The pinnacle of the power for any local Punjabi population came in the later part of the 18th century when Sikh Empire was established by Ranjit Singh who conquered almost whole of Kashmir along with modern day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and annexed it into greater Punjab region. The coalescence of the various tribes, castes and the inhabitants of the Punjab into a broader common “Punjabi” identity initiated from the onset of the 18th century. Prior to that the sense and perception of a common “Punjabi” ethno-cultural identity and community did not exist, even though the majority of the various communities of the Punjab had long shared linguistic, cultural and racial commonalities.

Traditionally, Punjabi identity is primarily linguistic, geographical and cultural. Its identity is independent of race, color, creed or religion, and refers to those for whom the Punjabi language(s) is the first language or recognizable language and those who reside in the Punjab region and associate with its population. Integration and assimilation are important parts of Punjabi culture, since Punjabi identity is not based on tribal connections or race. More or less all Punjabis share the same cultural background.

If you are not a Punjabi yourself, then get ready for a boatload of surprises. Getting married to a Punjabi? You will spend the rest of your life with, arguably, the happiest people on earth but with a few side effects. Just don’t bother to change them, because nothing done in the past has worked. Enjoy the ride and get used to these 16 things:

1. Everyone, almost everyone around you will talk loudly; get used to it. Even if you are standing just inches away from people at home, they will still shout out to you, as if you were standing a few blocks away from them.

2. Almost every day, there is going to be some sort of drama. The smallest things will trigger emotional outbursts. It may involve — you have been warned — crying and cursing, too. Just hold your ground, count till 100 if you are scared or bored and let it pass. Punjabis get back to their good-natured selves very soon.

3. Don’t forget to use the standard prefix “Ji” else you will be insulting everyone if you don’t do that. No matter what you call your mom and dad, when married into a Punjabi family, mummy becomes ‘mummy ji’, Daddy become ‘daddy Ji’, your sister-in-law becomes ‘Parjhai ji’ , and so on.

4. A Punjabi family is not big, it’s huge, and you’ve got to keep it like that. Relatives are going to be there in every part of the country, and the world. You will have to please them, whether they come from Bhatinda, Ludhiana, Chandigarh or Canada.

5. Kanneda ( Canada) and Amreeka ( America) are sacred places. Anyone who stays there is an important NRI relative. They are addressed as Kanneda wali bua ji, Kanneda wale Chacha Ji, Kanneda wale Phofa ji, and you must give them special attention, care and time.

6. Breakfast means Paranthas. And if the temperature outside is soaring, there’s Lassi too. Once married into a Punjabi family, forget about dieting. Firstly, they don’t like thin and lean people, and, secondly, they won’t let you go on a diet come what may. Don’t worry about variety. There’s aloo, gobhi, muli, daal, even egg ka parantha, which will always be served with a large dollop of butter and a glass of Lassi.

7. Don’t even think about saying “I don’t know how to dance”. It’s the biggest offence to not be able to dance if you’re in a Punjabi family. They don’t expect you to be professional or poised, as far as you can shake your legs a bit (wildly).

8. Forget about saving, only think about giving. Punjabis are the most generous people. Being generous runs in the blood of Punjabis.

9. Sometimes they show off a bit, but it’s all in good faith. Latest jewellery, big cars, big house, lavish weddings, huge meals; they are going to show off in every aspect of life, wherever it is possible to do so.

10. Don’t mind, but most Punjabis can’t converse without abusing.

11. Be ready for the family hug at every occasion. No matter if it’s a birthday party, anniversary or wedding, it remains incomplete without a BIG family hug.

12. Nothing will ever compare to the warmth and love of Beeji. Anything small or big, beeji (grandma) will always take your side and lend you unconditional support through thick and thin.

13. B is always for butter chicken.

14. All the despairs will be drowned in alcohol. Ask for as much as you want.

15. You cannot wear plain clothes; it is below the prestige of the family. And if you do, this is what you should expect from your mother-in-law.

16. And lastly, to qualify as a Punjabi bahu (daughter in law), you must know how to make perfectly round chapattis.If not, nothing else can compensate it! Self Confidence at its Peak!

