Monday, December 8, 2008

Lady on a Scooter

This picture intrigues me in several ways -
- in a city where you see so few women on two-wheelers, it is always a slight bit of a shock to see a lady in a purdah on a scooter
- the scooter has a red cross on it - is the lady a doctor? If she is, is there a story behind why she is buying milk from a booth rather than having it delivered to her home? If the scooter belongs to someone else, why is she riding it, rather than riding her own?
- why is she so well dressed, but her child is not wearing shoes?
- and the question I do not want to ask, but can't help asking - would she have intrigued me as much if she were not wearing a burqua?

The answer to the last question is perhaps the easiest - had she not had on a burqua over her salwar kameez, I would probably not have given her a second look, but had she been in a nine yards saree, or with a pallav over her head, I would have been asking just the same questions. Perhaps.



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1 comment:

Bubbly Bala said...

Ladies in 9 yards saree riding a scooter is nothing new. I have seen it several times in Pune when I was in school.In fact many of the lady professors in kashta sarees at Fergusson college used this mode of transport to come to teach us daily.But yes a lady in purda even sitting on a scooter is new to me.Maybe it is her husband who is the driver and she and her child are just waiting for him.If you were close enough to photograph her what stopped you from walking up to her and finding out.

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