Aavarana- The Veil

by S L Bhyrappa

  Lying in the convalescing room, I couldn’t help but compare. Instead of killing the poor kids, they could have prepared an offering along the lines of traditional Hindu delicacies—a delicious mixture of banana, coconut and jaggery, and curd-rice served separately—and offered it to God. The idea of sacrificing an animal and giving its blood and meat as a sacred offering to a compassionate God was disconcerting at a spiritual level.

  But the phone call from Professor Sastri later that night changed something in me definitively. Amir handed me the receiver. ‘Congratulations Lakshmi! Oops! Are you upset that I didn’t call you “Razia”? Force of habit, my dear girl. You are Razia to the whole world, but to me you’ll always remain Lakshmi.’ The warmth in his voice was soothing. ‘I met Amir at a seminar last Sunday. He told me you have been blessed with a boy… Well, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a girl or a boy. I thought of calling you right then but I had to rush to Delhi and return the same evening. And earlier this morning, the Gandhi Study Centre had invited me to inaugurate a study camp on “Gandhi and Marx: A Comparison”. I met your father there. I told him he was now a grandfather. But he didn’t respond. I reckon he didn’t like what he heard. So I asked him, “Uncle, do you still believe in these artificial differences between religions? Humanity is greater than religion, uncle. Don’t you agree?” I was stunned more at how ferociously he replied, “Narayana, stop carrying tales! Did I ask you for any information on Lakshmi? Mind your own business.” Although his response shocked me, I’m not angry with him. He’s elderly, he’s my father’s close friend and he’ll always have nothing but my highest respect. But I’m on a profounder issue here—your father is but another instance of what has been happening historically. You see, we must never forget how religion makes people lose all sense of even basic humanity and erects an unbreakable wall of eternal animosity between a father and his own daughter! I don’t know how many times I need to repeat this but I’ll say it again: humanity has no hope of survival unless religion is wiped out. Anyway, it’s been really long since I spoke to you in leisure. Finish your convalescence. We’ll go out for lunch some day.’

  That one conversation served to multiply the bitterness I harboured towards Father. I began to hate religion with an intensity, a kind of violence that surprised even me. I hated the religion I had discarded. If it was capable of inducing a man like my father—a strict vegetarian who had given up meat because it violated the principle of non-violence—to abandon basic humanity, it deserved nothing but contempt. In seminars, in academic papers and newspaper columns, on radio and TV, I became one of the most vocal critics of Hinduism. I wove my criticism around these themes: no other religion is as heartless as Hinduism; it has no concept of social equality given its rigid hierarchical system and its history of violence against lower castes, Dalits and widows is unparalleled among any social order in the world. I discarded Hinduism for this precise reason and converted to Islam, a faith that rests on a solid foundation of universal brotherhood and a feeling of oneness that is borderless. It shouldn’t surprise us that this is the reason Islam grew, and continues to grow, in strength and numbers throughout the world. It is the earliest conception of what we today know as an egalitarian society. That such an order was envisioned 1,400 years ago is a tribute to the genius at its root.

  Professor Sastri backed me at every step. He supplied me with books, notes, interpretations and insights. I was nervous initially. It wasn’t easy to publicly condemn a religion, which 85 per cent of the country’s population followed, and condemn it this fiercely. To my astonishment, the reception was quite the opposite. Newspapers published my photo on the front page and decorated me with titles such as ‘courageous woman’. They published my seminar papers verbatim. Every progressive or revolutionary organization wanted me to inaugurate whatever programme they organized. I became a celebrity, a star of sorts. That only reaffirmed my conviction. My ex-religion was spineless: a faith whose followers reverently sipped the same water that was used in anointing the feet of their gods. Tirtha, holy water! Ha! The religion I had converted was gutsy. Nobody, nobody within it or outside it could speak a word against any of its aspects. Defence was swift and punishment, swifter. And in public. The offender was forced to apologize or pay a penalty. Or in extreme cases, punishment was meted out through the sword. This was its greatest strength: its capacity to create an atmosphere where no outsider dared to even talk about it in less than respectful terms. It was a religion of self-respect. This conviction steadily intensified with time. This is my true religion; I was merely a Hindu by an accident of birth. Over time, whenever I was home, I never missed doing the namaz five times every day. My mother-in-law began to show her love and my father-in-law was visibly happy. Yet, she hadn’t fully reconciled with some of my behaviour. Like in any typical Muslim family, my house was split into two quarters—the mardana and the zenana. The zenana was in the interior of the house, pretty much closed to everybody except the family, and had a separate entrance not accessible to visitors. It was separated from the mardana, the front portion of the house, by a huge wall. If the house was large enough, the zenana resembled more of an outhouse. If a male visitor was spotted at the gate, the custom was to shout ‘Ghosha! Ghosha!’ The women of the house would then retire to the inner quarters—or simply conceal themselves behind a wall or door. A male member or a woman servant would talk to the visitor and accompany him to the gate to ensure that he had left the house. My mother-in-law explained this custom in detail the day I entered the house. I said nothing but refused to follow it. And there was no way I could ever convince myself to wear a burqa. If someone was at the gate—it didn’t matter if it was a man or woman—I’d simply walk over and talk to the person and let him or her in. My mother-in-law hated this.

