Do We Not Bleed? Reflections of a 21-st Century Pakistani

by Mehr Tarar

Disfigure the truth, add coatings of untruth to reality, paint it with a patina of piety, use the pulpit and loudspeaker of mosques to proclaim your declarations of hatred and vengeance, and watch ordinary people turn into killing machines.

People talked, and they still do. You have to live your life as per the ‘accepted’ standards of morality. Your life must mirror the ethos of the family you are born in, or marry into. Lives are lived, mostly with one idea: How you fit into the desired models of right and wrong, good or bad. What you are is shaped by the traditions of your family, the expectations of your parents and the rules set by the society in which you live. What you are is pushed into a secondary position as you are dictated the dos and don’ts of what your life is to be. And as time moves forward, much changes and yet nothing really changes. The conformity of self to collective ethos remains the same.

country where the traditional chaddar or burqa is being replaced by veils that are of Arab origin is a conscious adoption of a culture that has religion as the connecting glue. The body baring and the body covering (women) exist in two disparate worlds with mostly strict lines of class and status dividing them.