The evil eye: nazar
Praise too much and you may cast nazar: hence the black spot on a baby's cheek, the black thread, and lemons and chillies over the shop door.
Punjabis of every faith have feared nazar, the envious look that harms whatever it admires. A smudge of kajal, the kala tikka, is put on a baby's cheek or behind the ear to spoil its perfection; a black thread is tied on the wrist or ankle; a lemon with green chillies hangs over shops and new trucks, and an old shoe may dangle from the back of a lorry.
To take off nazar, a mother may circle red chillies or salt round the child's head and throw them in the fire; if they burn without the usual sharp smell, it is said, the evil eye was there.
More signs, symbols and omens
A crow cawing on the banera, the roof's edge, means someone is coming: so women in Punjabi songs ask the crow for news of the one they wait for.
‘Ours is a flock of sparrows, father’: the bride's farewell song pictures daughters as birds who must one day fly from the nest.
Girls spinning together in the trinjan made the charkha the Punjab's great image of youth, gossip, love and the passing of life.
The cuckoo's call, the papiha crying ‘pee kahan’ and the dancing peacock all mean one thing in Punjabi song: the rains have come and the beloved is far away.
Sneeze as you leave and you should sit down again; an itchy palm means money; hiccups mean someone is remembering you.