Purdah or Pardaa has been defined somewhere as the practice of preventing men from seeing women. This takes two forms: physical segregation of the sexes, and the requirement for women to cover their bodies and conceal their form. Purdah exists in various forms in the Islamic world and among Hindu women in parts of India.
In a world where we talk about women empowerment and the likes, this practice of observing pardaa is still prevalent, not even in villages but in big cities too. And a pardaa has nothing to do with the education level of the lady, background of her upbringing, her yearning to follow this system, her reliance in this ritual etc. It’s a self proclaimed instruction that is to be observed to confirm a woman’s integrity, her respect towards her in laws and her adherence to our so called cultural requirements for a good ‘bahu’. :rolleyes:
I have visited many an areas in Delhi itself, and I often sink into deep thoughts on seeing highly educated girls and women who never come before any men who visit their house unless they are the only ones back home and that too with a big ghoonghat. More surprise hits me to see some women who also work in offices, and are successfully accomplishing their duties and working with all male counterparts around, but when they return home, they take a steep turn to return to their ‘ghoonghat spree’ – an altogether shift in dialect that happens each day and they don’t dare to break this erroneous belief and life moves on. But is this anything more than useless show-off just to please a strata for whom a good bahu is a pardaa wali bahu? And their husbands, ahaa proud of their women ! What is this ? What they think they are doing and proving ?
And a somewhat funny side to this system is that there are lots of women who lay no stone upturned to pick futile fights with their men folks on trivial issues on a daily basis but still are very punctual about their pardaas ! They do nothing short of just literally hitting them, but with pardaa ! In a nutshell, a pardaa is no pledge of a respect filled person behind it. Its more of a obligation, which often sinks into the shoes of proving a woman’s good moral values, her certificate of observing due respect to her in laws, her pious and rules abiding nature etc.
Nothing is right or wrong it’s the circumstances that make it so. Lets talk about this pardaa system, the logic behind its origin, how it devolved down the lane of time, how its shape saw many phases and how has it come to rest on the shoulders of today.