ABSTRACT
This chapter on the roots and routes of diasporic creativity examines the skill sets that were developed and honed in earlier phases of migration. Zygmunt Bauman and other commentators on globalization contend that the knowledge of the past is outdated and irrelevant to the requirements of twenty-first-century employment. They argue that there are new rules and one has to respond to the changing times that require flexible responses to new job markets. From the earliest phases of consciousness and socialization, these metaphors are drilled into all people who are the progeny of Punjabi artisans, and people are reminded of them on a daily basis. The craft workers’ skills flourished, first because deployed in new and challenging environments and also, in some cases, because of the opportunity of formal training. During the 1950s, for example, the polythene liners of Tetra Pak milk cartons were used to make tea cozies and cushions.
