Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
That’s not true, a lot is changing. I know a lot of girls who don’t give preference to these things, and guys. You just have to look in a more educated crowd.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Punjabi vs. not etc is NOT the same thing as education. Education is a functional trait and it impacts the guy’s earning potential, his outlook on life, whether he’s open minded or not, and how much experience seeing the world he has had. A guy who didn’t go to college can be nice, but often they’re much more narrow minded, and they just don’t get how things work. That’s what I’ve found. However, yes there are uneducated guys that have a lot of “life experiences” - they’re well traveled and well read on their own.
But Punjabi or Pathan or whatever has very little impact on things. It’s a trait that you have no control over. Education/life experiences/outlook on life/religion - those things you do have power over. So why judge someone based on something they had no control over? And why pigeonhole them? It’s accepting that all punjabis are this or that. And they’re not. I’ve met paindoo people, but then I can also show you people from Karachi that are not punjabi and they’re equally brainless twits.
Then there are punjabis that are frikkin amazing people.
Why pigeonhole folks? Meet the actual person, then decide.
I’m sorry, OP’s rishta came from a RACIST family, and these RACIST attitudes are NOT healthy for Pakistanis.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
People have no control over how they look either PCG yet physical attraction is a key element in our decision making process when it comes to a spouse.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Actually, Allah asks us to focus on other things apart from lust in our decision making.
So, no, attraction is a factor, but it should be a minor one. You have to look at the person. And in this case, the boy didn’t even really get to talk to the girl, to get to know HER as a person. It was automatically cut off.
The SCREENING criterion shouldn’t be a picture, and likewise it shouldn’t be the ethnicity. Just because this is what all aunties do, doesn’t make it right. It’s simply unIslamic. Go to any scholar and they will tell you our society has a serious problem on this end.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Allah asks a lot of us but we don’t really focus on those things in reality do we? Attraction may be minor or major - its STILL a factor. It STILL plays a part. Some will look beyond physical features and find a person’s inner beauty. Kudos to them. But some find chemistry and attraction tied to background. This does not mean Punjabis and Urdu speakers cannot get along…it means some will choose not to marry into the other and that’s that. Its pure comfort. Is it racist? About as racist as rejecting someone for being bald or having 6 toes or having an annoying mole on their nose.
And here’s something to consider: I have been through this damn rishta scene for years…since age 15. I hated it when my mom had people come over, eat our food, waste our entire evening and make me run around with a chai trolley ONLY to find out at the end that this was not going to work for whatever reason. So, the fact that they didn’t come over is a good thing. They felt bad about wasting the OP’s time when it was not going to work from their end regardless.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Just like you had your boxes to tick, they had theirs.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
So you’re telling me that an Urdu speaking person from Karachi will genetically find all Punjabis unattractive??
What does ethnicity have to do with attraction?
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Your argument is that discriminating against a girl because of her ethnic background is not racism. Are you serious? That’s the definition of racism. Classifying all people from a particular tribe/ethnicity/skin color as being incompatible because of those factors alone.
Attraction is different. It’s biological and it’s not based on skin tone. There are black people who are highly attractive. There are Hispanic people that are highly attractive. There are Asians who are highly attractive.
We aren’t even going to that level. Within brown people we are discriminating based on an ethnicity.
And if you want to talk about “comfort level” because of culture, I can understand if the Punjabi family is from a small town in Punjab and they don’t know Urdu, and they walk around in dhotis, and they speak Punjabi that even Lahoris can’t understand, and they have a particular way of cooking. Yes, an Urdu speaking Urban family would be crazy to consider compatibility there.
But Punjabi families that are urbanized are no different than other mainstream Pakistanis.
I’m memon and I don’t have some special affinity to gujrati guys just because that’s my blood.
I have spoken to Urdu speaking guys, Punjabi guys, Pathan guys, Bengali guys, and Sindhi guys, and Kashmiri and Hindko guys. Also varied groups from India proper, including south indian guys.
Doesn’t work like that. These people who think this way are racists. They heard about the rishta, were interested, then backed off when they heard “Punjabi”.
Again, did they speak to the girl? Does she even KNOW PUNJABI???
I’m memon, someone could discriminate against me automatically, but then they meet me and they say “oh you’re like a regular pakistani”. Duh, yes. I don’t even know memoni. And people who discriminate against me and refuse to send rishtas to me because I’m simply Memon without even talking to me - yes, they’re racists. Bigots.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
I agree with PCG.
It’s understandable to reject someone from a different background after interacting them and realising that differences are just too wide and uncompromising. But to simply say no to someone (after showing some interest) because you found out about their ethnicity and assumed bunch of ridiculous notions is just plain old bigotry. The OP should consider herself lucky that she didn’t marry into that racist family.
It is one thing to get rejected for the factors you have control over or made them by choice i.e education, profession, weight etc then reject people for things they have no control over, i.e ethnicity, caste.
PS: Funky Chicken, maybe you should tell the match maker to make people aware of ethnicity to avoid future waste of food and time.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Can you please read the bold part above and tell me how it translates to what you wrote back?
Ethnicity does not HAVE to do with attraction but it definitely can. Some men like their wives in kameez shalwar and churiyan and mehndi…these are specific to our ethnicity aren’t they? Some men enjoy speaking in Urdu and being able to share a laugh with someone who gets it. What is exactly wrong with that?
And who says not marrying into a certain culture or ethnicity means you’re racist? I doubt the OP’s rishta walay were gung ho against having anything to do with Punjabis. When it comes to marriage though - which is a lifelong and important decision - we are very careful and do our best to minimize risk. I’d do the same if I was in his shoes. If I know I am not interested in a family for whatever reason…I will NOT waste their time and energy and make them feel bad by going to their house and then rejecting them after seeing their daughter. Now that is mean.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Its racism when its done against one’s own - its ‘choice/preference’ when its done against other ethnicity.
