Scrollmate

In recent days we have had a fabulous opportunity to visit our home country. The visit was mesmerizing, truly remarkable, and filled with quite amazing experiences. No matter how much we spent time, it always felt short. The company of loved ones makes the time fly by. Our visit encapsulated a lot of glorious memories. The more I dove into the memory lane, I get filled with immense contentment.

The subject that I am covering in this post has always intrigued me since my childhood. As a young kid, I used to wonder why we had different sets of traditions, customs, or shall I say rules that only a set of society needs to follow, in most cases women. “The social structure is designed like that”, I got the answer a lot of times. But if that is not appropriate anymore or if that feels discriminating then isn’t it our responsibility to tweak the structure?

On this trip, a fascinating fact caught my attention. One such intriguing question that was buried deep inside for so many years suddenly popped up in my inquisitive mind. Back in my childhood days, my young eyes could easily locate a common difference in our society. A lot of women used to cover their heads with their traditional dress or wear a long scarf all the time. A lot has changed nowadays but it is still a common custom followed by many of the women there. Even in a lot of houses, women need to cover their heads at their worshipping places, or if they are visiting some elderly family member. In small villages and suburbs, I can still see women need to cover their heads all the time. If you ask, a lot of them are so habitual doing it that it doesn’t affect them. But I have also seen countless cases where women are forced to cover their heads unwillingly. In many places not covering your head is considered as a sign of “disrespect or uncultured” behavior.

You must be wondering why it was a culture in the first place. I ask this too. One thing my father taught me, and I strongly believe in it: Every custom that we follow used to be associated with some logical reasoning that was appropriate when it was initially started. It may not be significant anymore. That’s why it looks peculiar to us, so weird to us. We just need to find the necessity of those customs, if it’s not required, we shouldn’t hesitate to change.

From my deep core, I don’t believe in following any custom blindly. And yes, I got an answer to the question: why do women have the custom/rule of wearing headscarves?

We visited several glorious historic museums, and I got considerable latitude in asking my questions to a lot of people back there. What I found was about a couple hundred years back, there was no such custom or “culture” to cover the head! In fact, women were more independent than modern women. They were safe. They used to fight the war. They used to work outside. They were highly educated. There was no need to fight for equality rights, as society was structured splendidly. They were, by all sense, treated equally: cerebrally equally! I read about the status of women in ancient history and discussed it with my mother who has in-depth knowledge about our ancient scriptures. It’s a proud fact that the position of women in our ancient times was more honorable and distinguished.

My eyes were gleamed by listening to the glorious ancient history. After collecting the proud fact, I kind of guessed that it might have been a tragic social rule because of that we were forcefully started wearing scarves on the head. But just to be sure, I asked my following probing question: If covering the head was not our culture then why are we forced to follow it in the name of “preserving the culture”? and why did we even begin this tradition?

I was bewildered by the answer I received. All the chapters of our history were not written in golden ink. Some chapters are filled with roses, yet some have an abundance of thorns. In our early modern historical period, a lot of things changed when we were ruled by outsiders. The status of the woman was noticeably affected. It was not secured the way it was before the shift of the empire. Women were not safe anymore. They were forcibly stayed inside their home to save their honor (I am quite sure there would be a lot to say and discuss, but I do not want to derail our subject line). To save their honor, they started to follow the custom of the ruling empire of wearing a scarf on the head (covering their head).

We live in a fortunate time that we don’t have to face the tormenting situations our elders might have dealt with. But it is sad that in a lot of societies, we are still obligated to follow those customs in the name of preserving the culture! Ironically, it has never been the culture!

Since we are discussing our traditional customs or social rules, it requires me to talk about one more topic here. Every month on certain days women are not allowed to do specific chores around the house. There are several restrictions to be followed during those days. The level of restriction depends on home to home, society to society, and place to place. To name a few, they can’t enter the pantry, can’t enter the kitchen without taking a shower, can’t go outside after evening, etc. The list goes on.

Like the “covering head” tradition these restrictions also have gotten a little loose.  It is noticeable that nowadays a lot has changed, women are standing up for themselves and families are not forcing restrictions onto them the way they used to. But still, it is prominent. It has not gone away.

During those days, women get treated so differently that I am sure a lot might think, “Am I infected by some kind of disease or what? Why am I forcibly kept aside from everything?” It is quite disturbing and discriminating. This is surely not healthy for anyone’s mental health!

There are very few houses where there is 0 restriction. Out of all restrictions, I would like to talk about the most common restriction that is followed by almost every house. Women are disallowed to visit any worship place or perform prayers. If by mistake you enter the prayer room, during those days, you can welcome a big religious argument.

As I mentioned about my inquisitiveness, I used to wonder about this behavioral discrimination. But I never got any concrete response from anyone, and as a matter of fact, I also had to follow the restrictions – out of respect for my elders.

But one thing was clear in my mind from a religious perspective, and it still is. I believe in one creator. HE creates us all, both the man and woman. He has naturally made us like this so why would he be putting any restriction for praying to him? It doesn’t make sense. At least to me, God could not be partial to his own children, to his all creations. No father could treat their children differently.

During our trip, we also visited a lot of worshipping places. I happened to visit “in those days too”. As per the rule, I had to stay outside. All the family members went in and they had their food inside too while I was sitting out waiting for everyone and had my lunch outside, all alone. For a moment, a thought came to my mind, “What is this restriction that keeps the families away like this, you should stand up and go, it doesn’t matter!” Yes, I don’t believe in such restriction but somehow, I stayed out. Maybe I was avoiding conflicting discussions.

Long story short, after lunch, when my family came back, the first thing my children asked me was “Mumma why didn’t you join us? What happened to you?” That question shook me. It felt as if I should have gone inside instead. I didn’t want to tell my kids something that I didn’t believe in and I myself was not sure enough. I replied with what our social structure said and moved on. I am quite sure it didn’t make any sense to them! But I was not feeling good internally.

It’s been a couple of weeks, and I was thinking of finding an answer to why we have this as a religious culture that truly looks discriminating. Just a few days back, I got a chance to listen to lectures given by one of the spiritual leaders. And to my astonishment, one of the women asked the same perturbing question that I have been wanting to get an answer for ages.

So, it turned out that many thousand years back, it used to be a common practice to provide some rest or break time to women. Back in those days, every activity including preparation for worshipping was not as easy as it is now. It used to be quite strenuous and used to take a lot of physical strength. To provide them with some extra support and help, a lot of societies developed these traditions to give them certain free days from all the work including worshipping. It was also mentioned in that lecture that there is absolutely no need to follow these restrictions now as it’s out of necessity!

I was relieved listening to that. We need to have more leaders like him who can influence society in the correct way. It saddens me that we still follow certain traditions/customs/rituals in the name of religion or preserving the culture, out of necessity.  We think that if we keep following the old customs (that may be illogical in current times) and force them on others to be pursued then we can preserve the culture!!! I think this thought process needs to be changed. As it takes a toll on mental health. Many of us get habitual following the social restrictions, but a lot of times it comes with a package of emotional and mental stress, anxiety, and fear of upsetting elders.  I wonder, how can we expect the family relationship to be fructified in such situations?

I guess the focus needs to be shifted. Society needs to focus on developing a culture of showing respect irrespective of age or gender, giving empathy, and being there in your emotional ups and downs. There won’t be any fight necessary for equality if we all start to respect each other’s personal space and treat each other with compassion, and kindness: like beings!

Love, kindness, empathy, respect, and compassion should be the key features of any culture, and these are there, I am quite sure. We just need to develop some new customs that can reflect these!

Thanks

Mridulika