Hello people,
One of the major revelations to me in Lahore this trip happened when we were all out at a coffee shop. My friend Maria asked me what caste I was and I told her that I am Punjabi. My whole life I had convinced myself that I am Punjabi, which is one of the four provinces of Pakistan (the others are Sindhis, Balochis and NWFP). So my cousin told me we are Kakazay, which is a certain caste, and it turned out that Kakazays are actually Pathans, the group of people who predominantly live in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. It turns out that if I follow the ancestry from my dad, to his dad and beyond, we come in from the line of Pathans. My whole life I have been telling people I am Punjabi when I am actually a Pathan. My confusion arose because we all speak Punjabi and so I thought we were naturally Punjabis, but as it turned out the offspring of Kakazays have been living in Lahore too. Anyways, to everyone who I told I am Punjabi, I am not, I am a Pathan.
Mansur
4 comments:
I thought these were tribes and not castes, my understanding of caste system has to do with superior and inferior group. I must have been wrong?
I was asked specifically what "caste" I was, and I remember being asked this specifcally before as well. Having read about kakayzays on wikipedia, its seems the word tribe is better used than caste. I guess in India we hear of the caste systems a lot and how the people from lower caste are discriminated against. It's somewhat true of my grandparents' generation and they think that way. In my generation, we are not bother about this caste system, and like I mention, until this recent trip I had wrongly believed I was of a different tribe.
Hope that helps.
Mansur
Hey! thanks for the Happy T-giving wishes on my blog! P.s. I've noticed that your new template doesn't show properly on the Firefox browser. Did you know? IExplorer seems to work fine though. I don't know why this is. Talk to you soon.
I will try to change the template so both IExplorer and Firefox will be able to view it properly. I am always changing templates anyways. :-)
Mansur
Post a Comment