The Amazing Khatris of Punjab

Re: # 135
tahmed,
His name is Brigadier Chaandpuri.........I forgot his first name

I would like to thank Dost Mittar and tahmed.

Dost Mittar provided a very different kind of a read on Chowk i.e. this article. This is very nice indeed. Please keep such articles coming. The routine rut was earlier broken by Kulharee (Feroz Qutubshahi) through his writeup on Death Metal. That topic is still active.

tahmed saheb, used the topic to effectively tell us about other castes and his own background in a very interesting way - a kind of a Harvard`s case study approach. Now I can tell my relatives that I know a Punjabi from Heartland Punjab very well hahaha.

Manto: There are several Sindhi Muslim families that also use surname of Khatri. Now I am not sure whether they are original Sindhis or the settlers who took to Sindhi culture. Also, I am not sure whether they are the same cast of Khatris as Dost is talking about or Sindhis having their own caste by the same name.

re: Khatris of India
All about the Khatris of India:
Some excerpts
1. (The region from where the Khatris emerged is now in an Islamic country, Pakistan; but in ancient times this was one of the most important centers of Indian culture. This is where the Vedas and the Mahabharata were composed, where students from all over India came to study at Takshasila and were Panini composed his Ashtadhyayi.)
2. (The Khatris are among the rare non-Brahmin communities that have historically studied the Vedas. In Bachitra Natak, Guru Gobind Singh mentions the descendants of Lord Ramchandra of Ayodhya studiying the Vedas, and hence came to be called Bedi.)
Sridhar

Dear DMji

One small correction Sunil Dutt was not a Khatri but he was a Brahmin.

Ta

Arstoo

You are wonderful dear Tandon. I have just finished reading your article which made me so engrossed in my memories of school day friends who were mostly Khatries and known only by their gots or sub-castes. How I remeber the epic fondness of Sethi, my class-fellow. for the kulcha-chhola sold by Sheroo outside the Government High School, Cambellpur (Now Attock). One day, Sethi, who was son of the Session Judge at Attock was enjoing Chholas of Sheru by sitting on the ground around his chhaaba when suddenly his elder brother who was passing by saw him. He gave a hard kick on the hinds of Sethi which upset all the Chhaba and its fans besides putting Sethi to much shame. But Sethi could not stop eating Chholas of Sheroo. He therefore posted two of his friends, one on each side of the road, to warn him about the arrival of his brother while he enjoyed the chholas. So whenever a friend of his would sight Sethi`s elder brother he would cry ``Nus voe Sethi, aaya ei bhai``. God knows where he will be now but I can`t forget Sethi and Sheroos kulcha-chhola. He must be a big thing if still alive as he was a very intelligent boy.

Bachpan ke din bhi kia din the.

regards

drlokraj#132:

Sorry, I don`t know much about gotras, including my own. I remember being told of my gotra during my father and mother`s death rituals in Hardwar. If I recall, it was said that everyone (not just Hindus?) is from one of the eight (or was it twelve?) gotras, named after some ancient rishis.

delhiwala/drlokraj: Glad to learn a bit more of the indian branch of the gujjars family. So far all I knew about them was based on googling. Glad to learn that the man on whose exploits in 1971 the movie Border is based was from this tribe as well, and retired as brigadier. As I mentioned earlier below, we have a matching hero on the Pakistan side, Brigadier Sahib Dad Khan (also a gujjar) who captured Khem Karan (the largest town captured by either side in 1965), and his brigade also shot down General Cariappa`s son (who was flying an Indian plane) in the process. Sahib Dad actually volunteered in 1965 to be shifted to the front-line position (and as his son used to say back then about his father when hearing that he had volunteered to be on the front lines: ``jad giddar di maut andi ay o shehr nooN dorda ai`` - ``when it is time for the jackal to die, he runs to the city``). I am sure the Indian brigadier enjoyed a similar sense of humor as well (while sharing in courage with his Pakistani counterpart). Now I must watch Border!!

mannyd#127:

I think that I read those two novels also, but I think that the exact title of one of them was ``Rashtra ki hatya``, which was the last of the four of a sequential series, the others being ``Swadheenta kay path par``, ``Pathik`` and ``Swatantrata Daan``.

