Unveiling the Veil
Curtains are an architectural device that manage how much of
the outside is allowed in. The Urdu word for curtain, purdah, is used
interchangeably with privacy. We keep the dignity or purdah of those we wish to
protect. The purdah became a convenient way to maintain privacy outside the
house in the form of a curtained palki or sedan or as a covering or veil for
women. Ayesha Khalid portrays this
association beautifully in her paintings of women in burqas blending in with wall
curtains.
While some men veil themselves such as the Tuareg of Morocco,
or Jewish men of the Hasidic Bratslav sect, and South Asia men may wear a sehra
or veil of flowers on their wedding day, the veil became associated with women across
cultures and religions. The liberal 60s erased the memory of the veil from many
societies, and it is now almost exclusively associated with Muslim women.
The veil has many other meanings. People place a veil between their public and
private lives. A celebrity feels
violated by the intrusion of paparazzi. Online meetings during the Covid
epidemic removed the veil between professional work spaces and the informality
of the home. There are phrases such as a veiled insult, a veiled threat, the
veil of ignorance, the veil of secrecy. Diplomats are trained in the art of
veiling statements. Sadness may be veiled behind a smile. A beggar may adopt a
veil of tragedy to gain sympathy. Social narratives are veils that keep social
groups distinct from one another, whose negative impact may be racism, or
identifying one society as progressive and another as backward.
Whistle blowers lift the veil from hidden truths. A new
monument, or a government policy may be unveiled. All art and poetry use a veil of metaphors to
convey meaning, much like coded messages - themselves another kind of veiling. The
stage curtain represents the separation between truth and fiction. If all the
world’s a stage, as both Shakespeare and Ghalib declared, then, in the words
sung by Frank Sinatra, in death we “face the final curtain.”
Many artists, such as Vermeer and Velazquez use the curtain as
a device for clandestine observation, where the curtain both covers and
discovers. In romantic Urdu poetry the purdah is tantalizing. In Dagh Dehlvi’s
words: ḳhuub parda hai ki chilman se lage baithe hain /saaf chhupte bhi nahin
samne aate bhi nahin (What purdah is this! you sit pressed against the screen.
Neither do you hide properly nor reveal yourself.)
The veil empowered queens and scholars from Ancient China to
medieval Europe, by enabling them to address public gatherings from behind a
screen.
Purdah as a term, found its way into British politics to
describe the period of neutrality to be upheld by the civil service before a
general election. The Iron Curtain of silence and censorship separated Russia
from Europe during the Cold War.
The intangible separation of the material and spiritual
world is often symbolized as a veil. According to the Bible, the face of Moses
was so radiant after he was addressed by God, that it alarmed his people, and
forced him to wear a veil for a while.
The Sufis believe there are 70,000 veils between Allah and
his creations. Mushahida or direct vision is only achieved by unveiling or
Kashf. In the Bible, the minds of the
unbelievers are veiled to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel. The
Quran says the hearts, hearing and sight of the heedless are covered with a ghishāwa
by Allah.
In this era of full transparency, there is public mistrust
of the veils of political rhetoric which Kant calls the “duplicity of politics”.
People desperately seek the truth behind the many veils of disinformation that
are dropped one upon the other by conflicting political or economic
interests.
In reality, everyone wears veils in one form or another.
Richard Garnett said “Every veil secretly desires to be lifted, except the veil
of Hypocrisy”.
Durriya Kazi
14 July 2023
Karachi
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