ਖੂਹ

Meaning

ਖੂਹ (khuh) is the well — the deep shaft from which, for centuries, every drop of the village’s water was drawn. Before the tubewell, the khuh was life itself: drinking water, cattle, irrigation, all from the same dark circle of water.

Origin and etymology

The word’s deeper origin is not firmly established in the sources; it is the ancient Punjabi name for the dug well.

Cultural context

The village khuh was a world in miniature. Women came at dawn and dusk with pitchers, and the well-side was their parliament — news, songs, confidences exchanged while the rope ran through willing hands. For irrigation, the Persian wheel turned by bullocks lifted water into channels that fed the fields — slow, backbreaking, and the limit of what the land could give.

Folk songs are full of the khuh: the beloved met at the well, the rope, the pitcher. The tubewell has made the old khuh redundant for farming, and many have fallen in or been capped — but the word keeps its poetry, and old wells still stand, ringed with brick, as monuments to the age of drawn water.

ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਵਿੱਚ ਅਰਥ

ਖੂਹ ਪਿੰਡ ਦੀ ਜਾਨ ਸੀ। ਪੀਣ ਦਾ ਪਾਣੀ, ਪਸ਼ੂਆਂ ਦਾ ਪਾਣੀ, ਖੇਤਾਂ ਦਾ ਪਾਣੀ — ਸਭ ਖੂਹ ਤੋਂ ਆਉਂਦਾ ਸੀ।

ਸਵੇਰੇ-ਸ਼ਾਮ ਔਰਤਾਂ ਘੜੇ ਲੈ ਕੇ ਖੂਹ ’ਤੇ ਆਉਂਦੀਆਂ ਸਨ। ਖੂਹ ਦੀ ਮੁੰਡੇਰ ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦੀ ਬੈਠਕ ਸੀ।

ਟਿਊਬਵੈੱਲ ਆਉਣ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਅਦ ਪੁਰਾਣੇ ਖੂਹ ਸੁੰਨੇ ਪੈ ਗਏ ਹਨ, ਪਰ ਲੋਕ-ਗੀਤਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਖੂਹ ਅੱਜ ਵੀ ਵਸਦਾ ਹੈ।