Kaurasach,
I have heard of the politics going on in USA/Canada gurudwaras. But all Jats cannot be bracketed in that category.

DM ji, can you tell something about the ``gotra`` or as popularly known ``got`` system?
Inspite of best efforts of Sikhism,Arya Samaj and other reformist movements, castes still maintain their rigid boundaries.No group, except Communists have denounced caste.
But, gotras do not have that strict boundaries............you can find same gotra accross castes, e.g. Bhatia, Chopra, Verma and so many other gotras are there in Hindus of `upper` castes as well `lower` castes. Why it is so and is it seen in only Punjab area or other parts of India as well?

In Punjab, as far as physical appearance goes, there is Khichri - one can`t differentiate between different upper castes. even with the lower castes there is an overlap.....

now that people have given up traditional professions......jats are running shops.....and pandits own farms......there is less cultural difference too.....and the behaviors change too.....

there have been more and more cross cultural marriages.....and with the changing environment, this ethical stereotypes have become redundant......

Dullay, and other Jats,

It is not that I am anti-Jat......SIKHI is more dear to me.......and the nonsense (including my relatives) these Jats spew in gurudwaras and other places, was so stupid that I made my mission to shut them up.....which I do.....their behavior is anti Sikh and ..... phukra and hochha.....

Thanks DM, and some of the other inter-actors here. Would appreciate more news on Jhung. Most everybody I meet from Pakistan says ``Oh, Jhung . . .`` and then I have to remind them about the three Nobel Prize winners from Jhung.

On another tack, another thing all the castes, sub-castes and groups on Punjabi Khatri Hindus did was to build huge big dharamshalas and more in Haridwar. Every district of what is now Pakistani Punjab is represented there, in multiples. The best restaurant for lassi and makkee ki roti and sarson ka saag in Haridwar (Singh Dughda Bhandar, established 1948) is also from the whole Punjabi Khatri scene.

Some of them are, apparently, now trying to figure out ways to buy property in their districts of origin again, and set up more dharamshalas.

So it might be helpful for people to revert to their old surnames in Pakistan?

Re: # 121

There are gujjars in Ropar, Hoshiarpur and Nawanshehar districts of Punjab.They are partly nomadic in nature and move with large cattle heads.
In Himachal, they are mainly in Hamirpur,and Chamba districts, and they move with their sheep flocks, with the changes in climate. Punjab has very few Sikh gujjars, most of the are Hindu or Muslims and they are called ``chaudhries``.
Hero of 1971 war,( on whose story film Border was made, who retired as Brigadier), is a Gujjar Sikh.

Re: # 126

LoL... The meter is not in the danger zone yet Ali sahib.

Ally: No I am not from Jhang but I grew up with class fellows from that area. Also the Pakistani songs were quite popular in East Punjab. I did not know about different words for cousins in Jhangi. Thanks for the education. My wife`s family came from a village near Jullundher. Your moving away from E. Punjab was a loss of India and a crying shame.

jang: Your observation about Bhangra is spot on. It started out as a dance related to agriculture, but not closing/opening of ledger accounts.)

Muhiyal: Thanks for all that great information. I did not know all the Muhiyal surnames and neither does my father. It confirms DM and Rsridhar`s views on role of castes. The Muhiyal Brahmins became farmers, soldiers and professionals and gave up on `Purohiti` a long time ago. There was no money in it either)

Mohar11 and others: Please ignore the article and interactors if you do not like what you see instead of asking for bans and making silly predictions about what dire and horrible things will happen, if other people do not follow your tastes and dictates.

DM ji: I did not read the novels that you mentioned. In a majority of cases `Dutt` is a middle name,as you mentioned. Guru Dutt was a Lahori Brahmin, who wrote `Desh Ki hatya`, `Vishwashghat`, which strangely enough opposed partition of Punjab, as mentioned by Manto so many times.