The Dance of the Damned

captain romair,

..... so i take a day off from chowk and you want me to send my poor daughters to iraq ! ........ actually, i wouldn`t mind if one of them got into westpoint or annapolis - it is a great career and pays huge dividends in the corporate world too .......... but we do thank you for putting your life on the line for pakistan ..........

...... having said that, everyone in my ``immediate`` family is/was in the military ........ my father was in the army for 30 plus years and singlehandedly fought the biggest and baddest villians of the twentieth century : hitler in north africa, hirohito in burma, shastri in chamb and that horrible woman, indira gandhi, in rajastan ........ for his efforts he earned a chest-full of medals, dinner with the queen and a plot in islamabad (we are all grateful for the last one in particular !)..........

...... now what is all this nonsense about not being able to support a war unless you are in it yourself ?....... what kind of silly logic is that ?.........everyone can`t go to war, someone has to stay home to take care of business ........... that is why you have a volunteer professional army ..... no ? ............

p.s. which course were you in at risalpur ?........ just curious ........

``Ontario schools have failed black students by having too few teachers of colour, too few courses on black thought and a zero tolerance code that hits black students hardest, charges a leading Canadian researcher into race and schooling.``
From Educator Calls for Creation of Black Schools

Further to pmishra2 #8, This is the root problem.Low education attainment and going for under skilled jobs is what plagues dalits and muslims in UP and Bihar. IMO radical changes in education system are required. If the population cannot adjust to the education system, the education system should change according to the people.
In Ontario there was a study on the high dropout rate of African American students. There was a proposal of separate schools for them, dont know if it was implemented.In my view , education should be geared more towards self employment and entrepreneurship, and should be tailor made according to the local environment.

Re: # 113
Dullya,
This is precisely the mindset that has hurt the Sikhee, use Singh as your middle name as per convenience.
Singha ne Shahaddata dittyan sigeya Sir Katwa ke Sirdaari litte si.

Good bye.

dullabhatti #118: Bhatti Saab, mainu ukki nahin samajh aayee, tuseen kee kahna cha rahay ho. Par kujj douroon lagda hay kay siani gal keeti aye. Hence, I agree..........

scout #88: ``they have no right to applaud offensive institutions and policies.``

Yes, in any society, the empowered will rarely send their own kids into offensive battles. Many will, however, cheerlead other people`s kids into war. Those others will invariably be the poorer people of the country. If you do a cross-section of the US soldiers killed in Iraq, I can bet anything that their average per capita income will be far less than the US average.

It the job of the military to defend its own country. For that, one need not sent one`s own kids into it, if one does not want to. It should be the job of a volunteer military. But it is not the job of a military to be sent into offensive wars to push poltiical agendas of a group of rich elected folks. Especially when those rich folks will never send their own kids into such an offensive war.

If a person supports this war, and sends his own kid into it, I will disagree with him, but will at least respect him. But if someone cheers it on, and will never send his own kid into it, then they don`t deserve anyone`s respect. And if you go down the list of the top Republican leaders, and their top media personalities, it is the who`s who of rich people who avoided Vietnam, by hook or by crook, when it was their turn to serve.

This is why I think every Congressman voting for offesensive war should, by law, be forced to send their own kid into it, first. There would be no more offensive wars, because Congress would never vote for one...........

dullabhati,
hullo my rishtedaar, are in pakistan or usa, its confusing from ur post.
jats were hindu or muslims first before they became sikhs and many muslim jats in pakistan retain their sirnames. i have heard of sandhus, waraich, gill, bajwa etc in pakistan.
also you will find many indian sirnames similar to english and european sirnames, e.g.
bermen-burman, mitre-mitra, sweeny-swani, parmer-parmaar, rausing-raisingh, lamb-lamba, thackery-thakery, daimler-damlia etc and in jats there are hoon-hoon, man-maan, gill-gill, binder-bhinder, mundy-mand, sandoval-sandhewaal , randeva-randhawa etc. either people migrated from europe to india or vice-versa

Romair various


Romair bhayya pooray form mein aa gaye hai...

Chowkon per chowke, Chhankkon per chhakke maaray jaa rahay hai....

