The veil - a different look

This entry is inspired by another blog I read on these pages about external beauty. In honor of that, let me bring your attention to the veil.

A few years ago, an Indian poetess converted to Islam. The press was agog, because she had been a controversial writer and this was viewed as a ploy to create a buzz. Be that as it may, her interview gave the veil as a major reason for her conversion. She actually viewed it as being liberating from the emphasis most cultures put on physical beauty.

Mind you, the veil that many Muslims wear in Western countries is quite different from how south Asian Muslims wear it. In our countries, the veil is not just a head scarf that covers most of your hair and leaves your face open. It is like a dress in itself, an overlayer you wear over your own head and body, over your clothes. You're covered from head to toe. The colors are usually dark - black or brown. The material is silky soft, shiny. Definitely not cotton.

I often used to imagine what the net effect of the veil might be. It must be awfully hot inside. Claustrophobic. I assumed that always having to see the world through a thin gauze might leave you a little disoriented, maybe a little like wearing dark glasses at night.

But it also does something more than that. It hides a woman's face from view. That could be seen as something oppressive, but it also circumvents the whole idea of our culture of obsession with looks. A documentary I watched at school talked about a girl's decision to start wearing the veil. It made her suddenly feel invisible, but at least it liberated her from having to be judged for her looks. Another talked about how Muslim children identified their mothers. By the smell of her body, by the toes. By the way she walked. A more primal way of identifying ourselves, quite like how infants do it.

In my country, there's the despicable way men behave in public with young women. It's called eve-teasing, and encompasses a whole range of activities from passing lewd remarks, to butt and breast pinching. The veil, by adding a layer, over you gives you a literal wall that even the scum of our society respect.

A veil also reveals as much about the beholder of the veil as the face behind it. I've seen it in action - people behave with a veiled woman almost as if she is mindless as well. Which was why I opposed the French ruling, though I can understand where they come from.

The veil has many romantic connotations in south Asian literature, but no amount of romanticisation can take away the fact that it is a forcible attempt by male dominated society to curtail the interactions between men and women, by placing the onus on the woman to not incite uncontrollable male passions. But I also think of it as a test case in how the world might deal with the external beauty issue.

What are your thoughts?