Bare / Hide

Recently I was engaged in a very-much-solo mental debate on the Purdah/ Burqa system. This was the line of thought:

1. Every human being deserves the right to live life on their own terms.
2. Talibanesque forcing/indoctrination of women to hide their faces is a violation of basic human dignity.
3. At the other end of the spectrum is the western, and now also Indian, society, where lesser and lesser clothes are fast becoming the norm. Baring all is now cool.
4. We assume that since India is a free society, these women do what they do of their own free will. But is this true?
5. What about peer pressure? The need to look 'cool'?
   
6. Teens ape movie stars nowadays, it is a known fact. So, kids wear what the stars wear. Is this not a form of indoctrination?
7. So where is the free will in either case?

Conclusion: Women are hardly free anywhere. If I expand the analogy, no human being is free. We are all prisoners of the society that we create.

Speed Living

Whoof!! My last post was one week away from my marriage, and it's August already. As if I ever needed proof that time flies!