Think about it. This is the soil that gave the world masti —not just joy, but a loud, reckless, I’ll-dance-on-my-own-grave kind of joy. This is the land where bhangra was born not in clubs, but in harvests. Where the dhol doesn't just beat; it announces. I am alive. I have wheat. I have a daughter who can kick higher than your son. Don’t test me.
Ok Punjab is the smirk of a Delhi businessman stuck behind a Fortuner with Punjab number plates on the Gurgaon expressway. "Haan, typical." He doesn’t see the farmer who drove that Fortuner to the bank three times last week, asking for a loan he knows he won’t live to repay. He just sees the chrome grille and the swagger. But the swagger is just grief with good sunglasses.
Ok Punjab means: the sarson da saag is still made, but the family eats it in three different time zones. One plate in Vancouver, one in Melbourne, one in a PG in Noida. The saag is ok . The connection is ok . The ache is not acknowledged.
Because the day Punjab becomes just ok is the day the last dhol falls silent. And until then—between the grief and the gold, the poison and the prasad —the only honest answer is not ok .
Listen closely. Under the ok is a chardi kala . The rising spirit. The farmer who lost his crop will still hand you a glass of lassi and ask about your mother’s health. The boy who is one visa rejection away from giving up will still tie his turban with the care of a king. The mother whose son is lost to the white powder will still light a diya every evening. Not because she believes it will bring him back. But because giving up would be the real death.
So no. I don’t accept ok Punjab .
But here’s the thing about Punjab—and why the word "ok" will never win.