Chador
Rent from DeepDyve- Chador
My grandmother lived throughthree different political periodseach with different tastes for clothing and style
The first era was the early twentieth centurywith a brave leader wanting to freewomen from wearing unsightly chadorshe started by asking his immediate family toreplace chador with European-style clothingthat at the time my grandmother was beatenby her husband for refusing to wearFrench hats and English-style coats
Towards the mid-century the new king was in powerwho was educated in Switzerlandwith a supreme taste for freedom and modernismGrandmother chose a delicate chadorwith a flowery pattern exposing half of her hair
It was now towards the end of the centurywhen a religious government took powerwith their leaders educated in mosques and Madrasthey strongly believed that women’s hair is forbiddento be seen by men in public would be a recipe for hell!they made wearing the hijab mandatorywith severe punishment for those who refusedmy grandmother had to change her clothing style againby wearing a thick chador covering her hair [End Page 52]
Now years after the latest government womendecided to take control of their clothingby not wearing chadorsby hanging their scarves and hijab on long sticks in publicas a symbol of freedomthe young generation is connected to the imageof free women worldwidethey are not going backward in historythey can see the light at the end of the tunnel
Chador is a special kind of hijab [End Page 53]
Mahnaz Badihian is a poet, painter, and translator whose work has been published in several languages worldwide, including Persian, Italian, French, Turkish, Spanish, and Malayalam. She studied oil painting and was an artist in resident in France. She received her mfa in poetry from Pacific University. Her work has appeared in many literary magazines including exiled ink!, International Poetry Magazine, and in the Marin Poetry Center anthology, among others. She translated Saplings Arise, an anthology compiled from the protest poetry of young poets in Iran. She is an active member of rpb (Revolutionary Poet Brigade) of San Francisco.
