If you live in Pakistan, you would know that other people consider it their right to pry into your personal affairs (am I right, Imran Khan?).
Nevertheless, I thought, surely there is one relationship that is too sacred to be defiled by gossip?
Surely, basic decency would prevent people from making this one special relationship the subject of their nosy speculations; the relationship between a woman and her Dupatta.
Sadly, that isn't the case. My relationship with my Dupatta has of recent become talk of the town and I’m ashamed to say we have let this come between us.
You see, my Dupatta has recently been despondent. Drooping at the hem, its mukaish seemed more dull and the curves of its paisley embroidery less cheerful than before. I knew it was time for a talk.
Also read: How the hijab has made sexual harassment worse in Iran
Dupatta sighed when I suggested that, and fell into a dejected silence. “Come on now,” I said, “Is this about how many creases you have had recently? Sweetheart, you know you are always beautiful to me.”
“It’s just…” Dupatta responded, “Do you even love me anymore?”
“Darling! How can you ask such a thing?”
“Everyone’s been saying it. Don’t pretend you haven’t heard them. Everyone knows I’m not good enough for you.”
“Oh, you know how people talk. They don’t understand us, and they never will. Why are you thinking about silly gossip?,” I tried consoling it.
“Because, I – I – I’ve failed you!” Dupatta burst into tears. “I was supposed to protect you!”
I sighed heavily. I finally understood what Dupatta was so upset about.
“Now listen here. Is this about that day years ago, when I walked to the bank two houses down from my office to cash my cheque and a man grabbed my backside? Why darling! What could you possibly have done about that? You were just six yards of snow white crinkle chiffon!”
“But, but…everyone says it was my job to defend you! Maybe I shouldn’t have been white crinkle chiffon that day! Maybe I should have been a big, black chadar and then that young man would never have touched you!”
“Oh Dupatta, whatever material you were made of that day, it would hardly have mattered. You go around my chest and my shoulders. Unless I’ve been wearing you wrong for 10 years, I’m pretty sure you don’t cover my entire body anyway,” I said gently. “And besides my dear, it was mid-July then! It would have been torture to wear a big black chadar outside in the sun in that weather!”
“But…what about that day when you were walking home from the bank in your own gated residential colony, and that middle-aged man in the black corolla stopped his car beside you and insisted that you go home with him? By the way dear, going to the bank does not seem to work out well for you. Maybe you should give up the idea of having your own finances altogether. Maybe that’s the problem.”
“You were made of emerald green pashmina that day,” I replied, ignoring Dupatta’s remarks about my finances, “and even though I was starting to feel very hot, I still kept you draped around me, didn’t I?”
“And still I could not stop that man from making inappropriate advances at a woman half his age!” My Dupatta wailed. “Surely I must have done something wrong!”
“Now stop this silliness, Dupatta! There was nothing you could have done. Just like there was nothing you could have done when my friends and I went to Sheesh Mahal (Glass Palace) last weekend and that group of boys loitering there all turned around and kept their eyes glued to our bodies as we climbed down into the courtyard.”
“But I should have, I should have done something! Why couldn't I rip into a dozen little rags and wrap myself around each of the boys’ eyes like blindfolds? WHY?” Dupatta burst into fresh sobs.
“Darling, you’re getting hysterical…” I said, but it was no good.
“And when you were 13 years old and walking out of Alhamra with your siblings after watching a play and that young man shoved his hand between your legs!”
“My dear, how is that your fault?”
“Because, if only I had been made of reinforced concrete instead of off-white georgette! Why didn't it occur to me? Oh the shame, the shame!"
I waited for Dupatta to calm down before I tried to reason with it. “I know people’s gossip is frustrating, but why do you let this come between us now? We’ve been happy together for years!”
“How can you reduce our relationship to just the sexual? Is that all I am to you? What about everything else between us? You’re my safety net whenever I enter a ridiculously over air-conditioned room in midsummer, or when a passing car stirs up a cloud of dust on to my clean hair, or when the smoke and pollution is getting to my lungs.
“Who wipes my tears if I get upset and don’t want it to show? When it rains, who do I hold over my head?
“When the sun shines too bright on winter days, who creates a little canopy over my head?
“Who ripples out behind me in the wind on my friend’s rooftop during the monsoon rain so I can pretend I’m a Bollywood heroine?”
“I do…” said Dupatta with a watery smile. “I do all those things, but do I make you feel safe at all?”
I sighed. “Well, for some years, you know, at the beginning of our relationship, I didn’t feel safe without you. But as time passed, I wondered, isn’t there something wrong with a world where a 15-year-old girl doesn’t feel secure without a piece of cloth? Especially, when it doesn’t seem to help her safety much anyway?”
