There was a time when villages in Jalandhar and Phagwara perched atop sand dunes, camels roamed the village by-lanes as the bells in their neck collars tinkled and granthis and mahants visited homes doling out wisdom and women embroidered Phulkari for their dowries. The dunes are gone, replaced by metalled streets and concrete structures, but there is a place where the remnants of the bygone era can still be found.
At nondescript Khajurla village, a few kilometres away from the plush, touristy restaurants along the Jalandhar-Chandigarh highway, is a hidden treasure — a home-museum conserved by A Sikh scholar and farmer Surinder Singh Khalsa. It is a living celebration of Punjab, its folklore and ‘mehnatkash virsa’ (culture of hard work).
The home hosts a museum “Ajaib Ghar”, a rich library celebrating Sikh and Hindu texts, books and scholars, farm implement exhibits, a special enclosure dedicated to the farmers’ protest on the Singhu border (where Surinder Singh camped all through), and a traditional kitchen, where lies a clay chulha.
He has preserved the precious belongings of seven generations of the men and women of his family and many villagers (who handed their heirloom to him for safekeeping).
He says, “Guru Maneyo Granth” (The Granth be thy Guru) has been the reigning philosophy in the household. Baba Beer Singh was our first ancestor to head abroad. My grandfather Jagat Singh, his younger brother Niranjan Singh and uncles Mahinder Singh and Darshan Singh have all visited countries like Canada, Argentina, Hong Kong, Singapore, France, etc. But their siddhant (tenets) remained rooted in Sikhism.”
Valuable items have been named after “Mai Bholi Di peerhi” (Mai Bholi was Surinder’s great grandmother), Maji Bant Kaur (grandmother) da Sanddok. “Bibi Surinderjit Kaur (Surinder Singh’s mother) di tokri” — hand-made baskets made with wheat straw (Kanak diyan naaran) — are prized possessions. “Odon kankan vi lammiyan hundiyan si (back then, the wheat crop was taller),” Khalsa reminisces.
Doors, beds, chairs and even roof rafters all have been reclaimed from ancestral properties or women’s trousseaus.
The home is a treasure trove of peerhiyan (stools), moorhe, phulkaris, embroidered cloth bags, chadars (bed sheets), sandooks (traditional Punjabi almirah), Charkhas (spinning wheels), belnas (rolling pins), handmade baskets, jinde valiyan baltiyan (buckets with locks), Ropariye deeve and laltains (metal, earthen and glass lamps), antique mirrors and jewellery boxes, hal, panjalian (plough, ploughshares, coulters, shafts), antique geysers, historic cow and camel bells, dated stone weights (used as units of measurement), vintage fans, radios, (tawe) vinyl records — all neatly lined up in rows of shelves brimming with rare cultural treasure.
Surviving traces of bygone era
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