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Khalil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, and writer of the New York Pen League. Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi. Born in Lebanon, as a young man he immigrated with his family to the United States, where he studied art and began his literary career, writing in both English and Arabic. In the Arab world, Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel. His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature, especially prose poetry, breaking away from the classical school. In Lebanon, he is still celebrated as a literary hero. He is best known for his 1923 book The Prophet, an early example of inspirational fiction including a series of philosophical essays written in poetic English prose.

I am sharing, below, with you some life changing lessons drawn from one of my favorite books, The Prophet.

• Be thankful for the difficult times. They have showed you how strong you can be. “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

• Kindness is a quality of the strong.“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”

• There’s no such thing as absolute truth. “Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’ “I am ignorant of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.”

• It’s the small people who try to belittle and humiliate others. “To belittle, you have to be little.”The harm others do to you is easier to forget than the harm you do to others. “If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.”

• You might forget those who made you laugh, but you will never forget those who were by your side in your darkest hours. “You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.” “Hearts united in pain and sorrow will not be separated by joy and happiness. Bonds that are woven in sadness are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure. Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally pure and faithful.”

• It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary. “In the sweetness of friendship; let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

• Love is life and life is love. “When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.” “Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”

• Put love into your work. “Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.” “They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”

• To understand the heart and mind of a person, look at what he aspires to be. “To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” “Trust in dreams, for in them is the hidden gate to eternity.”

• True love can’t be possessed.“Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.”

• Seek to put up with bad manners pleasantly. “The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.”

• Love binds everything together in perfect harmony. “They say: ‘If a man knew himself, he would know all mankind.’ I say: ‘If a man loved mankind, he would know something of himself.”

• Always look on the bright side of life. “The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.”

• We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are. “The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.”

• True love is the offspring of spiritual affinity. “It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.”

• Let there be space in your relationship. “Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

• If you pray when it rains, make sure you also pray when the sun shines. “You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.”

• When you give of yourself, that’s when you truly give. “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

• Real beauty comes from within. “Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”

• Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. “Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.”

• Every relationship should be free from bondage. “No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.” “If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.”

• Be thankful for both the good and the bad in your life. It’s all meant to teach you something. “I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.” “When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

• Your attitude towards life will determine life’s attitude towards you. “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

• A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. “A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 18,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

There are only 14 million Jews in the world; seven million in the Americas, five million in Asia, two million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa. For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims. Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together. Ever wondered why?

 

Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish. Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time and TIME magazine’s ‘Person of the Century’, was a Jew. Sigmund Freud – ego, superego – the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew. So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

 

Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole of humanity: Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle. Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine. Alert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine. Gertrude Elion gave us a leukemia-fighting drug. Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B. Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis (a sexually transmitted disease). Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases.

 

Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission. Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology (disorders of the endocrine system; diabetes, hyperthyroidism). Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy (psychotherapy to treat mental disorders, depression and phobias). Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill. George Wald won a Nobel for furthering our understanding of the human eye. Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in embryology (study of embryos and their development). Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine.

 

Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 180 Nobel Prizes while only 3 Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes).

 

Why are Jews so powerful? Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip. Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor; Peter Schultz, the optical fibre cable; Charles Adler – traffic lights; Benno Strauss – stainless steel; Isador Kisee – sound movies; Emile Berliner – the telephone microphone and Charles Ginsburg – the videotape recorder.

 

Famous financiers in the business world who belong to the Jewish faith include Ralph Lauren (Polo), Levis Strauss (Levi’s Jeans), Howard Schultz (Starbuck’s) , Sergey Brin (Google), Michael Dell (Dell Computers), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Donna Karan (DKNY), Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins) and Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts).

 

Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew. So are Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state), Alan Greenspan (Federal Chairman of Banking under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush, Jr.), Joseph Lieberman, Senator, Madeleine Albright (former Secretary of State), Maxim Litvinov (USSR Foreign Minister), David Marshal (Singapore’s first Chief Minister), Issac Isaacs (Governor-General of Australia), Benjamin Disraeli (British statesman and author), Yevgeny Primakov (Russian Prime Minister), Jorge Sampaio (President of Portugal), Herb Gray (Canadian Deputy Prime Minister), Pierre Mendes (French Prime Minister), Michael Howard (British Home Secretary), Bruno Kreisky (Chancellor of Austria) and Robert Rubin (former Secretary of the Treasury).

 

In the media, famous Jews include Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Barbara Walters (ABC News), Eugene Meyer (Washington Post), Henry Grunwald (Editor-in-Chief of Time Magazine), Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post), Joseph Lelyyeld (Executive Editor, The New York Times), and Max Frankel (New York Times).

