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I was taken aback when
I read Khalid Sohail say, "Like many
people born in Pakistan
I do not have a family name."
The fact is that
almost everyone in Pakistan
has a last name/family name/sir name. However, at times some in the middle
class, especially in the Punjab, drop
their last names of their fathers and take on their father's first name.
Hence one could have a
situation where the father's name was Fazal Chaudhry, but the son would be
Khalid Fazal.
At times this is a
bizarre attempt to promote an urban identity. Two things are common in the Punjab. First, the person drops the use of his
mother-tongue Punjabi and embraces Urdu. Secondly, any last name that would
link him to a so-called backward area/rural area is shunned. These middle
class Punjabis go to the extent of ensuring their children never speak to
them in their mother tongue, instead adopting the supposedly superior Urdu
language.
Let me share with you
a few last names that might ring a bell:
Tapal
Bizenjo
Mengal
Daultana
Choudhury
Solangi
Siddiqui
Qureshi
Zaidi
Warraich
Khan
Goraya
Marri
Magsi
Bhutto
Baloch
Solangi
Narejo
Mamdot
Kasuri
and
of course, Fatah.
Cheers.
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