  ‘You are not a good Muslim woman if you do this.’

  My standard response was: ‘I work in the film industry and write the script and dialogue. If I’m at the shooting location, I sometimes show the actors what to do. Can I use the “ghosha” as an excuse to not do my job?’

  ‘Then quit that job and stay at home. That is a man’s job. A Muslim woman should behave like a Muslim woman if she wants to be respected. Allah won’t be pleased if you continue like this.’

  ‘Your son agreed to my condition of continuing to work in the film industry even after marriage. You might want to confirm this with him.’ She was furious but said nothing.

  However, my father-in-law tried to coax me with sweet talk.‘Don’t be upset, child. Listen to me. An educated woman loses her beauty. Because she goes out to work, the sun saps the moisture in her face and sucks out her natural beauty. Remember, only a woman’s body has the special power to stay healthy even without regular exercise. Which is why I say a woman shouldn’t step out of the house.’

  ‘I don’t work because I need to maintain my health or because I need to earn. I work because it satisfies my creative impulse.’ I tried to explain how this worked—drawing from what I had learned about the various ways of expressing human creativity—but it didn’t make any sense to him.

  I refused to change and they refused to stop being upset until one day,

  ‘If you were a Muslim girl by birth, you wouldn’t have spoken to us like this—without respect, on every matter. You were attracted to Amir because he’s handsome and he’s a film director, and he has a prosperous career ahead of him. Why would you care about the customs of this house? Why would you respect our religion?’

  I couldn’t stay with them in the same house after this and told Amir that the two of us needed to move out of his parents’ house.

  ‘No way! Please compromise a bit. Be a little tactful.’

  ‘Explain “tactful”,’ I demanded.

  ‘Wear a black gown when you’re at home. That’ll please Mother,’ he smiled.

  ‘Fine, but you forget that when I’m out, the press and the publicity folks click my photos and publish them. What do you recommend that I wear on those occasions? How about I wea
r a burqa and hide my face? That’ll make for some splendid publicity: Razia, the revolutionary–Progressive–feminist heroine! Rousing headlines! Just enough to destroy my image.’

  Amir didn’t know what to say. But she knew he was the darling of his parents, the only brother to his eight sisters. She couldn’t imagine him arguing with his parents, let alone taking her side. Besides—and she realized this over time—he still retained some traces of religious orthodoxy. Another fact complicated the issue. For years, his family was held in high esteem by the community as a family that was deeply traditional.

  The Tablighi, which had engaged spies everywhere to watch whether Muslim families were indeed observing all the Islamic mandates, eventually learned of my transgressions, came home and questioned Amir’s parents.

  ‘Why don’t you speak to her directly? She’s a disobedient daughter-in-law!’ My mother-in-law’s tone was acid.

  The duo turned to me.

  ‘We have information that you wear the bindi—vermilion—on your forehead quite often. Is that true?’

  ‘I work in the film industry. If a situation demands that I wear a bindi or dress in a particular way, I can’t refuse.’

  ‘But you don’t wipe it off after you return home. We also know this to be true.’

  ‘Well, Hindu traditionalists insist that women must always wear a bindi. You insist on the opposite. Why is your religion concerned with whether I wear a bindi or not?’

  The bearded watch guards of Islamic tradition were stumped for a moment and then yelled in unison,

  ‘Why are we concerned? Because that is a kafir tradition!’

  ‘Kafir is a term of abuse. It doesn’t prove that wearing a bindi is against Islamic tradition.’

  One of them replied immediately, ‘Your Urdu is wrong. You’re mixing Kannada to cover your ignorance.’

  ‘Malayali Muslims don’t speak Urdu. Neither do Tamil Muslims. Besides, how is knowledge of Urdu related to religion?’ I was enjoying this. It was like I was enacting a script where the protagonist, a fierce rebel, corners a miserable, superstition-steeped traditionalist. I visualized myself now as both the scriptwriter and the protagonist.

