Re: Poll: What’s your ethnicity?
The thing is most, if not literally all, tribal Baloch and Pathan women observe full pardha. Chances are, you haven’t actually seen faces of proper tribal Pathan and Baloch woman from small towns and villages. Being a female, I was fortunate enough to mingle with tribal women at their strictly segregated weddings (where I was formally told to not use my camera at all), and I was literally blown away by the amount of blond haired, light eyed and milky fair women of Afridi/Kakar/Zehri tribes. Absolutely gorgeous woman. It was so surreal.
Now those women are hidden from the eyes of outsiders, and the eyes of average of Pakistanis. You’ll never ever see them barefaced outside of their four walls. But they exist.
I don’t see it as rare, considering it’s so usual for my sister’s to be confused for a Pathan or a Baloch by actual Pathans and Baloch folks. When we would go Pakistan, my mother would remain extra cautious of her, and not let her play outside due to gypsies kidnapping her, she was mash Allah such a unique looking child. They find it very hard to believe she’s Punjabi, and non Pakistanis don’t necessarily make Pakistani (or South Asian) as a first guess for her.
I don’t know if our lineage has some buried secrets - I mean do we have a Caucasian gene in our DNA or some of Pathan blood - who knows. My maternal grandmother (bluish-grey eyes, very fair with sharp nose, angular face and high cheek bones) claims Iranian and Shia ancestry, while paternal grandmother is Kashmiri. My maternal side is a mixture of Awans and Rajput, while paternal side is totally Rajput. Then there are also claims about having bit of Sikh ancestry - my maternal grandfather has been pretty open about this For all we know, we may have bit of South Indian link as well- no one knows. But my family at the end of the day really don’t care about genetic genealogy, they fully consider and completely feel Punjabi as this is where the centuries old ancestral land is lying (before 1947 - Indian Punjab was also included in that), and has been passed through generations. My maternal grandmother still tells us story about just how much acres of land they left behind, and basket full of gold they collectively buried in India before migrating to Pakistan - hoping to come back one day and take it back with them - and only to see her teenage Mamoos getting slain by a sword right in front of her eyes along with her young cousin, plus losing a female cousin who unfortunately just went missing during the journey. What happened to that little girl - no one knows. No ever heard any news about her.
Painful, absolutely painful stories.