Small omens of everyday life
Sneeze as you leave and you should sit down again; an itchy palm means money; hiccups mean someone is remembering you.
Many Punjabi homes keep a set of shagun, good signs, and apshagun, bad ones. A sneeze as someone sets out means they should wait a moment before leaving; a cat crossing the path is unlucky; an itching right palm means money is coming, the left that it is going; hiccups mean someone far away is thinking of you; and the hoot of an owl near the house was feared.
Good beginnings are sealed with something sweet, gur or a laddu, and a coin or a little money is given as shagun at weddings, births and new ventures.
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.
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.