Southie
January 11, 2015, 1:56pm
28
Re: Pakistan Punjab vs Indian Punjab
The general perception of Indian cuisine remained so. BhangRa is most popular in foreign lands. Punjabi singers like Daler Mehdi and now Honey Singh topping music charts and doing more concerts outside India than any other singer. Though in recent times, people from other communities became active to introduce their cuisine globally, when you say Indian dhaba in foreign lands, most people might get an image of Sardar ji. Recently, I read a review about a book ‘Eating India’ by a Bengali lady and it says:
Just another incident that I read in Khushwant Singh’s book about Aveek Sarkar (A Bengali and owner of the Telegraph). Mr Singh observed that Sarkar never invited anyone to his home and entertained his friends in restaurant. so Mr Singh poked him that 'You Bengalis don’t have a cuisine besides machher jhol, rasgollas and msihti. He provoked by saying that though Calcutta got French, Italian, Chinese, Mughlai restaurant, one can’t find Bengali cuisine there (in Mr Singh’s words at that there were none, but later they introduced). This earned Mr Singh an invitation at Sarkars home where his wife went out of way to prove that there were more Bengali dishes as compared to what Mr Singh thought.
Regarding Hindu Punjabi, Punjabi population including them reaches 27 Million (google says so) so Sikhs forms around 90% of Punjabi population of India. May be Punjabi Speaking Hindus owned Hindi in same way as Pakistani Punjabis owned Urdu.
Very informative.
Re music, I don’t know the names of the singers you mentioned. To me Bhangra doesn’t represent Indian music or dance. Indian music and dance is far too diverse to be captured by a regional fare.
I had no idea 90 pct of Punjab was Sikhs. So does this mean Hindu Punjabis comprise only 0.2 pct of India? If that is the case, the Kapoors, Malbotras, Khannas and other Hindu Punjabi names have dominated have the largest footprint / impact per capita.