Word: punjabis
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...million people. India's population, second only to Red China's, is greater than all of South America, Africa and Australia put together. Indians speak more than 700 languages or dialects and belong to at least seven distinct racial types, from the tall, leathery, light-eyed Punjabi of the north to the frail, black-skinned Tamil of the south. Most of India's millions are underfed, badly housed and racked by disease. The average life expectancy of an Indian at birth is 32 years and five months. Hundreds of thousands are homeless, and live, make love, sleep...
...Singapore last week, just before sailing for Australia, where he plans to study agriculture at Queensland University, Eric Mellor donned shorts, turban and sword and entered the temple to take five sips of holy water and repeat five times in Punjabi, "The victory is of God.'' The Granth Sahib was opened at random; the first letter on the page was H, and Mellor was asked to choose a Punjabi name with this initial. His choice: Harbans, meaning "a member of God's family...
Shoes & Songs. He quickly proved that he had not forgotten his Punjabi mother tongue nor his Sikh traditions. Entering holy temples, he took off his shoes, tied a kerchief around his head (to compensate for the absence of his long-shorn Sikh beard), hugged bewhiskered Sikhs with greetings of Sat Sri Akal (God Is Truth), sang devotional songs and quoted Sikh scriptures (while his U.S.-born wife and daughter, sari-clad, observed custom by sitting with the women in congregations...
Furthermore, Good Will Ambassador Saund wove many a pungent political thread into his tapestry. Recalling an old Punjabi proverb, "Torn clothes should be stitched in time," he declared it is "inconceivable that two great democracies of the world-India and America-cannot understand each other while their objective is the same." The U.S. attitude on India's troubles with Pakistan, said Saund firmly, arises out of a realization of Russia's domination in Eastern Europe: "Aid to Pakistan was only part of an overall military strategy-against international Communism-given after carefully weighing all the facts of life...
Quite by accident, Hari meets Sushila, a dark, big-boned, full-breasted girl with tumbling black hair ("A real Punjabi beauty," clucks his aunt). Soon the marriage-broker mills are grinding, and Hari, as he almost admits to himself, is secretly relieved. Amrita's clan also starts making other arrangements. Still spouting defiance and undying love, Amrita and Hari find that the sight of each other is not a stab at the heart but a pain in the neck. At novel's end, Hari is leading Sushila seven times around the ritual wedding fire, and Amrita...