“Are you from India?”
“No, from Pakistan.”
“Muslim country.”
“Yes.”
“Are you Hindu?”
“No, Muslim.”
“Ahhh. You don’t wear, what is it called?”
“Hijab? Scarf?”
“Like dupatta….”
“Dupatta?”
“Burqa.”
“No I don’t.”
“It doesn’t make a problem for you?”
“No. Many people in Pakistan don’t wear it.”
“I saw Pakistan on TV and all the women were wearing burqa.”
“Some women do. It’s more common in the last twenty years.”
“Wah! I thought it was traditional old-fashioned.”
“No, in recent years people came from Saudi Arabia and said you should wear it. Some people started wearing it. In many villages many women don’t wear it. More in cities.”
“Wah. They shouldn’t tell people what to do. On TV it looked like everyone wears it.”
“People wear it more in the troubled areas. News usually shows people in troubled areas, they don’t show people like me so much. So it looks like we all wear burqas.”
“I had a friend from India who was Muslim. We were at school together. She was number 1 and I was number 2.
She wore the burqa. One day I said to her, why don’t you show your face, we will protect you!
But her brother saw the photos and he was very angry. He said, you have done something wrong.
Then, even though she was number one in our school, when she was only 16 her parents decided to marry her off to her uncle’s son.
We were very distressed because she was so good. Our school, they went to the parents and said, you should support her education as she is very good. And if you don’t want to support her, we will support her ourselves.
Everyone said this, the school, the students, the other parents.
But she got married.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Yes. She was my dearest friend.”
It does get tiresome having to be on the defensive all the bloody time.