  ‘What? Huh? What? What?’ They realized that this was clearly not what they had expected and changed track.

  ‘We have information that you don’t eat beef. Is that correct?’

  ‘The religion I was born in regards beef-eating as a sin. This is a belief and practice I adhered to until I converted to Islam. I find it nauseating if I try to eat it. But tell me, where does it say that beef-eating is an absolute must for someone to qualify as a Muslim?’

  This time they didn’t stutter or hesitate. They spoke in concert: two bodies, one voice.

  ‘It doesn’t matter a whit where or whether it is said. These questions are part of our test to verify if you’ve completely cut off your kafir roots. And remember, this is just preliminary. If we begin a more detailed investigation, we will have hundred such questions!’

  I immediately replied, ‘Your argument is amazing! How about if a Muslim, by chance, converts and becomes a Hindu, and Hindu traditionalists insist that he must eat pork to prove that he has completely cut himself off from the roots of his erstwhile religion?’

  ‘What did you just say?’ they yelled in unison. And then the one with the flowing, snow-white beard explained my argument to the other Tablighi, who sported a grey beard of the same length as his partner. The grey-bearded Tablighi shot up from his seat and screamed at me.

  ‘How…how dare you! What even gives you the guts to ask this to the Tablighi? Nobody who’s born in the Only True Religion can convert out of it. Ever! The person won’t even live to see the meat of the pig, let alone savour it! Death is the only punishment for apostasy. Don’t you know that?’ And then they turned their backs to me and spoke to my father-in-law. ‘Did you listen to her words, Yunus Querishi Sahib? Your daughter-in-law has fallen out of line—it’s your responsibility to set her right. If you fail, you will be excommunicated. Nobody from the community will visit your house. You won’t be allowed to visit anybody. This rule will apply to your daughters as well. You won’t receive any help even if there’s a death in your house.’ They turned to leave, then paused. ‘Oh, and tell your son, Amir, to see us.’ And they left without giving me a second glance.

  Amir was livid. ‘For God’s sake, why can’t you be tactful? Do you have any idea what’s going to happen if they excommunicate us?’

  ‘Right! So you’re asking me to kill my individuality. Why should I do something that makes no sense to me, Amir?’

  ‘They will interpret “makes no sense to me” as a lack of faith in Islam. Why do you want to allow that?’

  ‘What do you propose? That I vanish inside a burqa and murder my individuality with my own hands?’

  ‘I didn’t say that! Okay, so here’s the thing. If you wear the bindi when shooting, erase it before coming home. Don’t wear a burqa; wrap a black shawl so it covers your face, head and neck when you come home after work. Eat a bit of beef, rarely. Besides, what’s the difference? The cow is also just an animal, like a lamb or a goat.’

  ‘You’re sounding exactly like the Tablighis.’

  He was silent. His parents had stopped talking to me but his insistence on me following those tenets only increased after that conversation. I decided not to give in. This wasn’t merely a question of tact: it involved surrendering, butchering not just my creativity but my individuality. However, I once surprised Amir just like that. On a hot weekday afternoon, I dragged him to Hotel Ammaan, ordered a gosht biryani and ate it as he sat watching me. His eyes shone with approving happiness. Lunch done, I told him, ‘Amir, I ate gosht to prove that I’ve cut off myself completely from the roots of my previous faith. But if I eat this everyday at home, it’ll mean I’ve sacrificed my self-respect. I need your support at home; I need you to defend my self-respect.’

  He said, ‘Razia, that’ll lead to avoidable confrontations. The situation at home is already tense. And this is not a question of just the fear of the Tablighis. My parents actually believe that they’ll suffer in eternal hell after they die if they allow you to continue your current ways—including your refusal to eat beef. You have eaten it today anyway. Why don’t you continue eating it whenever it’s cooked at home?’

  I was annoyed now. ‘You’re saying the same thing again! I told you earlier, let’s live separately. We’ll rent a flat and stay there. That’ll solve all problems. Your parents will no longer need to live in constant fear of the Tablighi, or the fear of eternal hell.’ He didn’t reply. I sensed what he was thinking. It wasn’t easy to live all by ourselves. Our careers didn’t really assure us a steady income. The present arrangement worked well, financially at least—a large house, servants and relative luxury. We didn’t pay for the food and other seemingly trivial but recurring expenses. Amir’s parents took very good care of their grandson when I went out of town for several days on work. More importantly, Amir was more attached to his parents than I had initially estimated. Even then, moving to a separate flat would prove burdensome but not impossible. I persisted. Amir refused and I did not relent either.

  ‘Go if you can’t stay here. I won’t come,’ he said finally.