desi family stupidity I could seriously do without

Lifestyle Relationships
1

how many of you have immediate family members of the opposite sex.. who the parents (your and theirs) are so uptight and against you meeting and getting to know!?

I’ve got 2 cousins who must be 18 & 20 now I have not seen them since they were in their early teens and I’ve known both girls and looked after them since they were in diapers. and no they do not do purda at all and are hopefully still very normal and open minded.

So I thought how come I do not keep in touch with them and I kept forgetting to ask my mom about em.. we used to all live in the same city and after a few months of their parents acting stupid we were finally ‘trusted’ with them alone!?

You have any idea how disgusting and insulting this is!?

so’s anyhow ..now it’s years later I finally remember to ask my mom about them..
and guess what she says..

now mind you she’s all about

'oh no I didn’t know better.. please you can talk to me about everything now"

so she at first agrees says yeah lemme get their e-mail and your khalas number for you.. she says I’ll call you back..

and when she does almost a whole hour later she says

“oh no they are really busy with studies and they won’t have time to talk anyways!?”

wtf?!!

you know next time somebody asks me if I got any relatives or cousins etc I’m gonna say’ no sorry none !’

2

That is really sad, but unfortunately thats just how it is in our family as well. Ive only recently become friends with some of my male cousins, but even then its mostly under the close scrutiny of the family. Theres an unspoken rule about how 'free' were allowed to get with the male cousins, a bit unfortunate. Just wait until youre all married and noone will give a toss, you can mix and mingle all you like then.

3

Waqas

my nanhiyaal is extremely conservative...or rather used to be, my younger cousins in their early - mid teens have a completely diff set of standards to work with then I had..it was kinda strange cuz my dad's side of the family is very liberal. When i visited Pakistan, bouncing between 2 extremes was quite challenging but educational.

The most interesting thing is, that the same cousins that I could not really hang out with much..later the elders in teh family wanted me to hook up with. I did nto want to go for anyone in the family period and told them so..parents being on the same wavelength as me on it. I did tell the elders in question...even if i was willing to marry someone in the family, how could i go for someone I know nothing about..and barely talk to..had we more in common and knew each other well growing up it would have been a diff story if i was looking in the family.

I think some of what I said about the too strict ways sunk in, because as i noted the younger cousins have more liberal circumstances.

This was in complete contrast to my dadhiyaal where all cousins went to picnis, hung out, played sports, games..you know the regular stuff kids do.

4

Whoa... never knew desi families could be like that.

Even those of my cousins who wear burqas try to keep in contact with the rest of us.

5

I'm not behaving any different around desi and non-desi people... I am what I am with everyone. How I talk to a child is no different then how I talk to an adult many years senior to me.

And I don't like having seperate gatherings for my muslim and non-muslim friends! that's such BS ..if either side has a problem with this they can just #@(& off! :)

6

Waqas,

what can I say, there is a lot of stupidity embeded in pakistani society and culture. We can beat around the bush all we want but that's what it boils down to.

7

my parents r not like that with my cousins.. but they do act strange if i am talking to some family friend's son :D
recently he came to our house to vist and my dad made sure i was kept busy in the kitchen ..heh n when ever he'd come to kitchen to talk, his mom wud come in every 10 mins to ask us " kya batien kar rahay ho tum dono itni dair sai " ..lolz poor guy was so embarassed. Now i know him since we were kids, we grew up together, played , heck even went to same school.. hehe.. it was fun talking about old times.. lekin parents did their best to make it as weird as possible.

8

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by suroor_ca02: *
when ever he'd come to kitchen to talk, his mom wud come in every 10 mins to ask us " kya batien kar rahay ho tum dono itni dair sai " .
[/QUOTE]

lol!! that sounds sooo familiar. my god. so all these desi uncles and aunties are the same hey? wow.

9

Back in Pakistan I have this aunt who is paranoid and very protective of her daughters… One could sense the tension on her face when her daughters would visit us. It felt so awkward every time she caught me chatting with her daughters…I used to be the shareefest guy on the planet (not that I am not any more) but I used to feel sooo guilty without doing anything.. :-D I strongly felt the need to get over this BS so one day I went out of my way and literally told her..aunti aap ki baitiaN to meri behnon jaisi hain but I guess it worked for only a few weeks. Holy fuzz! :-D I tell ya... desies...huh

10

hahaah Boss, i got something that will trump all such stories, now these are not relatives but relatives friends.

this is when i was about 15, had 2 more cousins 16 and 17 , will call them A and B respectively, with me, at my khalas place for a dawaat, it was a packed house. ppl were packed in her family room and living room dining room etc...my cousins and I just wanted to chat and all so we were outside..right next to the kitchen though so we could get direct refills rather than going to the dinign room.

