As the car I was sitting in negotiated traffic towards the Western Expressway Highway I saw her for what was less than 10 seconds. She was in a black burkha but did not cover her face. It would have been a tragedy if that gorgeous face, which points towards ancestry in Herat, Tabriz or Aleppo, was hidden from public view.
The young woman would not have been older than 25 and there was more than beauty in her face, more than grace. She had a story to tell. Was this a story of oppression? Was this a story of a young man seeking emancipation in a patriarchal society, using education as a tool to salvation? Did she voluntarily wear that burkha that probably hid a slender body? Was she forced to wear it to keep the eyes of strange men off her? Did he feel more secure in those clothes or did she wish she was like the hundreds of thousands of others in her age group in Bombay, who were shorts on a warm March afternoon? Was she religious? Was religion forced on her?
I don't think I will ever know the answers to any of those questions. All I do know is that she was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in this city. The equatorial moon could just as well have fallen on earth and manifested itself into a woman.
The young woman would not have been older than 25 and there was more than beauty in her face, more than grace. She had a story to tell. Was this a story of oppression? Was this a story of a young man seeking emancipation in a patriarchal society, using education as a tool to salvation? Did she voluntarily wear that burkha that probably hid a slender body? Was she forced to wear it to keep the eyes of strange men off her? Did he feel more secure in those clothes or did she wish she was like the hundreds of thousands of others in her age group in Bombay, who were shorts on a warm March afternoon? Was she religious? Was religion forced on her?
I don't think I will ever know the answers to any of those questions. All I do know is that she was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in this city. The equatorial moon could just as well have fallen on earth and manifested itself into a woman.
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