Sunday, June 14, 2009

What's with this word "paiyya" ..

Hey friends... having lived in chandigarh for the past 4 years, apart from learning punjabi and its very sweet n love shedding abuses on 'maas' and 'behans', a word that i have come across very frequently is "paiyya" (pronounced as bhaiya with the 'bh' replaced by the sound of 'p').

People here use this word for the people of UP and Bihar. When I asked some of my friends about what do they actually intent at saying when they call these people 'paiyya', the answer i got form them was something like -- these are like low-standard people, who dont have as good an etiquette as we have, and their way of carrying themselves and the style of talking is so backward and funny.

I dont know why these Chandigarh people brag so much about their English speaking and lavish style of living, when they actually dont have any sense of carrying themslves. Imagine a "non-paiyya" jatt wearing Tommy Hilfiger Clothes, Ray Ban goggles, getting out of his Skoda at Stu-C, taking his Apple I-phone out from his pocket, dialling a number and saying -- "Hor payi kiddaan.." (Hey bro! Hw r u??)

Why do the people here judge a person from his physical appearance? Everyone cant be rich enough to wear only branded underwears. I have met a lot of so-called "paiyyas" and have observed that their level of thinking, the smartness and aptitude with which they can handle even extremely difficult situations is much more superior than many of those "self-acclaimed" smart Chandigarh people.

What i want to say is that we (the Chandigarh people) may be blessed with prosperity in terms of money, but we must learn to respect the fact that prosperity has two components -- money and brain. Having just one of them doesn't make us prosperous, and even if we have both it does not give us the right to criticise or abuse others. We must stop such discrimination n stop using such words against our own countrymen, because before belonging to UP, Bihar or Chandigarh we belong to India and we must respect each other to gain respect for our country, first from within itself and then from the outside world..

12 comments:

  1. Extremely well said .. This is the thing I truly believe in .. Very nice post .. Ur blog is now one which I never miss, but find little time, or say feel a little lazy, to leave a comment .. but this post compelled me to write one .. Once again, excellent ..

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  2. well, thanks!! but i need to say that similar is the case wit some Delhi people :).. i hope u know who m mentioning to..

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  3. nice post neeraj.. but it is not to be taken so seriously..
    actualy bhaia means brother..
    dnt generalise that chandigarh people think bhaia as low standard people..
    it might be true in some cases...but not all..
    we do appreciate the people as they are doing so much hard work..
    as my practical experience..
    i have seen people giving tea and coffee to laborers and even glucon-d u believe..
    smetime i have seen people paying extra money to rickshaw walas for their hard work..

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  4. hey girish, how often have you seen that behavior of the people that you have just mentioned?? once in a 100 times!!! And what i am talking of is the general attitude of the people towards the people from these states, the nature of their reaction when they get to know that the other person is from UP or Bihar, and they definitely don't mean 'brother' when they call someone 'paiyya' (bhaiya is a different word)..

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  5. just notice one more thing.. when u r talking about UP and Bihar what came to your mind were just labourers and workers, and no other people. But when i was talking i was also considering students, bank employees and all other classes of people.
    Many of my friends of Engineering are from UP and Bihar, and even they have been at the receiving end of such discriminating behavior from my chandigarh friends and others, and the tone of their behavior has, more or less, been the same..
    That reflects the general attitude of the people here (even the educated ones)..

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  6. it's a nice article that you have put up but your reasoning is questionable. i thought about what you had to say and i think some points would make the case look simpler so here goes.

    1. every person has some traits which puts him into some category of things. we have always classified people based on their traits throughout the ages and this classification of a person into a category takes place at all levels be it individual,communal,regional or national.so everyone has something or the other to be criticised about.
    2. carrying on from the previous point i would say that yes, the majority of the public in UP or Bihar really doesnt have a clue about how they walk or talk but punjabis shouldnt be the ones to complain as they arent too particularly well known for their "grace and elegance" either. the fact that there is poverty in UP and Bihar and that the punjabi community is successful does fuel such thoughts of superiority in one community over another.
    3. most importantly,one should think about it in a more broader perspective rather than just punjabis vs UP walas and Biharis.you go outside chandigarh and people do make alot of fun about the sardars.we, as north indians, take any man from the south to be the same whether he is from kerala or tamil nadu or wherever.the goyals are successful people but you wont find anyone in haryana speaking too highly about the baniyas and if you go outside haryana there is probably not a single place where the jats are not made fun of. look at the cases of indians abused abroad. the point i want to say is that all of this is a part of society and man's ways of living.it has existed through centuries and it exists today(though in different forms).this will continue as long as society exists because complete harmony is an impossibility so this entire talk of one india etc etc is a little idealistic.more importantly,singling out a single community to be on the sending or receiving end to such comments should not be considered as this is an issue in which everyone's hands are dirty.

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  7. i agree to all the points that u have stated..
    it's true that the society cant be rectified 100 % from these sort of things, but what i want to say is that if educated people like u and me try to put an end to this thing atleast among the people around us then it can help a little bit..

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  8. and about the people being abused abroad, if they're so much into discriminating among the people of their own country on the basis of caste, religion, community or nationality, then they must not complain if they are abused abroad..
    I don't think that the countries which we look upon as being developed, and which we dream of competing in terms of growth and development have these problems to such a grave extent as it is in India. I think these countries can be called "Secular" not ours where this caste and regional discrimination thrives even among the so-called intellectual class, which includes us..

    ..and i cited the example of Punjabis only, coz if i wud have cited the examples of others also then it would have taken atleast 10 pages more to finish it off.. :P

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  9. Neeraj, u are absolutely right in saying that the so called intellectual class is making matters worse .. A person from UP or Bihar is not considered "trendy" or "hip" by this intellectual (= garbage) class because they are not wearing Branded clothes or are as fluent in English .. Unfortunately brains, intelligence and a clean heart have taken a back seat to matter and material these days .. and sadly education has nothing to teach related to this .. This is what are call "sanskar" which are inherited ..

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  11. And ya .. I always know what you want to say .. Some (or I shud say MOST) of the "Delhi" people are hypocrites, pretentious and emotionless (maybe they can suggest a more appropriate English word here).. And they seem to think that it is the right way as now they are getting "Americanised" .. but what it is leading to is impatience, frustration and disregard towards other ppl's feelings !! but lets leave it here only as its a whole another story !!! Keep posting ...

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  12. well said neeraj.but language of your comments smacks of reverse hypocracy. i can interpret it in two ways, by first way you are a ignorant fellow who met a small number of people and by second way you have some kind of guilty feeling egarding life style you are able to maintain while doing nothing and side by side you see those labour (mostly are from bihar or up) working up so much sweat and the treatment they get in return. and all you targeted population is doing the same thing minus observing, so you are clubbing them all together and bashing them up for their life style and trying to prove you as more intellectual. by let us proceed to your comments. first of all their lifestyle is not their fault, if their family can afford it and they have no problem with it and as long as they are not creating problems of others, we have no right to criticize them. it is a democracy and they have money, wats our problem? and all of them are not the same. majority of them, who are studying in punjab university( however rich they may be) are good intellectual. but problem is that they are a quite lot, so we dont observe them on first sight. the rotten ones, you are talking abt are more boisterous. so, they get noticed, which they desire by making so much noise. this is problem of not only chandigarh but whole of india. good peples always fade to background because they are not making right noises at the right time. in last decade advent of 24 news channels accentuated this tendency. all of amitabh career mirrors this.

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