Sweet Nothings

Identity and Representation

I was at the Calicut Literary Festival attending Jerry Pinto's session where I asked a question and I am unable to stop thinking about it. It is funny how some people write things down to remember and here I am, writing it down so I can forget and move over it. 

The session was about his book 'The Education of Yuri' and it spoke about adolescence, sexuality, relationships and feminism. Pinto spoke about the human craving of companionship and people staying in toxic relationships because of that. This reminded me of the teacher's response in 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', "You settle for the love you think you deserve". The forum was soon open for questions from the audience and I had no control over the impulsive hand shooting up. There was a lady who preceded me and wanted to know if her attending these sessions made her boring. The mike then was passed on to me and so did the camera that turned its head 360 degrees and zoomed in on my tired and sweaty, post lunch sleepy face, looking dull in my pastel pink Rida(hijab). I stood up confidently and then, my question deserted me. I remembered the line from the movie and quoted that and then in my panic of not having a question, I blurted out about the arranged marriage norm in the country and how does one find their way around it. Pinto answered it with urging women to get financially independent and then divorcing the men they were forced to marry. While everyone laughed off the answer and told what true and sane advice that was, I realized the blunder I had made.

I was a women in a hijab, representing my religion and specifically my community. I was what people saw at the festival and formed their opinion about my community. The hijab is my uniform that show which school I belong to. It is the jersey that shows which team I play for. I represent an entire community through the way I dress and behave, and I did no realize what big a responsibility that is until I asked that question. 

This is when I started thinking about the rampant islamophobia in the country, where my hijab is a symbol of oppression. People believe that young Muslim girls are deprived of education, they are forced into their hijabs and have no voice or rights in their domestic environment. The Taliban helping the narrative exist and bringing credibility to it. I having asked that question, fed directly into this bias, into this judgement of all Muslim girls being forced into marriages at a young age, while I was not even talking about my personal experience but the experience of the female community as a whole. 

I cannot help this constant feeling of having put my community down. I proudly wear my hijab because I always believed in what it stands for. It is my identity. I am a proud Bohra Muslim and I would not trade that for anything. It shows how Muslim girls are educated, free, liberal, unchained, living their lives without the suffocating oppression people believe them to be living in. However, every young girl, lady or woman is oppressed by the society where their clothes are constantly moral policed either by words or stares.  I am also a young girl, a lady, a woman living in India and abiding by the rules of its patriarchal society. 

I am now at the cross-roads of a wardrobe dilemma. I no longer feel worthy enough of my hijab, I do not think I am qualified enough to represent my community on the global stage. The question is forgotten by everyone else at the session, but how do I stop feeling guilty about the 2 seconds of a negative impression I formed of my community?