The Black Veil.

(Kindly note that the below story does not bear any resemblance to a person near or dear and dead or alive. It is purely a product of my mind and let's call it Fiction)

“Your beauty is pure. Preserve it and protect it from the evil eye”, says Ammijaan. While Abbajaan goes off to work every day wearing his signature formal shirt and pant secured with a brown leather belt, I have seen my mother step out in her black sequined burqah since I was born. “Once you mature, you too have to wear this like your Ammi”, said my mother pointing at the veil as she folded it. As a prepubescent girl who wore track pants underneath a frock, I didn’t think it was a big deal. Then, my maturity ripened and was celebrated like it was a bridal shower or so. Bhaiyya was absconding during the whole function and he seemed uncomfortable in my presence and I had the awkwardness figured out during the following dinner- Everybody knew I turned into a ‘Woman’. 

I decided to study Engineering and my parents said ‘Shabaash bacchu’ in appreciation every now and then. Days and weeks passed by and it so happened that the inevitable urge to dress up and look good crept within me. I started questioning my beliefs and begged to differ from what my lovely Ammijaan had so dearly taught me. Although I could picture her saying, “Don’t you want to be like your Ammi? Your phuppu, Khaala, mausijaan… How much they praise me, know?”

My heart sank when it dawned upon me that my mother considered that praiseworthy. My conscience was screaming into my head and I wanted to reason with myself before I stepping into a harsher reality. I looked up all my holy books and was in for a shock. A realization struck me that religion is modified to such an extreme especially in the case of women that people only see religion as a good excuse to exercise their illogical practices.

I was angry at Ammijaan not for wearing a burqah, but for wearing a ‘black’ one always. Who created these color codes? The holy Quran never mentioned the burqah, let alone a ‘black’ one. Our holy text only specified that it was compulsory for a woman to wear a garment not too tight for the body aesthetics to be highlighted nor too loose for it could be flyaway. Who created these gender rules and why is it that we, Muslim women have to bear the brunt of a practice that dates back to nothing but a misunderstanding of what the Holy Quran says.