‘I’ve worn all of these’, Farah said and looked miserable. ‘I can’t wear the same clothes all the time.’
‘Oh come on’, Said said. ‘You have tons of clothes. If you wear something more than once doesn’t mean that you are wearing it all the time!’ Said looked at me. ‘Pakistani women!’
I was looking at the piles of clothes that were lying on Farah’s bed. Back in London, I had less than a quarter of all her clothes.
‘I don’t even have enough of a variety of colours in the clothes that I Have.’ Farah looked gloomy.
I laughed a little.‘I can see all the colours on this earth on the piles of clothes lying on your bed. Blue, red, pink, purple, brown, black, white, yellow... All of it! What else do you need?’
Said let out a sigh. ‘See, this is why Pakistani men can’t save money. As soon as you are married, you have to sponsor your wife’s wardrobe!’
Farah gave him an angry look. ‘Come on, Tiija. Let’s go to the bazaar. I will buy some silver colour clothes with my own money, not my husband’s.’ Farah grabbed my hand and we walked to the car.’We want to go to the nearest bazaar’, she said in Urdu to the driver.
As we sat on the back seat of the car and watched the dark evening go by, Farah started to talk in a quiet voice.
‘In Pakistan, there is so much pressure on women to look good, to look a certain way. If you don’t have fair skin, you are not beautiful. If you are not thin yet not too skinny, you are not beautiful. If your hair is not thick and long enough, you are not beautiful. This is why women run to the beauty salons, why we need to buy new clothes and jewellery. Just to compensate for our flaws. We need to prove somehow that we are worth our husbands; that we are worth something. This is why Pakistani women talk about shopping and fashion and looking good all the time.’
‘It is much the same in the west’, I reassured her. ‘Although perhaps not to the same extent. But even over there, women face pressure about looking good and needing to justify themselves somehow by the way they look. There is a lot of comparison and competition between women as well.’
Farah shook her head. ‘I can imagine, but I don’t think it’s on the same scale as here in Pakistan. There is so much pressure. When men come to your house to see if they want to marry you, they only look at your appearance. They don’t care about anything else. Nor do their mothers when they pay the initial visits. It’s all about your physical beauty.’
The driver stopped by the bazaar. Farah and I got off the car. The stalls on the bazaar were all so colourful. I walked behind Farah as she started to rummage through the clothes stands. I was still amazed at how she could think of finding a new colour to add to her clothes collection.
Soon enough Farah emerged with a silver-colour outfit. ‘This is perfect. Silver is in fashion now. If I go and teach in this colour next week, everyone will think I look stunning.’
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Tips on bazaars in Lahore:
http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Pakistan/Punjab/Lahore/blog-41526.html
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