Paper short abstract:

I propose to look at the ways in which Jugni asserts, reinvents, or alternately struggles, given its ‘glocal’, post-colonial residence in exile. Jugni may loosely be called a kind of Punjabi qissa (folk-tale tradition), with its history and origins numerous and speculative. Each of these speculations, however, emanate from varying degrees of authority and ownership. These multiple ‘definitions’ may even be daringly read as the many Punjabs singing it from its various ruptures.

Paper long abstract:

I propose to look at the ways in which Jugni asserts, reinvents, or alternately struggles, given its 'glocal', post-colonial residence in exile.

Jugni may loosely be called a kind of Punjabi qissa (folk-tale tradition), with its history and origins numerous and speculative. Each of these speculations, however, emanate from varying degrees of authority and ownership. These multiple 'definitions' may even be daringly read as the many Punjabs singing it from its various ruptures.

Jugni is an enigma of Punjabi culture, and yet, familiar to all. It is a trope, a tale, and the teller. In that, it is both text and meta-text. It is evoked, as well as it speaks. Therein, it is both song and singer. It represents in its being. And thus, it becomes a 'performative outpouring'; where in the embodiment of Jugni's vibrant persona is exhibited art's impulse to address and heal the fissures of Punjab's identity and history.

The formulaic frame of the qissa, with a set refrain, amenable to topical content(s), lends it a vigor where the compulsion to make a comment on the topicality it speaks of is fore-grounded. The satire is contained within the community, as well as bursts at its seams, Jugni being the quintessential traveler. Since her comments come from her travels, they can move across landscapes of time and space, making it encyclopedic as well as parochial, invocative and subversive.

Jugni treads between past and present, incident and its narrative, which I seek to review through it's many renditions, in folklore as well in current mass-media.