Mirza II

As I mentioned a few Fillets ago, Punjabi people are rather enamoured of Mirza and Sahiban. I don’t mean literally that they’re in love with people who died one thousand years ago, the point I’m trying to get across is that they’re rather obsessed with the legend. The legend is one of the focal points of Punjabi culture, much like butter chicken and sardars.

Thus, the song by Punjabi MC isn’t the only one about Mirza- there are hundreds. At least, there appear to be. Just as music shops at dhabas and other truck stops have two separate stalls- one for Chamkila cassettes and one for albums by other artists- if you ask a Sardar with a writer to burn you a CD with “Mirza and some other good Punjabi songs”, he will give you two CDs- one full of songs with Mirza in the title, one full of other songs. You will then have to listen to all hundred Mirzas on the first CD in an effort to find out which is the one you want, and probably start liking five others by the time you’ve found it.

Another, more localised fallout of the Mirza mythos is manifested in the recent behaviour of Param Pal Singh and Sushil Manohar Dogra aka Jammu, both of whom are in love with the same girl- a hairy sardarni with the wit and personality of a grizzly bear. While one cannot really blame Param Pal for doing so- he is, after all, a sardar, and can’t really help it- Jammu can really not be excused.

Anyway, back to the point. Proving that wishful thinking is alive and well, Param Pal has taken to calling Dogra Mirza in hopes that he too will be beaten up by a squadron of outraged relatives. What Dogra calls Param Pal in retaliation is unprintable.

With the fervour that Mirza arouses, it should come as no surprise then that in W-Fillets #19: Mirza angry Punjabis have posted angry comments- or as Asim calls them, Filloments.

A gentleman who calls himself ‘kick some a**’ has corrected my account, saying that there were no sticks involved, Mirza was a genuinely good archer, the only relatives involved were Sahiba’s cousins, and they did not number two thousand.

He then goes on to accuse me of being sarcastic.

Well, duh.

The whole point of the W-Fillets is sarcasm. Sarcasm is one of their chief virtues. If I were to follow kick some a**’s no doubt well-intentioned advice and research folklore instead of being sarcastic- what would then differentiate the W-Fillets from a PhD on Punjabi folklore? Absolutely nothing. People would delete them from their inboxen without ever reading them, and my twin goals of spreading sweetness and light and world domination would never bear fruit. No, kick some a**, I must disagree with you gently but firmly. The sarcasm shall stay.

But enough on sarcasm. The most astonishing thing is that kick some a** has said that a non-negative EQ, not IQ is required to appreciate the story of Mirza.

While I would be the last person to deny this, I cannot help be bewildered that Punjabi chauvinists are aware of the concept of IQ, much less EQ. I would have thought that the worship of such Punjabi icons as Mirza, Gul Panag, and Anchal Kumar (who are some of the other Punjabis kick some a** holds up for emulation) would leave little time for an expansion of knowledge about various personality metrics.

But then, you learn something new everyday.

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