#117. I agree with you, people who hesitate to enlist their able bodied children to armed services of their country should not advocate sending their armies to war...or atleast should think twice before doing so.

by the same token people who oppose spending on war or army which is funded from their paychecks, should stop working and not pay taxes to the federal govt because that money is directly going to the war budget. if they are funding the army and opposing it at the same time, they no better than their politicians.

also, I don`t remember any of Jinnah`s children enlisted in newly formed Pak army when he sent troops up North. Same is true about most major democratic rulers in the world. Kings did send their kids to wars, but they were princes and enjoyed special previledges...children of political leaders in democracies don`t have any special previledges and titles...at least theoretically.

come`on romair...no one uses name Hanuman in India either.

in rural areas people are usually not very aware of names any way...Sheera becomes Kashmir Singh at the most when he gets married ....and never a time comes when he has to call him self Kashmir Singh Bhullar..everyone in village bhullar so big deal.....only people who grow up and move out of locality start using their full name.

e.g. my name was Dullah Singh until I was grown up and in university that I felt need to add my last name to it to differentiate from other dozen Dullah Singh in school....all my certificates and documents until I moved to US bear the name Dullah Singh...it was here I added Dullah Singh Bhatti....during my citizenship interview, it was confusing the the officer that why I did not use it before....he saw some lafRa in it. Even my Indian passport used to ahve Dullah Singh.

point is using or not using the real family name is no big deal unless some one using something else to hide it...then he is wanna be person.

BTW lot of sikhs drop the middle name Singh to make the name shorter...some liek dilliwala drop last name to show their Khalsa-ness.:-)

Romair

Re: # 88

interesting post.... if hamidm is not sending his son/daughter to Iraq and Urstruly isn`t sending his son/daughter to a madrassah.... they have no right to applaud offensive institutions and policies. there is no point in taking them seriously

by the way, i heard on npr that army recruitment officers are facing the music for their brainwashing tactics. who knows how far that will go. not that far under the current government i`m afraid.

netizen
First of all we need to define who is an arab is it just some one who speaks Arabic, or lives in a specific region, because before the arab conquest of Palestine, Syria, Egypt, none of them spoke Arabic, it was only after 6 centuries of arab rule that they lost their language. In Palestine and Syria they spoke Aramaic, language of jesus, there are only few villages left in Syria where it’s spoken now, it’s related to Hebrew with similar alphabet. In Egypt they spoke Coptic language, it’s virtually died out now, spoken by a few Christian monks.

Here is a question in 50 years times most people in places like Bangalore will speak English, will that make them English?

dullabhatti #: ``I am not sure about your observation about use of pre-islamic last names in Pakistan amongst Punjabis....I find majority does use Arabicized last names although most of them are aware of their real last names....``

People originally from the geographical areas of Pakistan, will generally tend to have these Hindu (or pre-Islamic) last names; even if they don`t use them. They keep them as a part of their name. Many don`t even know they are Hindu names. They just consider them family names. I don`t use my family last name in real life. Primarily because it makes my name too long, and because, on principle, I don`t believe in using such family last names, to declare status in public. Although it would give me some status (still) in my biradari areas. However, I do keep it officially as my last name as I consider it to be my ancestory. So if you meet an Arif Ali from Punjab. Ask him his full name on his passport. In many, if not most cases, it will be Arif Ali Warriach or something........While Arif Ali from Karachi will be just Arif Ali.

AlphaNull #``That is a very selective sample of Indian Muslim names.....In addition to ‘Khan’, it’s not difficult to find Mirza and Baig (Central Asian), Jafri, Razvi (or Rizvi) and Naqvi (Persian, I believe). Also ‘last names’ like Chowdhury, Antule, Marikar. Hardly Arabized.``

You are correct. I am trying to figure out how big of a sample they represent. Jafri and Rizvi (?) tend to be Shia names; especially if combined with Shia first names like Ali, Hassan, Fatima, Hussain, etc. I don`t know if they are Persian or Arabic. My guess would be Arabic...

Farzana #106: ``My first name is not Arabicised; it has Persian origins. It has two absolutely wonderful meanings -- wisdom and luminescence/fire :) ......The last name is Gujarati...``

You are correct (obviously, since it is your name). Farzana turns out to be Persian. Not Arabic. I have a hard time differentiating between Arabic and Persian names. Isn`t Varsey from Waris? In either case, neither seems to be a traditional Hindu name. Would you be Farzana Varsey Kulkarni or Devi or Kapoor or Dixit or Basu or Milani or Matondkar or Sen or Bhatt or Patel or Farzana Varsey Rai, by any chance?

If you were in Lahore or Jehlum, your name might be Farzana Varsey Raja or if you were in Sindh it would be Farzana Varsey Bhutto. If you are in Bombay, why isn`t it Farzana Varsey Tendulkar or Menjrakar? Just curious..........

