PhOtOgraPhs

17th Century’s Miniature Paintings to Modern Nail Art

Have you ever imagined how it would have been if sheila would have shaken her belly button with a piercing or your own munni with a pierced eye-brow heart-rending in Madhuri Dixit’s “hum pe ye kisne hara rang dala” style? The spectators would have felt more seductive and “jhandu baam” Right? Its high time guys…Airhostesses are now bored of the same old white-transparent French manicure, they need some flying high colours.

Colours, designs, patterns are in our cultural roots, just the forms and ways of presenting has changed. From the miniature paintings of 17^th century, which even today is worldwide renowned for its beauty and impeccable detailing, has the idea of conveying reality that existed beyond specific vantage point. They are counted as one of the many things that make a country proud of its cultural heritage. Those miniature paintings followed till 20^th century with trivial change in the colours and shapes of Lords and Gods. And over the centuries, their effect has diminished a lot and today...In 21^st century, if you ask the youth about “miniature paintings”, they will probably ask you to come again, stare at you for a couple of minutes with wide opened eyes and say “what s that?”

Today’s generation isn’t concerned about the country’s heritage as much as they are about if they got their chipped nail diluted or their appointments at the saloon for the manicure and pedicure. Yes! It’s about body piercing, nail arts, tattoos, and your makeover! You name it and they’ll love it, because it’s trendy and funky, but the roots are still in the 17^th century. Body piercing, is the practice of puncturing or cutting a part of the human body, creating an opening in which jewellery may be worn. The oldest mummified remains ever discovered were sporting earrings, attesting to the existence of the practice more than 5,000 years ago, while nose piercing has been very common since 1500 B.C. Nail art is a very specialized cosmetic field. Nail lacquering, nail painting, nail decoration and nail piercing are some different nail art ideas, which are popular all over the world. Nail art was popular in ancient India in the form of henna painting and application of fragrances. Ancient Indian tribes were also very adept at spectacular nail decorations. Today nail art has been a profession, a way to represent your beautiful art on nails. Also, several degree and diploma programmes have been started by different institutes for aspiring nailists.

Coming up to the body tattoos which were used in earlier centuries by the women to decorate themselves for some occasion. Also, it was a tradition to wear face tattoos for warriors. Tattoos were also used on animals for branding or identification. And today tattoos are used to express love, by guys and girls by getting their girl’s/guy’s, sister’s, brother’s name pigmented in their skins as if they are “ghajini’s Amir khan” to forget them…

Ultimately, the basics of English will remain “A-Z”, in order to form “A-Apple”. In the same way, even today somehow we are interlinked to our ancestors and older centuries, the fragrance of this soil will always remain in our bodies and will die with us.

Feature writing-"BEHIND THE VEIL"

The most seductive munni, shiela and of course laila now can never even reach the standards of simplicity of the songs like "maula mere maula" and "bol na halke halke" from the movies "Anwar" and "jhoom barabar jhoom". Where  badnaam munni,  jawaan shiela and sizzling laila are trying to attract the crowd with their latke-jhatke and taking off the skirt,which is already too mini, on the other hand, both the natural beauties(as shown in the songs)-nauheed cyrusi and preity zinta  steal the show in "burqa" and "suit". They make you fall for them at a glance.  When movies like “fiza” give you an idea about how innocent Muslims are turned into jihadists, on the same time “khuda kay liye” makes you develop a clear view that how important a person’s religion is to him and it can turn into real disaster if taught wrong.

I would come up with a bundle of examples and justifications in regard of the same but here I will like to take up one of the burning issues in France nowadays which states that women will be banned from wearing the niqab – full-face Muslim veil – in any public place, including while walking down the street, taking a bus, at a bank, library or shop, or in a cinema or theatre. It will be illegal for a woman in niqab to visit the Louvre, or any other museum, take a train, visit a hospital or collect her child from school. Earlier we use to end up talking about right to information or freedom of speech but now it’s time to protect your religious rights too! By outlawing the full-face veil, France has put up a question mark on the whole Muslim community. The newspapers stated that the lower house of French parliament passed a law according to which no one can wear a full-face veil in public. France is first such country to make this kind of law in Europe.

The traditional outfit, burqa, has its roots late in 200 A.D, even before Islam, when women in arab and Persia use to wear it. in earlier times, chador was worn by women and Wearing it was the one possible way in which a Muslim woman can follow the Islamic dress code known as ḥijab. But later in 1936, Reza Shah banned wearing hijab, violently enforcing the law against a generation of women who had grown up beneath the chador. A verse in quraan states:

“O Prophet! Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the faithful to draw their outer garments close around themselves; that is better that they will be recognized and not annoyed. And God is ever Forgiving, Gentle."

Islam tells both men and women to dress and behave modestly in public and so it created burqa for women. Also, in the Bible we will find that it teaches that modesty and reverence demanded the veiling of the face of the woman and that the veil was used by ladies of high rank. The Kaaba in Mecca is veiled and the veil is a sign of something being marked off or sacred. Human rights watches state:

There is no evidence that wearing the full veil in public threatens public safety, public order, health, morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others – the only legitimate grounds for interference with fundamental rights

As per Islam, every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered shames her head for it is one and the same as if she were a woman with a shaved head. For it a woman does not cover herself let her also be shorn; but if it is disgraceful for woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. For the Islam veil, far from being a burden on women, it is blessing for them. The fact remains that Islam has given women rights which have no parallel in any other religion.

So after this law came up, I believe they should ban helmets as well because they hide your face too. There should be no fencing helmets for sportsmen. No one should have a right to wear monkey caps even if it’s below freezing point. And please make sure you don’t wear protective masks if you are a patient of swine flu, you might end up in jail as per the French law. Don’t tie handkerchief around your face to protect yourself from the factory pollution. After having a population of approximately 4million muslims, President Nicolas sarkozy stated that niqab has degraded the women but many has disagreed to it. They say that it becomes hard for the cops to check the identity of a person. French police also arrested two women wearing niqaab, protesting against the face-hiding law. So, a woman who believes that her God orders her to wear it should be stopped from going out to buy food to feed herself, or from going to see a doctor. The question is that what is it about invisibility of a woman’s face that is troubling the Frenchmen so much? What is it about the niqaab that is disconcerting so many, though it is worn by a few? where are the human rights and right to equality?

Today is the time when bikini shoots must be banned not burqas. When teenagers will idolise Britney spears as their role models, then they will end up being munni only. No one raises a question on the exposure of women in kingfisher calendars or magazines like cosmopolitan. They call themselves a feminist, practically standing naked in front of a million of people watching them on T.V. and on the other hand, it is strange to see that modesty of a woman is causing irritation in the eyes of law governing forces. In my opinion, one should stand for his religious rights. we already have short reserves of the cultural values, to tell about to our upcoming generations. I hope words like burqa, hijab, dupatta etc don’t extinct in the near future!