“Well, when you put it like that…I’m glad we stopped being codependent and moved on to a happier, healthier relationship.” Dupatta paused. “But…doesn’t it ever bother you that we had an Arranged Marriage, instead of a Love Marriage?”
I sighed. “Well, it is true that we were introduced by my parents. And it’s true we met under certain assumptions about women’s bodies. But since then and even before, we went out together so many times just because we wanted to, didn’t we? And now, we could very well leave each other. But we choose to stay together.”
“Yes...almost all the time. But what about when you go out without me?”
“You know we need space sometimes.”
“So…it’s not because I’m oppressing you?”
I started to laugh. “Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, you know, some white people on social media were talking about poor backward Muslim women.”
“Well, if we can’t let anyone within our own culture define our relationship, we certainly can’t let people from outside our culture butt in, can we? Besides, although I respect whatever religion you currently identify with, you know you really don’t have much to do with Islam dear. Your name comes from Sanskrit, and your ancestors can be traced back to Mohenjodaro, and that was long before Islam. What do those people know about us? Remember our first week at college?”
Dupatta nodded slowly.
“When that senior boy who became my friend was afraid of sitting on the grass and I asked why, and he finally admitted that he was afraid of bugs on the grass, and I spread you out on the ground for him to sit on?”
“And he said it’s nice when girls do things like that?”
“Yeah. I think he meant it’s nice when boys can say they’re afraid even of something silly like bugs and be treated with some chivalry in return.”
“Mmm. That was quite sweet, wasn’t it? I bet they never imagined you and I ever subverted gender roles together.”
“No, they didn’t. Because what they don’t realise is it’s not about whether we are seen together or not. It’s about us and what happens here behind closed doors, when I make the decision to go with you or without you, based on my own reasons of where I'm going, what I'm wearing, the weather outside, how I feel that day and a million other factors that only you and I know about. My dear, I really think no amount of cloth and no style of clothing are ever going to stop harassment and assault.
“Because a family member who tells a girl what to wear and a man who gropes at that girl on the street are both really saying the same thing: Your body does not belong to you. I get to tell you what to do with it.
“Harassment will only stop when we start to teach our children that only the person whose body it is should get to decide what happens to that body. That decision – whether it is about who touches your body or what clothes you wear on it – belongs to that person alone.”
Comments (51) Closed
Agreed completely
An excellent read.
This is pure genius! Love the analogies.
Well written, and a good read. Kind of cute as well. Keep it up. Overall, the satire seems to be venting a deep-seated pain and offers a glimpse in to the scars inflicted on women from a young age by a thoughtless and cruel male dominated society, merely because they are females. Sad commentary on our society
Commendable piece of writing. Bravo.
True no dupatta can stop people from staring you unless you speak to stop those perverts.Parents in our society raise their daughter to be a compromising silencing "Mashriqi larki" thats the root cause of the problem.Do not silence your daughters raise them to be a confident being.I have travelled in public transport a lot and i have seen this problem a lot.If someone is staring at a woman she most probably will ignore it to keep the matter low key which escalate this problem.
All this sounds scary.
Every time I see a fellow man boasting about his manliness and telling me why feminist movement is pointless and wrong, I ask him this one simple Question:
Are you man enough to be a woman? Cause I know I am not.
Excellent....!!
Beautiful
Beautiful essay. Worth sharing.
"Dekhne se pehle mujhe, Dho aankhon ki Gandi putliyan, Kahi Dhaanp naa le nazar tujhse acchai meri"
Before looking at me, wash your dirty eyes, Or my goodness will conceal itself from you.
Dupatta needs emotional counselling.
Written n the spirit of Dupatta. Keep it up.
Make me sad, these harsh realities
Ma'am, may be carrying a gun would be more effective.....
Excellent, very rich in emotions and context. A very valid satire on the male chauvinist mindset of our society.
Such articles make me a "DAWN" edict.
You make a fair point which resonates with me, but the writing could've been less monotonous.
No dupatta or burqa will protect. Education and compassion will. Peoples mind set has to change.
I feel more safer wrapping myself up in a shawl and duputta on my head when out anywhere in Pakistan. Since I'm from Abbottabad I even cover my face a little, but if I'm going to be honest, sometimes I don't feel safe at all even covered up like that. I've received so much harassment more than I have walking the streets of London duputta-less (although I still cover up as much as I can except my hair). IN FACT I haven't ever been harassed here or touched, or had comments passed about me so far yet. So maybe it's time to start teaching men how to behave rather than blaming it on women always.
