Izzatdar - The Respected

Grammatical mistakes.

Good subject matter.

Message lost.

Guys,

It is not only about caste that I wanted to emphesize. It was at one level about the victomhood of women, while at the same time about the unrelenting will of this brave gender to shake it off. Many a times, you might have noticed that when an eloped couple is caught, the male is the first to break, and it is the girl who keep defying and in many cases end up paying with her life. Salute to such girls and lanat on those male lovers who cannot stand by the side of women who left everything for them.

Re: # 39
kaura...
honor killing may not be common, but marrying without family concent isolates the boy/girl from their respective family for at least couple of years...
Though I don't like Mumbai urdoo movies very much, put Priyan movies I like very much....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VeWjESK4MM&feature=PlayList&p= 4272075570FCB73E&index=2

at 5:25 to 5:35

3 decades back marriages with hindus was frowned upon, it is still not the best choice. the reason - different culture. however, caste is the biggest hurdle.

nowadays, one will be surprised how sikhs are marrying christians, muslims and hindus, and inter caste marriages are not uncommon.

one peculiar and new phenomenon is the juttpuna, who look for only jutt match.....but there are equal number of inter caste marriages amongst them.

it makes sense though.....each caste has different culture, economics and values...so harder to adjust.....as castes are choosing non traditional professions, it is becoming easier.

It is a case of two extremes. Little girls are exploited and raped under the guise of arranged marriages. And naive young women getting the same treatment at the hand of lovers.

Arranged marriages are a thing of past, even in the villages in East Punjab. I have witnessed girls, without their parents' objections, telling boys that they will talk to his parents if he is interested. Of course, there are rare cases of honor killings that reach the media.

bhatti....
one reason behind such crime may be social environment and outlook....Western societies are mostly individualistic and indian (may be paki too) society is more of group/family oriented...so, marriage is not a personal bonding, rather creation of soial bonding between two families. So, family identity gets higher precedence over everything....

Re: # 29
lokraj....
marriage is still an area, where the caste system prevails (in urban areas too) in India...but intermarriage accross similar caste groups (Brahmins marrying otther type of Brahmins, OBCs marrying other OBCs etc.) is very common now a days...

Regarding age old indian social rule, a man is allowed to marry a girl from lower caste but should not give hand of his daughter/sister to a person of lower caste. A girl brought up in affluent and better cultural environment may not find it easy to adjust with inferior environment....

my last post was addressed to cheema ji.

majumdar, arranged marriages between hindus and sikhs of the same caste are quite common....and baptizing first son to be sikh was common in 18-19th centuries when sikhism was not seen as a separate religion and becoming Khalsa meant fighting against injustice (in practical against mughal/muslim rulers).

Bhatti sahib, a good read! Do write more stuff like this!

I personally like societal fiction separated from political stuff to keep it more enjoyable and even more so to avoid trivializing discussions of serious societal issues with those of petty politics or even petty geopolitics.

I tried to read your story as a sad commentary on the state of Pakistani womanhood. I get the feeling that in it there are also a few side jibes at the main players in Pakistani politics and the overall Pakistani politics versus "neighbors". Some of its bits of Punjabi subtle irony may be rather too subtle for my own understanding. (Or, perhaps more likely, my antennas are all screwed-up! :( )

Side question: is “Punjabi subtlety� an oxy-moron?! :)

BTW, there is no such thing as an Azad Kashmiri. (Good thing, too! :) )

bhatti ji, intermarriages between hindus and sikhs are common. within my own family there are several such marriages. Castes are same in hindus and sikhs and interestingly, the boundaries are created by caste and not the religion.

Cheema sb,

Re: 31

Arranged marriages? No.

But some Hindoo families baptise their first born sons in the Sikh faith.

Regards

Re: # 30; majumdar

[[especially in the North Western parts.]]

LOL!!

Re: # 29; drlokraj

do hindus and sikhs intermarry? with the blessings of their individual families within a rural environment (clarifying to distinguish from a more 'enlightened' urban situation)

Bhatti sb,

Well-written sounded 100% authentic as well. I am sure lots of such stuff goes on in villages in the subcontinent especially in the North Western parts.

Regards

people in our villages still live within strict caste boundaries paricularly in the context of marriage...urbanization does blur these distinctions and that is already happening.

nb,

caste system is pretty much prevalent in Punjab. Rajputs marry rajpus and jatts marry jatts, though in urban setting things are moving in the right direction. My wife is a rajput, but my brother is engaged to a jatt girl, and that is a sort of victory for me on personal level....