 

Can you name the most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world? The name is George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion; most of which has gone as aid to scientists and universities around the world. Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew, who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion.

 

At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by winning seven gold medals. Lenny Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medalist. Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker (Tennis) are all Jewish.

 

Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Barbra Streisand, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis and Peter Falk are all Jewish?

 

As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew. Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver Stone, Aaron Spelling (Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo’s 1, 2 and 3), Michael Mann (Starsky and Hutch), Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Douglas Fairbanks (The Thief of Baghdad) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish.

 

To be certain, Washington is the capital that matters and in Washington the lobby that matters is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Washington knows that if PM Ehud Olmert were to discover that the earth is flat, AIPAC will make the 109th Congress pass a resolution congratulating Olmert on his discovery.

 

William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed. Guess what faith did he belong to?

 

So, why are Jews so powerful?

 

Answer: Education!

 

Why are Muslims so powerless?

 

There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas. Every fifth human being is a Muslim. For every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are one hundred Muslims. Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?

 

Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities (1 for every 57,000 Americans) and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities’, and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top 500.

 

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent. A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent. Some 98 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same. Around 40 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same.

 

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The U.S. has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million). Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.

 

Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.

 

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society. In Pakistan, there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK, the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.

 

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.

 

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan’s exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Morocco, and Algeria (are all at 0.3 per cent) while Singapore is at 58 per cent.

 

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.

 

Why are Muslims powerless?

 

Because we aren’t producing knowledge.

Because we aren’t diffusing knowledge.

Because we aren’t applying knowledge.

 

And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

 

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion. America, just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China – $8 trillion, Japan – $3.8 trillion and Germany – $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

 

Oil rich Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion; Catholic Poland – $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand – $545 billion. Muslim GDP, as a percentage of worlds GDP, is fast declining.

 

So, why are Muslims so powerless?

 

Answer: Lack of education!

 

All we do is shouting to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures.

 

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* Courtesy: This article is a guest post, an excerpt of the original, “Why are Jews so powerful and Muslims so powerless?” written by Dr. Farrukh Saleem on January 8, 2010 in the Pakistani press. He is a Pakistani journalist and political analyst who is also the executive director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, a think tank focusing on Pakistan’s political and economic security, as well as regional and environmental issues. Originally, a financial professional by occupation, he managed an eight figure equities portfolio invested in the New York Stock Exchange between the years 1988 and 1994. Saleem has been a columnist for The News International, Pakistan’s largest English-language daily, for over 5 years. Prior to that, he wrote weekly columns for the Dawn newspaper in 1996. Throughout 1996, he also worked as a correspondent on issues related to Pakistan, India and Iran for the Vancouver Sun, a Canadian newspaper. Farrukh Saleem has additionally been a guest columnist for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review. He has served in capacity as the CEO of Dominion Stock Funds Limited, a KSE-listed company, and currently lives in Islamabad.  Opinion expressed in this article is solely of the author. 

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Did You Know

 

• People who ride on roller coasters have a higher chance of having a blood clot in the brain.

 

• People with blue eyes see better in dark.

 

• Money (currency notes) isn’t made out of paper, it is made out of cotton.

 

• A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it go mad instantly and sting itself to death.

 

• Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

 

• A huge underground river runs underneath the Nile, with six times more water than the river above.

 

• The USA uses 29% of the world’s petrol and 33% of the world’s electricity.

 

• Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear By 700 times.

 

• The animal responsible for the most human deaths world-wide is the mosquito.

 

• Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.

 

• We exercise at least 30 muscles when we smile.

 

• Our nose is our personal air-conditioning system: it warms cold air, cools hot air and filters impurities.

 

• Our brain is more complex than the most powerful computer and has over 100 billion nerve cells.

 

• When a person dies, hearing is usually the first sense to go.

 

• There is a great mushroom in Oregon that is 2,400 years old. It Covers 3.4 square miles of land and is still growing.

 

• German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog.

 

• The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing

 

• Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right, but women’s shirts have the buttons on the left.

 

• The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it’s already been digested by a bee.

 

• It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it.

 

• The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.

 

• The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air.

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The WordPress.com prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

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4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 16,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 4 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

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