Nice write up
Simply great. Greatly put
What u have wrote has made me sad and I respect ur bravery regarding ur bad experiences....stay strong brave woman
awesome. all true as well. well done.
Yusra, Providence bless you abundantly to write freely, and slowly but steadily convey the message that our daughters, mothers and sisters want to convey. I loved your reference to Mohenjodaro and Sanskrit language as our heritage and the journey we as people of South Asia have come through. Kudos for politely but firmly conveying the message in the last paragraph of your beautiful write-up.
@S P Das , Same here!
@S P Das , same here but not edict but addict.
Well written!
I dont know what is happening to Pakistan. I live in west and increase number of women are turning to Burka (considering thier bodies are of thier property and not a show piece) It is all in the mindset. The more you expose, the more problems. Look at India rapes.
Dupatta: "I have one thing more to say."
Girl: "Yes?"
Dupatta: "Let's see what media portrays about us. I see in media that there are girls who not only broke up with me but my neighbors i.e shalwar and kameez are also in the minority. And then these girls dance to songs like 'kundi mat kharkao raja, sedha andr ao raja'. They show in movies that a "no" from a girl is actually a "yes". And then videos and movies like these are openly showed on Pakistani music channels and Radio stations. "
Girl: "What does that suppose to mean!?"
Dupatta: "It means when you like to pretend to be a 'Bollywood queen', delusional men try to act like 'bollywood heroes' and go even far beyond. When you leave for job and give your sons and daughters tablets and a remote for T.V, you are bound to raise a generation like these. "
Girl: "So you are saying that we should have a more holistic view of this problem that is poisoning our society?"
Dupatta: "yes, my dear"
Happy Ever After :P
@MA rapes do not happen because of exposing body....rapes happen because of a mentally sick, highly insecure man wanting to oppress/ control the woman. It does not depend on what the woman is wearing.
On the street Eve teasing, harassment and molestation is way less in west. I and most other women feel much safer staying alone or being out alone in a western country versus here.
@MA, because as soon as the girls are born, they are brainwashed that their bodies are a 'showpiece' as you say and are for one purpose only, they should be covered head to toe, otherwise it's there fault if something happens to them. Women are responsible for men to not do a sin hence cover themselves.
Well argued!! The body of the person is owned by the person and the society should learn to respect that.Any covering of the body will not be useful ,if the society does not respect the females.When a male can be provoked or seduced by a mere glance or a smile ,or a suggestion ,the dupatta only will add to the intrigue ,suspense and anticipation.Truly speaking human body is the most ugly animals around and nudity could be a cure to most of the ills of the society.But that will be too radical..
Agree with the article.But even when people go to Western countries were in no body care to look evenif women are half naked, Pakistani women wear Burkha even on very hot summer and thus seek attention. That is an obsessional mindset and dependancy to Duppatta and Burqa.
@Ayesha LOL.
@Urwah Absolutely. It's high time men started (that's another point of debate, but some other time) treating women as their equals in all aspects of life.
Excellent conversation and one every woman will vouch for. Keep up writing like this.
I would highly recommend mandatory martial arts training for all girls while growing up and for grown women too. That should take care of most of the eve teasing, inappropriate touching and rapes too.
you just wrote the words of my heart!
@Subhan are you serious? So women should not go out to work and be financially dependent on men and vulnerable to more oppression, domestic violence, abandonment, etc?
And you are yet another one of those men who are holding women responsible for the immorality and disgusting behaviour of men? Exactly the example of the patriarchical mindset that has brought so much anguish to women the world over.
a nice write up, from the core of heart which is in trubulence, read word for word, blessings to dear Yusra Amjad
Putting on dupatta is also a way of giving respect and earning respect
Well written, a very unique style of quoting it!!
Bravo! A very intimate, innovative and inspiring piece of writing. Intensely moving. Thank you for the insight. Andy Goss
@Shakil : A Woman should always be respected regardless of the dress, she is wearing......
Nice article and shame on South Asian perverts
We are all quite aware of how protective brothers are of their sisters in our part of the world. Now if all boys were raised ingrained with the ethos "Treat all other girls like you want others to treat your sisters" the problems highlighted here would be minimized, if not solved to a great degree.
@kuttathi We need to stop spreading the myth that no one looks at women in the west ....and get out of this inferiority complex. They do all over the world rightly or wrongly, just the approach is a bit more subtle in more educated societies.
The most beautiful and related article to life of billion of Pakistani women. i will mark this article as the best read of the day.
thank you.
@Aliza Riaz : Billions of Pakistani women ???. The entire population of pakistan is around 200 million !
Excellent piece of writing and worth sharing. Bravo.