My fiancée is from Chennai but is a Sindhi while I'm a BritPak. Since Pakistan is essentially the Punjab writ large in our own convulated way we have a 2 States (albeit international) saga.
I feel that Two states could work only because it pits extremes against each other; for instance if the boy had been Bengali instead of Punjabi the alliance with a TamBran family wouldn't have been so difficult.
Essentially the Indus ethnicities (Punjabi & Sindhi) seem to function as the de facto Pakistanis of India, loud, ostentatious & undeservedly arrogant. 2 states serves as a metaphor for the divides of the subcontinent; North/South Aryan/Dravidian, ANI/ASI, Indo Pakistan, Abrahamic/Dharmic and the duality of how they are resolved. Interestingly it echoes the age old paradigm male invaders from the north marrying the southern native females..
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ReplyDeleteYou could watch 'Gori Tere Pyaar Me' for a north Indian female- south Indian male story. (Terrible movie. don't watch it)
ReplyDeleteSorry I cant get behind this dichotomy.
ReplyDeleteI dont subscribe to AIT firstly and those of Indus and Central Asian ethnicities these days tend to flatter themselves that they were always the elite but history proves otherwise
There had been pretty much just one major empire of Punjabi or rather Jat origin and that was Harshavardha. Poorbias who created Mauryas, Guptas, Palas and other Southerners such as Satavahanas,Chalukyas,Rashtrakutas and Kakatiyas used to be the top dogs and used to view the northwesterners with contempt
This changed with the Hun/Gurjar ,Kamboja and thier allies among some treacherous Brahmins and Kshatriyas who ousted power from the Poorbiyas and had been on top ever since( I included the Turk,Pathan and Persian Muslim nobles in the former category)
Punjabis are rather loud and aggressive but in really a harmless Levantine gesticulating kindof way. Sindhis are not really loud , indeed they are tad mousy but they are garish!
The Indian divide these days is more like the extroverted and entrepreunerial Arabian Sea-Gujjs,Sindhi,Punjabi,Keralites, Kannadigas,Bunts vs introspective, idealistic Bay of Bengal - Tamils, Telugus, Oriya, Bengal
(Marathas are an exception to the Arabian Sea type as they are essentially Andhras lost in the northwestern Deccan-ie Satavahanas) and Mumbai is really a Gujarati city
In Real Life, in my experience, most North-South alliances are Southern male, Northern female, and this is because of the unfortunate skin color preference in India.
ReplyDeleteYes that's why I wrote "ancient."
ReplyDeleteI know aspirational South Indian men marry "fair." However anyway nice comments y'all!
I like the Arabian Sea vs. Bay of Bengal dichotomy..
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