{"id":205,"date":"2006-10-27T09:31:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-27T09:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2006\/10\/viewing-religion.html"},"modified":"2011-06-30T20:40:41","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T20:40:41","slug":"viewing-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2006\/10\/viewing-religion.html","title":{"rendered":"Viewing religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading Outlook<\/a> I am amazed at the differences between the columns of 2 Muslim women . The first, Yvonne Ridley<\/a> who converted to Islam writes on \u201cHow I came to love the veil\u201d<\/a> and the second, activist Asra Nomani<\/a> writes on \u201cBeyond the veil\u201d<\/a>. It seems to me that while Ridley defends her adopted religion, Nomani sees it\u2019s problems and addresses them. I haven\u2019t researched greatly into each one\u2019s philosophies, however this difference in opinion brings home to me certain similarities in the way I view my religion.<\/p>\n

P is an American. She\u2019s white, the daughter of a wealthy doctor, was raised in the Southern United States and is now married to one of our desi friends. After marriage, she\u2019s learned to cook desi food (well), dresses in graceful saris and salwar-kameezes when the occasion calls for it, is attempting to learn Hindi, and does all the desi pujas and rituals that her mother-in-law has made her aware of. In fact when my Mom visited the States and met P she was thoroughly impressed by her Indian-ness. And it\u2019s true, barring one or two, P is the most traditional among all my Indian-born married friends\/friend\u2019s wives.<\/p>\n

She travels to India often, and loves spending time there, although she does find it dirty in general and has much to say about the deplorable state of bathrooms in homes\/malls etc. And like me, has problems with the way women are treated\/looked at(eve-teasing\/dowry demands etc.) in India. I\u2019m not sure what the family dynamics are in India at her in-laws place but she seems to get along pretty well with everyone. And that might be because she\u2019s a very nice person. Or cynically (because I know that she has a mind of her own), that everyone is conversing in the vernacular which she doesn\u2019t understand very well.<\/p>\n

The difference in my and her thinking stems from the fact that she, as a practicing Hindu has the whole \u201cIndian woman\u201d thing going on, while I, as someone born in India and won\u2019t accept the traditional \u201cfemale\u201d role easily. It might be that she is unaware of all the baggage that comes with \u201cbeing-a-good-Indian-girl\u201d. Also, from her talk, it seems that she\u2019s able to pick and choose the customs she wishes to follow without incurring any displeasure. How ? It might be that she\u2019s viewed as the \u201cAmerican\u201d who deigns to follow Indian customs (so nice of her etc.) \u2013 thus what she does is more than enough, while I, as an Indian woman am expected to follow them all (no choice in the matter).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like from the \u201cinside\u201d one can see where and how social expectations develop, and be critical. From the outside, flirting with the exotic, knowing you have the option to pull out, and no one will damn you for it, blinds you to faults.<\/p>\n

There are also circumstantial differences. As an American who\u2019s well insulated from Indian society (by living far away) except for the once-in-2-year India trips, and having a maternal family and society which do not force upon her pujas and vrats for the good of the husband\/sons\/family\/world in general, and actually concedes that she is a person in her own right (and not just through marriage) she has options. If she does do the Pujas \u2013 great. If she doesn\u2019t \u2013 so what ? Doesn\u2019t affect her parents\/friends etc and doesn\u2019t affect her relationship with the outside world. I, on the other hand am looked on a little oddly (she\u2019s just different) when I wear my mangalsutra only as jewellery, or keep my maiden name. When in India, my telling-it-like-it-is is curbed by what the friends of my families will think and how my conduct reflects on them. I am reminded of my duties \u2013 this is what \u201cwomen\u201d should do – while I think P might have the option of feigning ignorance or a language handicap. I am not insulated from \u201cwhat-everyone-will-say\u201d or \u201cwhat-everyone-will-think\u201d because my families live there. And everyone, regardless of \u201chow modern we are\u201d have the same expectations from (Indian) women.<\/p>\n

Categories : _india , _culture_and_society , _women<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Outlook I am amazed at the differences between the columns of 2 Muslim women . The first, Yvonne Ridley who converted to Islam writes on \u201cHow I came to love the veil\u201d and the second, activist Asra Nomani writes on \u201cBeyond the veil\u201d. It seems to me that while Ridley defends her adopted religion, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-and-society","category-india"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"Reading Outlook I am amazed at the differences between the columns of 2 Muslim women . The first, Yvonne Ridley who converted to Islam writes on \u201cHow I came to love the veil\u201d and the second, activist Asra Nomani writes on \u201cBeyond the veil\u201d. It seems to me that while Ridley defends her adopted religion,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":856,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}