. His complexion was black and his hair was curly. Whenever we ask them about their beauty, they tell us that we consider those who have dark complexion and curly hair to be very beautiful. While white color is given prominence in their society.
That is to say, no universally accepted standard of beauty can be set. Every region has its own personal opinion about beauty. Someone told Majnu that your Laila is black in color, then he replied that you should see with my eyes. Your eye is not the only one to see. So everyone’s opinion will be different to reach a conclusion about beauty, but our Punjabi culture recognizes white color. In our songs and folk dialects, the color black is used as a curse. A young woman scolds her father for wearing a black veil;
The illusion of the black snake
Teri way Saher Babala.
In songs, the black kantha is compared to a ‘black snake’ and the white one is compared to a ‘melon’;
I got confused
I was Nakre Patti.
The black snake ate them
Juicy like a melon.
The words that fall into the vulture push the black husband to the sidelines. A young woman complains to her mother about her Babylon wearing a black veil, and because of the black color, the dress of the Babylonian bride does not suit her. His dislike becomes more intense when the girls next to him also start flirting with him;
Babylon took the burden
His complexion is blacker than yours.
Girls taunt me to kill
Ah, the one of your house.
No, I felt cold
tall pajama
His mother comforts him with the intention of pulling him out of the white-black circles. Describing intellect as greater than color, she says;
Mango Coal Tamarind
A star in the sky
Don’t be smart
Even if the color is black.
The mother understands the pain of the daughter, but now the water has gone over her head, but the young woman does not accept the black husband from her heart. His ambitions refuse to match his habits. A woman is proud of her beauty. A young woman narrates her grief, saying how she has slipped from a ‘soap scum’ to a ‘stove or a loser’s clay’ that is churned up every day after being married to a black husband. Meaning itself burns;
No, I’m the dust of the hearth
No, I have lost soil.
Married to a black widow
No, I am a soap opera.
Sometimes a woman does not even forgive her mother-in-law, complaining about her black husband. Through the words of the vulture, she hits her mother-in-law severely. She also gives the honor of her black husband to her mother-in-law. At this point she not only blames her mother-in-law but also makes a nasty joke about her being a black son;
Five-seven daughters were born.
All sons were born white.
My turn turned black
My mother in law
Done here
Ghala-Mala my mother-in-law.
A young woman’s patience runs out with her husband. Finally, she puts her inner fire on the bottom of her Babylon by heart one day. Like a flame in a vulture, this grief erupts like a volcano;
No one listens to righteous babala
The hooks of your daughter
No one sees my pain
Go up and down the barn.
I will not tell anyone
Works of Kant
Color black
Do I blow acacia?
The mediator acts as a link between our two families. If the relationship between the two families is close, then the middleman’s jas is sung, but if the marriage becomes arranged, then the middleman is scolded. Thus in our vernaculars both colors are seen about the mediator. A young woman who is unhappy with her black husband once becomes impatient and shuts up. In time, when her children are also born like their father, her pain rises once again. Now she resents her middleman more than her parents for telling her parents about her black husband. Now she, worried about the future of her children, kills her middleman;
The standing dead intervened
Ho if a pile of chalk.
Tied my pillow bear
Khave Anan Panseri.
Two babies born to me black
black as dark
The son is also black and the daughter is also black
How dare
Now I beat it
My race will deteriorate.
The young woman accepts the support of her parents. Then she tries to decorate or groom him. Sometimes wears her nice clothes. Sometimes she bathes him with soap. She tries hard to get a change in her complexion, but her efforts fail. A vernacular expresses his sentiments thus;
Narr ‘ti with black bok
Suffer sitting
Everyday rubbing village
Add milk and curd from it.
If it becomes white somewhere
I cry to the drowned.
Of the dirt shell
Wash with soap
It is not necessary that every black person is a target of hatred. Every young woman has her own choice. A young woman mentions her black husband’s infatuation in these vernaculars. Of course, at first she was also not happy with her black husband, but the color of the heart is sometimes more beautiful than the color of the skin. This fact is proved by this folk-speech;
I felt worse before
My heart was pounding.
I am heartbroken
The cross-examination took place.
Put morsels in the mouth
He won my heart.
Of color black
Aundai Haze Bathera
Folk dialects are presented to us as a variety of our culture by dividing them into skin colors. When a beautiful young woman is taken away by a black man in marriage, the dust flying behind the doli becomes a form of a folk saying;
He got married and took the holiday of Tut
The boy is black from Rohi’s kicker.
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