The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental WomenCooper, Elizabeth
Religion
The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental Women
Cooper, Elizabeth
East Asia -- Social life and customs; Women -- East Asia
While in Hyderabad I saw a great deal of this wonderfully attractive
woman, who looks like a young girl, but who is the mother of children
nearly as big as herself. She herself is not “purdah,” and she has
violated the customs of her caste by marrying a man of another caste.
She goes to public entertainments and lives the life of an Englishwoman.
I went with her to see the “sports,” that form of entertainment which
always follow the English wherever they go. They were held at the race
track, and in the grand stand were the entire foreign community, with a
mixture of Indian gentlemen. We watched the riders in the field below,
and I must confess the Indian gentlemen easily carried the honours. They
are wonderful horsemen, and are most picturesque. I think there is no
handsomer man in the world than the high-class Indian gentleman. With
his clear brown skin, his large black eyes, his stately carriage, and
magnificent physique, accentuated by the pugaree or turban on his head,
he is a picture that, once seen, cannot easily be forgotten. The average
Englishman looks either too fat or too thin, does not hold himself well,
has generally, if a resident in the East, a most unhealthy complexion,
and in comparison with his Indian neighbour makes a very poor showing.
Mme. Naidu was the only Indian woman in the grand stand, and after tea
was served, she asked me if I would like to visit the Indian women. We
went upstairs to an enclosed room, which was filled with Indian ladies,
who could see all that was going on in the grounds below, but were
protected from view by the carved woodwork enclosing the room. They came
to a side entrance in their carriages or motors; a screen of canvas was
made from their carriage to the entrance so that they could pass
immediately from their carriage to a covered stairway, themselves
unseen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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