THE VEIL

We see many burqa clad women in malls, shopping centres, schools, airports, railway stations and on roads these days and if we assume that more and more Muslim women are coming out, I think we are wrong.  I don’t have the statistics to prove my point but I make this statement based on my personal observation.

I had recently encountered a burqa clad women in a supermarket. She lifted her veil for a few minutes to speak to the girl at the counter.  Her face was very familiar, but I could not recollect who she was.  In the process to identify her, I started thinking about all the Muslim women I have known.

Right from my childhood, we had Muslim neighbours, but I do not remember any of them wearing a burqa.   The women in those houses too draped the saree exactly the same way my mother and all other women, irrespective of the religion or caste, in the neighbourhood did.  The only difference was they did not wear a bindi on their foreheads.  Only on occasions they stepped out of their homes, they covered their head with the end of the saree and when they traveled, they draped a white hakoba shawl covering their head and shoulders.  They mingled freely with us and they were familiar with Hindu customs and culture.

Things are a little different now.  Independent houses are slowly vanishing and apartments are sprouting in their place and people now prefer homogeneous neighbours.  I feel we were more cosmopolitan earlier, than now.

A decade ago, a Muslim lady used to travel with me in the city bus everyday.  She was a lecturer in one of the colleges in Chennai.  Though I never interacted with her, I saw her almost everyday.  She lived in a house on the main road leading to the bus terminus, where we boarded the bus.  I learnt that she was a Muslim only from the name board on her house.  On several occasions, I had seen her walking the dog or watering plants in her garden in casuals and sometimes in the defacto national dress of our country, the nightie and every time I heard people talking about suppression of women in Islam, I thought of her.  She was apparently very modern and liberated.

Yes.  She is the same lady I met in the supermarket, but I am yet to come to terms that she could ever wear a veil. 

To be honest, whenever I drive my scooter in hot sun, I am tempted to wear a burqa to protect myself from scorching sun.  The burqa probably was designed for that purpose I think, as the temperature in the middle-east is very high where Islam originated. 

I know wearing a burqa is an individual’s prerogative, but I don’t know what motivated this lady in reference to do it. I don’t know whether she volunteered to go behind the veil or she has been forced to by her family. Whatever be the case, I am sad. If an erudite and an empowered lady has to take this, what would be the predicament of those who are not? What would be its impact on women of other religions of the world, particularly when a global culture is evolving?  Will the world be divided into two or will the women be suppressed again?