This was clearly visible in hyderabadi thread. someone just asked how hyderabadis are and it was considered racist etc. Now those very people are terming the exact same thing as ‘just preference’ and providing all sorts of justifications. 
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
this is true to large extent that Urdu speaking families tend to be biased to non-Urdu speaking families when it comes to Rishtas.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Quite frankly anytime a person says no to another person without doing them the courtesy of meeting them, it’s bigotry or discrimination of a kind, whether that be based on education, appearance, class, ethnicity, height, etc.
Yet, for some reason, some acts of discrimination are considered more acceptable than others. When a guy says he will only marry a girl who is 22 or younger, we say that’s okay. When a girl insists that she will only consider a rishta from a Master’s educated man, that’s okay. When a mother says she wants a gori-chitti larki, that’s okay. When the father says that they will only marry within their zaat-biradari, that’s okay…
Point being - people will decline a rishta for any number of reasons and we may not like it and we may consider it to be closed-minded of the other person - but it is their right. And until everyone, everywhere (including myself) becomes more open-minded and doesn’t measure the other person based on anything more than character, we’re all bigots of a sort since any one of us can oversome points of incompatibility with compromise.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Actually no. Apart from maybe one, none of the discrimination mentioned are ‘okay’, and we had seen countless threads here on this forum bashing such practices and attitude behind. If someone wants to speak for themselves here, only that’s okay. So I refuse to believe that discriminatory and bigotry shown towards Punjabis are ‘okay’ by default just because we all 'discriminate against in one way or another.
Yes, I maintain that rejecting someone - especially when they satisfy all other criteria - after some early interaction and followed on realisation that other cultural difference are just too big and irreconcilable is the most reasonable thing to do. Instead shortlisting and then totally discarding someone because your parents reminded you of some racist preconceived notions they hold about certain ethnicity. People (and especially Punjabis in this case) are more than just those stupid ‘Pubjabis are loud, Pubjabis are paindoo’ stereotype which I see hurled around so casually in some circles. I’m not some mad peace and earth loving hippie who’s going to suggest that people should marry people with totally different compatibility levels just to make some sort of statement for so called open-mindness. That’s insane, but at the same time, there has be a better way of judging people’s characters instead of holding on to age old stereotypes.
Frankly speaking, PCG has been on the receiving end where people just assumed bunch of things about her character because she belonged to a certain group while in fact majority of those traits and practices were not part of her life. Her words on such racist stereotyping holds more far more weight.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Full power to people who have a ‘preference’, I for one have far too many preferences for every little thing in life, and for most part, I like to stick to those preferences. On some occasions, when I do go out of my way to opt for something different, I give it a fair chance before making my mind up.
So don’t even bother looking beyond your preference, if you’re going to shortlist people only to reject them for things they had to no control over. Stick to your standards, or kind, rather.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
My own experience, I’ve met some amazingly warm-hearted and wonderful Punjabi families to whom their ethnic background was a point of pride, but not a reason to look down on others. And yes, I’ve met some extremely narrow-minded Punjabi families, where they have belittled to the other person’s face, anyone who is not Punjabi.
I’ve bolded the word Punjabi, because quite frankly you can substitute any other ethnicity (Muhajir, Hyderabadi, Memon) into that spot, and the same applies. Biases are interchangeable and each ethnic group holds themselves in high esteem, which in itself, I think is great. It’s how an ethnic group perceives the “other” that’s being questioned, especially when one ethnic group looks down the “others.”
But bringing that together with the innumerous threads on this board listing the “reasons” that one person/family might reject another person/family and finding that at the end of the day, it can be rationalized by finding a counterpoint by another - I choose to no longer be offended by these threads and say that it is narrow-mindedness rather than bigotry.
I’m not an Earth-mother hippie either, and I know I can’t change the world. But rather than call one person out for one ethnic-based preference, I choose to call out the entire arbitrary system.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
Nope, I’m not going to trivialise ethnic bigotry and make it look like a part of the parcel by lumping dozens of other examples of ‘narrow mindness’. That’s just a very clumsy looking apologia.
I’m going to condemn racial/ethnic bigotry as it is. I have seen far too many people spewing absolutely bigoted and prejudiced ‘Punjabis are this, Punjabis are that’ stereotypical crap while they try to make themselves appear better than them. There are some serious double standards here when it comes to discussing (dissing) Punjabis.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
^ That’s an entirely different issue. I wholeheartedly agree that no one on this board or elsewhere has the right to speak down to an ethnic group or to make disparaging remarks about them, whether it be Punjabis, Hyderabadis, Muhajirs, etc.
But you are likening a preference in ethnic sameness in marriage to ethnic bigotry - and that’s not a one-for-one-transaction. The OP indicated that she got turned down because she was Punjabi, but interestingly enough, nowhere in her post did she mention that any disparaging remarks were made about her Punjabi background. It was stated as a preference. Preference cannot always be equated to prejudice - those are two different things.
And I stand by the idea, if preference is acceptable in other spheres as countless GS threads have proven, why then is it being condemned here? Either it’s all bad, or it can arguably be acceptable.
I keep thinkng back to the people whose requirements for their spouse include height, weight, skin-colour, age. Tell me, do any of those factors define compatibility or a person? Nope, yet it gets bucketed under preference as it relates to physical attraction and is acceptable.
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
How tall was he?
Re: Rejected for being a “punjabi”
this thread is still running?
LOL@ McPendo…clearly you are height conscious shorty!