“While coming back home from office I saw few girls of Jamia Millia University in burqa and niqab (hereafter b&n) (veil) talking and enjoying their time over Shikanji (Ice cold drink with salt and lemon). Every time I see a woman in b&n , I start to wonder how one person can recognize one wearing b&n as the whole body is covered including the face, just not the eyes. *(A niqab covers the face while a burqa covers the whole body from the top of the head to the ground)
I know people say that one can recognize a person just by looking at their eyes, but trust me; it’s really hard to recognize a person just by looking at their eyes. I’m glad that I don’t have any friend who wears b&n otherwise I would have been slapped every other day for approaching some random girl and talk like she is my ‘niqab friend’.
It’s funny how people in b&n do things. What about women in niqab, who want to get their picture taken so that they can remember the moments? How can one recognize them, if she is the one who was there at the moment? People take a photo to remember moments and to remember they were present. Just imagine, a picture of woman in niqab with her favorite celebrity or a ‘niqab woman’ in front of Qutub minar posing for a photo. It’s just absurd and ludicrous as it doesn’t support the reason of shooting photo.
What if they want to eat corn, enjoy a burger or a slice of pizza in public place? If they unveil in public, the whole idea of veiling will obliterate and void.
Can a husband be able to find his wife amongst 10 or 15 women in b&n? I don’t think so. It’s hard!
In my opinion, wearing b&n doesn’t seem like an easy thing. Women who wear b&n have myriads of restrictions. Imagine a woman wearing b&n in sultry summer afternoons in Delhi. Even with the restrictions and its fall back, they still keep on wearing it. They all have different reasons; some of them are forced by their kith and kin to wear it; some of them are asked to wear it from childhood; some wear it because they like it; some wear it because it’s religious and they want to do it. It’s all about choices and options. “
hmm…. I have seen worse, had been checking out a few Pakistani girls recently, one of the comments ‘X(clad in B&N) is looking soo pretty’, comment on next pic ‘X(clad in B&N) I can see you smile, you are looking soo cute’.
That is when I realized how gracious the lords have been to grant me the ability to appreciate natures beauty in barest forms.
Nice stuff here, treading lightly on a sensitive issue.
I am happy to read your thoughts on burkha…and hope more and more people come forward to stop or minimise this “pratha”…I like the way u have made a serious and debatable topic in a light manner…so nice change of pace…i like it a lot…good work…continue doing it.
However you are not following up…with the topics you have covered…u r only touching the topics and not going in depth….think about it….
good one! well the question is, why do we click photographs? for memory? for fun? to follow the trend? or may be there happens to be a camera around, well i think photographs are meant to be memories, (*lets not talk about identity or beauty) if a man gets himself clicked beside a pillar and sees the photograph after a decade, he recognises himself and may be the pillar and he thinks about it, similarly someone covered sees himself/herself after a decade recognises and remember the event and everything about it, so photographs of women in burqa is very fine and they can recognise themselves in it, there is no issue at all.
we see a thousand people around us, do we recognise all of them, no? we recognise those whom we want to recognise, similarly you wont fail to recognise a freind of yours who wears burqa, remember the common racist dialogue, all black look similar to white guys, american finds asian having similar face, they cant differentiate it, chinese finds all indians with similar face.
I used to wonder about this as well before I started wearing niqab, but I go to a masjid where the majority of women wear niqab and I recognize anyone I know outside by their eyes. And my husband always says, ‘I always used to wonder how the men knew which one was their wife (when all the women are standing together), but when I see you, I know its you.’