#35 Fashioning morality
A fashion show was organised in a ski resort in Kashmir - India's only Muslim majority state. Politicians criticised it for being "obscene", unbefitting the month of Ramzan. Designers apologised.
Welcome to the third edition of All Things Indian, where I unpack the complexities of contemporary India. Each post is a short piece of fiction based on real people I have seen, heard of and met during my decades of reporting. Each story will give you a short insight into the state of affairs in India today.
As the sun set on the far horizons of Srinagar’s Nigeen lake, Naano and Ruksar strode back to their home nearby. Just like they did every evening since the time Ruksar would go to school in her cream pinafore and wear her hair in two stiff braids.
Their ritual was unbroken even when Ruksar began wearing loose sweaters or dupattas to hide her swelling breasts.
It continued even when Ruksar wanted to colour her hair purple and her paint her nails orange.
And now, Ruksar wore elegantly embroidered kurtas upon salwars and covered her head in a hijab but never missed the walks by the lake with her grandmother.
“Tu bore nahi hoti?” Naano often asked why she took walks with an older woman when she could hang out with women her age.
Ruksar said nothing. Somewhere deep down she knew she was defined by these walks. Everything she was, had become and wanted to be, was because of these walks with her Naano.
“Naano, look at that woman’s high heels!” Ruksar was referring to a woman who was walking down the stone steps of Nishat Bagh, a garden with neatly arranged beds of orchids and roses. The woman was wearing a tight woollen brown dress which accentuated the curves of her body, a slit that ran through her left leg upto her thigh.
“Very sexy,” her grandmother smiled.
Ruksar bit her tongue, acknowledging that her grandmother’s reaction was typical and turned around to walk, “we’ll be late for iftaar.”
“I guess this is the kind of dress that those models would have worn in Gulmarg, no?” Naano asked, almost admiringly.
Ruksar knew her grandmother was referring to the fashion show, which had become the talk of town. News channels flashed every update with the same sense of urgency ambulances have when they are taking a patient to the hospital. The Mirwaiz said the show was obscene. A former women Chief Minister said it was un Islamic to have such a show during Ramzan, when a majority of the population in the valley fasts through the day. The Chief Minister said such showing of skin should never happen on the meadows of Gulmarg, let alone during the month of Ramzan.
“My classmates said those semi nude dresses were polluting the essence of Kashmir.” Ruksar was a student of political science in the University of Kashmir.
Naano laughed. “The valleys of Gulmarg have seen a lot more,” she said. Everything from the shape of Sharmila Tagore’s slim body to Sridevi’s voluptuous thighs to Amrita Singh’s cleavage. The entire country ogled. Why didn’t anyone object?
But, it is Ramzan. Ruksar protested.
“So? Perhaps the models were not fasting.”
“Arre Naano!” Ruksar hated losing an argument to her Naano. She frowned. A familiar sense of discomfort crept into her chest. Her Naano had once said wisdom comes from being comfortable with the discomfort.
“Ruksar, you say everyone in Kashmir is talking about unknown models wearing tasteless dresses?”
“Yes”
“That is the point.”
“Huh?”
“That means no one is talking about how the Dal Lake has become a glorified sewer or that centuries-old forests are being chopped off ruthlessly up in the mountains.”
Naano walked slowly, with the help of a stick. Her lips quivered but she wouldn’t tire talking about the time when she was Ruksar’s age. “No one dared to tell me what to wear,” she said. “Or what not to wear.”
“Is that why you never wear a hijab?”
“What do we Sufis know about hijab, wijaab?” Naano said. “Indians brought it along when they brought corruption, injustice and arrogance to the valley.”
Naano stood quietly for a moment, like she was recollecting a memory buried deep in her past, eyebrows knotted together. Had the Indians not taken Kashmir for granted, she said, Kashmiri youth perhaps would not have adopted radical Islam that was so alien to the land she was born in. “Why would they dare pick up arms to defend a faith that just needed to be followed peacefully?”
She stopped to straighten her stick, took a breath and looked at Ruksar. “Do you know that is around the time your father began offering namaz five times a day?”
Ruksar raised her eyebrows. It was inconceivable that her father would miss prayers. Or at least had missed them in the past. “Until early 90s, abba didn’t pray five times?!”
“No one in our house did”
They both chuckled, imagining a time that was long gone.
“I think I even caught your abbu with a beer bottle once,” Naano winked.
That was clearly a stretch. Ruksar shook her head vigorously in disbelief.
“I can’t even ask him, he will be so angry at me!”
“Kashmiri women never stopped asking questions because it made someone angry.”
Naano was unbelievable.
“It is not that easy, you lived in different times.”
Naano smiled. “You are right. I saw your grandfather being shot down by the police. I was there when militants dropped off your uncle’s dead body. You have seen none of those.”
“Now that is not fair, Naano.” When Ruksar smiled, her lips curled up. “You can’t use those examples more than once a week to get out of an argument. And you used them only yesterday!”
Naano held up her left hand, even as her right hand sunk the walking stick further into the ground. “Fine, then how about this - if you are not offended by some fashion show, it will not offend the politicians either.”
“I will think about it.” Ruksar had already thought about it.
They reached home in time for iftaar.