Now, Cousin A gets done with his biryani and wants more..we are being all sneaky just for fun, so we say hey u go get the food directly from the kictehn and we will keep an eye out :)

How the heck were we uspposed to know that

1) my khala's daughter was in the kitchen filling up a platter for the dining room
2) This mohallay ki buaa type neighbour lady was listenign to us..

before we know it..my dad shows up, tells me we are leaving and just gets in the car..same time cousin a and B's dad, shows up and says the same thing.

we were not sure of what happened, dinn think much exceot they were tired or something.

It was much later I found out that this mohallay ki buaa went and told ppl that we were planning to well do something not so nice to my khala's daughter..one was going to do the business while the other 2 keep guard.

I dont know where and how ppl get such sick mentality, that lady got her butt kicked, but my dad was just pissed at her low mentality and left..I still run into this lady every so often when i am in Pakistan..although i dont think i have seen her in a decade now..and I always wonder how she can even think somethng like that :)

how da ya like dem apples

11

^ that is very sick. y havent u guyz kicked her out yet?

12

she lives next door to my khala's place..cant kick here out of the mohalla now can we :)

13

I think when the children are all grown up and know their own good parents shoudln’t be so strict with mingling of cousins. My sisters and I were pretty close with a few of our male cousins and their mother would always make it a point how she didn’t like her daughters mixing with their cousins but it was ok if we did since we are all like ‘behn bhai’ :mudhosh: We didn’t quite know how to take it…as a compliment to her sons that they could be trusted or an insult at her own relatives whom she didn’t trust enough to let her daughters mingle with.
But at a younger age it may be a good idea. My neices, age 4 and 3 were taught the proper name for male genitalia by their cousins two days ago and now are being kept away from men incase they point out the obvious to them :hehe: How do you uneducate them???

14

Femme, why don't you learn something from your nieces?. Then uneducate them.

15

Are you that useless FG that you want me to learn from them???

16

noone in my family is like that except for my uncle, ok so we were at their house for eid (yeah this eid) in london, and we were leaving for my nanis apartment, my coat was in my cousin sisters room where all the guys my little brother and sister were

so i went in there got my coat reminded my siblings were leaving and almost bumped right into my uncle on the way out and yeah the timing was perfect he HAD followed me into the room and he was giving me the wierdest looks

:smack: anyhow noone on my dads side EVER has married in the family so they dont really care abt the freedom factor, its seriously all like brother sister, we play baraf paani tgether and the aunties join in :smiley:

(and to think theyre the ones in PK as well)

17

ah. my mom just flew in to spend the holidays here.. hehe

Wow! I was soo totally wrong about this.. mom had a very valid reason for her hesitation and wanted to talk to me directly about it .. oh man was pretty hilarious too !
She and her sisters want all us cousins to stay in touch and close too ..cause it's so stupid not to! We're a small family and it's dumb if the only connection we have is our parents.

In my mom and khala's case it's not a matter of lack of trust.. like I was saying before yeah they were a bit nervous at first but they got over it..

We'd always be in the girls' room playing video games and watching tv together even the last time I saw them when they were in their-mid teens. And I'd drive em around and take em out with their little brother and sister sometimes too.. it's nice being the older brother and having the kids confide in you and mock you behind your back too lol

Even in regards to my having female friends too she's actually totally ok about it!? She's even seen me make new ones right in front of her! She did say though that it was really unusual they way my brother and I are.. cause with most people this is not the case and it's probabily best not to mix too much with the opposite sex!?

Wow! What a change from how she talked when we were younger! ?

18

Auntys are one thing but what would u say abt narrow minded male cousins who feel it a disgrace to even greet us???

I have no cousins here and whenever i go to lahore, ofcourse that once a year...I m a total starnger for most of my cousins. How awkward does this feel...."The whole family's sitting and one of my cousin comes in. Shakes hamd and greets everyone else and not even as much as look at me." Helllllo!!! Do u or do u not see me? I m sure my family wouldnt have cared if he had just nodded his head at me or whatever. Afterall I m just a cuz.

19

hmm when perverted adults with nothing better to do start making up stories it can be a real problem!

I remember back when I was still in Pakistan this one really shareef chooza friend of mine finally had the guts to talk to this girl he had a crush on...now this was a major achievement for him! I was so proud!

So within a few days this 'family friend' went and told his dad that he spotted the two always making out and exiting a room of a nearby 5 star hotel!!!!??

Trust me I still cannot imagine him even getting beyond 'hi' so this was all entirely false.

When he got home ..he found out about this .as his dad threatened to beat him to death!!?

Which is even sadder cause how could his dad believe such lies right away !?

when as he pointed out to his dad..

1) he had no money to take anybody any where

2) a driver took him everywhere since he was not allowed to drive ..period!?

I dunno what eventually happened.. I know that his dad totally hated this girl based on his dislike of the girl's father pretty much over nothing!?

hmm all I know is if anybody tries any kind of BS like this with me ...oo man it won't be pretty !