smokerings

voule-vouz tabliq avec moi? (part of the fantastic upcoming musical, the Mullah Rouge)

three of us from Collective were at a field visit to SITE. we were eating lunch at a dhaba in labor square, when two men in green turbans came around distributing pamphlets. the guy must have lost it when he saw me, sitting there with the sleeves of my kurta rolled up (i was eating, for fahks sake!), the dupatta barely covering my head, looking pointedly at everyone and everything in the establishment. we've found a live one, boys. anyway, so we all got pamphlets too. back at the office, HG couldn't stop laughing. we usually have to hunt these guys down... you're telling me they came to you?! apparently every once in a while Hon. M. Illyas Atar Qadri Rizvi jazbeh mein aa keh khawateen par chand alfaz likh leytey hain. so here's Zakhmi Saanp, #42 (what else?)

Khushboo laganey waali zina
a woman may not wear perfume and pass by a gathering... "kyunkeh woh is khushboo key zariye logon ko apni taraf ma'il karti hai chunkeh islam ney zina ko haram kiya hai is liye zina key asbab sey bhi roka hai." (because by wearing perfume she calls attention to herself and this is conisdered sinful in islam, wearing perfume and passing by a gathering should be avoided.)

extensive documentation is provided on the consequences of bey-pardagi: "aik aurat balon sey latki huwi thi aur uss ka demakh khol raha tha." allow me to rhapsodize on my love for the urdu language. if this is read as iss ka demakh khol raha thaa then it basically means the something was gouging the woman's brains out. on the other hand, if one takes it as uss ka demakh khul raha thaa, it means her mind was opening up. which is worse, i wonder.
oh, right. her crime: "yeh aurat apney balon to ghair mardon sey nahin chupati thi" (she did not hide her hair from strange men)
very briefly, the pamphlet states that being widowed, having to work, having to look after children etc is no excuse for not observing purdah. women who do not observe purdah will never marry in to good families, if they marry at all.

the finer points of the remaining document:

aurat ka chehra dekhna?
"aurat ka chehra agarche aurat nahin (yaani keh ussey chupana farz nahin)magar fitney ke khauf key sabab ghai mehram key saamney munh kholna manah hai. issi tarah iss ki taraf nazar karna ghai mehram ke kiye jaiz nahin aur chuna tou aur bhi ziydah manah hai."
although a woman's face is not the woman (meaning it does not have to be covered) but for fear of anarchy she should not open her mouth in front of a man who is not forbidden to her in marriage. for this man to look at her is not correct, and for him to touch her is worse.

(fitnah, anarchy. couldn't find a better translation, but over the years i've fallen in love with those two words and everything they connotate to the point where i can spend hours just holding them on my tounge, turning them, tasting them, over and over again.)

baariq pajama mat pehniye (do not wear a thin shalawar)

aurat ke kanghi ke baal (the hair from a woman's comb) (hide them, non-mehram men should not see them)

aurat key zewar ki awaaz (the noise of a woman's jewellery/accessories) (are as bad as her voice. should not be heard by non-mehram. should speak softly even when at home because the neighbours might hear.)

gair aurat key saath tanhai (being alone with a woman) (is a sin. unless shes a "badsoorat burhiya keh jo shahut key kabil naa ho" which im assuming means "an ugly old woman incapable of having sex")

anyway. thats enough for now. i'll try to get a hold of editions 1-41. i'm sure they can't all be about women.

i wonder which jamaat this is. it's interesting how migrants can be even more strictly conventional about purdah than they are in their home land. i suppose the danger of non-kin men is greater, the increase in income means they can afford the luxury of keeping women at home, the threat of crumbling values is greater in an urban environment, the implicit loss of status from a land-owner to a wage labourer reflects adversely on the way men excercise power over the one thing that's till theirs, the women.
i don't know how long it takes before people realise that "piety" doesn't do fuckall for them. neither does the jamiat. i'm going to stop attributing all their success to the organizational capacity of the jamaat. i just think they're getting so much money from everywhere.. the donations, the goverment, external groups, their own rackets. its no coincidence that if anyone has the money to set up schools, the jamat does. if anyone has the funds to print pamphlets, banners, pay activists, lead processions, provide food shelter jobs... the jamat does.

so much for great moderate liberalism.
aren't the amreekans lucky? more excuses to liberate the masses. and even more excuses to do nothing of the sort. jamaats like these are probably so happy with the money they're getting from industries and trade that they'll never really do anything to upset ties with the west.
so where are they, the roots of dissent? for great justice, haha, haha. things have to get bad. really, really bad. and when none of the right ways work, and all of the wrong ways do. fitna, laughed medusa.