Dost-mittar #105: ``Things have been changing fast in Pakistan in the Musharraff era. Sarees are in again as is classical music and dance. So are even Hindu sounding first names, especially among girls. So, you see names like Meera, Bina, Kiran, Rani, Sangeeta, etc.``

These names have been there for a long long time, in Pakistan. I think Indians have just discovered this about Pakistan, now, since they are finally getting a chance to see and understand the real Pakistan. Obviously the Meeras and Kirans weren`t born yesterday. They have been alive for decades. So, while Musharraf can be credited for a lot of things, he cannot be credited for this. Bina, is on many occassions, short for Umbareen. Any Urdu word - Kiran, Rani etc. - will be a common first name. I will consider things to have changed, in terms of names, if you start seeing names like Pooja, Ravi, Hunuman, Ram, Rekha, Padmani etc. as first names in Pakistan..........

Aslam644 #107: ``You seem to be creating more theories in a day than einstein did in his life time.``

I`ll take that as a compliment. Names are an interesting subject. They tell one a lot about sociological trends. This is a theory, in progress, under research. Not an established theory yet.

``Muhajir names tend to be biblical as well as Arabic i..e younis (jonah), zakaria (zaccaria),musa (moses), yousef ( joseph), dahoud (david), ibrahim ( Abraham), etc``

These are all Arabic names for people; nearly all of whom lived before the Bible. However, I don`t think any of these are really religious names. Non-Abrahamic Arabic speakers have these names also. Most of Quresh, including Muhammad, himself were initially non-Abrahamic. Yet they still had Arabic names, which they kept even after converting to Islam. There is, thus, no such thing as a Biblical or Muslim name. They are all Arabic names, common to all faiths in Arabia; Abrahamic or non.........

``BTW Egypt, Palestine, Syria, aren’t arab, just because they speak Arabic doesn’t make them arab.``

I believe these are all Arabic. I believe speaking Arabic is the only criteria for being an Arabic state. There are 22 such states in th world. Egypt being one of the key ones........

Ironically, the timing of the Gohana incident coincided somewhat with the 50th anniversary of a law giving effect to the abolition of untouchability in the Indian constitution (Civil Rights Act, 1955).

Renowned journalist P. Sainath, writing in the Hindu, highlighted the very important fact that we should not treat Gohana or Jhajjar before it, as one off or isolated incidents because by doing so we miss out on the larger picture. This larger picture includes discussion about quotas not only in education, but in the public and private job sectors as well; among other things, it refers to the ongoing debates about social justice.

Farzana Versey categorically states that this article is about violence (both overt and covert) against Dalits and not about issues like reservation. It is precisely viewpoints such as these that Sainath finds odd and questions. We aren’t making the right linkages. This does not however, in any way mean that we have to shy away from admitting that there is ongoing violence against Dalits. But we cannot afford to just leave it at that, especially when this crime is “systemic, societal and structured”. We need to look at the larger context.

The Dalits in Gohana apparently had gained from reservations. It was this gain that was intolerable to the Jats who wanted to show the Dalits their “place in society”. The government has supposedly offered the paltry sum of one lakh rupees for every affected household but that does not in any way act as a healing balm for Gohana’s Balmiki community who lost with their houses, their hopes and dreams for a better future.

The print media sadly devoted very little space to this incident and failed to generate a more constructive debate on the issue. I think Farzana Versey also failed in this regard as most of us on this board probably did already know about the obscene violence against Dalits that has been going on for centuries.

Also, I wish that the author would adopt a more reader friendly writing style, one that is more clear and coherent.

Dilliwala, I have a whole family of nephews nieces cousins growing up in US, UK and Canada....considering the way kids are going I am sure I wil have quite a multicultural multi racial family in few decades....I think everyone will..resisting this change is futile.

Re: # 105
DM Sir,
They have these names, thanks to Bollywood. They probably feelmore affinity to India than their forced Arabic culture.

Re: # 109
Dulla,
I do not believe in any Godh. I am a Sikh with relatives in different flavors(Khatree Zamindaars(both Sikh/Hindu), Jatt Zamindaars etc. I even have some relatives who have spouses as Chrisitans and Iranian.

I have seen some bold Jutts of India, who I know in USA certainly becoming chicken. I don`t know who asked that question. I have seen a Mazhabee Sikh(low caste) being a good friend and pucca Khalsa.

Anyways, I think Gills and Dhillons are certainly those people who follow the name of the village. I did not know that Badal was Dhillon, I always thought him to be Grewal from Malwa.