ਮੱਝ

Majjh (ਮੱਝ) is the Punjabi word for a buffalo, the water buffalo kept in farmyards across Punjab, in everyday talk most often the female animal kept for milk. A majjh gives the rich milk behind lassi, dahi and ghee, eats green fodder through the day, and is at the centre of village dairy life.

What does majjh mean in Punjabi?

It means buffalo. Punjabi vocabulary lists give the equation plainly: majjh is buffalo, its calf is a katta, and the plural is majjhan. The same lists give the cow a different word, gaa, so majjh is never the cow: it is the larger, dark water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, the animal you see tethered in the vehra, at the trough, or cooling itself in the village pond in summer.

The best known dairy breed kept in Punjab is the Murrah, a breed of water buffalo mainly kept for milk production and noted among Indian buffalo breeds for the highest milk yield. Murrah animals are jet black with short, tightly curved horns, and average milk production is given as 2,200 litres in a lactation period of 310 days. The breed's fame reached Punjab directly when a Murrah buffalo at the Lakshmi Dairy Farm in Punjab set a record of 26.335 kg of milk in the 2016 National Livestock Competition and Expo.

Why is the majjh so important in a Punjabi village?

Because the household runs on her milk. The morning and evening milking set the day's timetable, the green pathhe and dry tudi are gathered for her first, and what she gives comes back to the table as milk, dahi, lassi and ghee, with a surplus many families sell. In farm talk a good majjh is wealth that walks: an animal counted, priced and cared for like a member of the working household.

What is a majjh calf called in Punjabi?

A buffalo calf is called a katta, where a cow's calf is a vachha. The pair of words is one of the first small lessons in farm Punjabi: majjh and katta belong together in the yard just as they do in the language, and a child in a pind learns both long before any classroom teaches animal names.