The Spirit of Punjab – Teej Festival – Dhol overpowers the Covid shadow.

Teeyan Da Tyohar, Mela Teeyan Da and Teej Festival, different names yet only one impression it leaves on your mind which is boundless joy!

Teej known for people like me who put this word in captions of images I shoot every year, celebrating the spirit and enthusiasm of the oh so energetic and magnificent festival that is native to Punjab. The actual pronunciation of this word in Punjabi language is Teeyan and Teeyan da Tyohar means, the “Festival of Teeyan.”

The festival is celebrated during the Sawan month which falls in July-August. Girls and women perform Giddha, the folk dance of women of Punjab and they sing folk songs dedicated to their husbands or future husbands.

In the good old days, the celebrations were usually held near a river or a pond, under the shade of some big tree, keeping in mind the humid and hot weather of Sawan. Married women, visited their parents homes during the Teej festival. Old swings in the house were repaired and they joyfully took swing rides on them, giggling and chattering.
The festival saw these women share their stories with their besties and women folk, singing traditional and folk songs of Punjab.

The vibrant and colourful traditional Punjabi dresses, seem like reflecting all the colours that Punjab has to offer. Adorned by the beautiful and homely Punjabi women, various ornaments are worn with elegance and their smiles give you a glimpse into the richness and beauty of Punjabi culture.

Famous Indian poet Dr. Rahat Indori has put this into his own words and style:

चलते फिरते हुए महताब दिखाएंगे तुम्हें,
हमसे मिलना कभी पंजाब दिखाएँगे तुम्हें.

Chalte phirte hue mahtaab dikhayenge tumhein,
Humse milna kabhi Punjab dikhayenge tumhein.

Keeping the spirit of the festival alive in the contemporary times and before 2020, the year of the Covid19, every year some colleges in Amritsar used to hold Teej Festival celebrations in their college, where students as well as teachers took part in the celebrations with songs, cultural dances, exhibition of craft work and several other things related to the culture of Punjab. BBK DAV College for Women and Khalsa College for Women are two prominent colleges that celebrate this festival every year with great enthusiasm.

This year i.e. in 2020 I was doubtful that no college would celebrate it this year but to my pleasant surprise Khalsa College for Women decided to hold the event with the faculty members taking part in the festivities. It felt like they didn’t want to break the tradition of celebrating the Teej festival and decided to keep it going even in such pandemic.

The staff members wearing face masks and keeping to the social distancing norms to the best of their abilities, resorted to dance and music as the women folk, clad in colourful Punjabi costumes, celebrated the festival. They danced to the tunes of traditional Punjabi music as teachers joined hands and recited `Bolian’ (verses from folk music) and performed Gidha to welcome Savan’, the rain month, with which the festival is associated. `The festival speaks of the good times in lives and how the girls break into dance and singing to welcome the rain month’’, said Principal Dr. Manpreet Kaur.

Keeping with the spirit of Punjab and Punjabiyat such festivals offer the new generation a chance to get a glmpse of the rich culture and heritage of Punjab. The PUBG and Tinder generation needs to know where our roots are and moving forward with the pace of the tech-savvy world, the Tappe and Boliyan and loosing oneself in Bhangra once in a while will keep your soul enriched with boundless joy!

Hoping to have a brilliant, Corona-free 2021 and a year that makes us look back with confidence and say, “Yes, we did it!”

Let me know if you want me to do a write-up on Teej festival the next year as well 🙂

*All Photographs by Raminder Pal Singh*