Our house is known as
the Fortress
.
It's not a name used by people outside the house. Rather, it is a name we use ourselves to refer to our residence---affectionately, of course. When I say we, I mean my mother, my sister, and I. My father has no idea that this reference even exists.
It was my sister who first used the name, but it stuck in our minds and since then it has actually become quite popular with the three of us. The reason for its popularity will become evident as I say more about my family, but keep in mind that it is more of a fortress for the women in the house than for me.
First of all, there is a king in this fortress. He is the supreme ruler. His rules and commands are to be obeyed without even a frown on our foreheads. My sister and I do get away with occasional protest but most of the time we dare not say anything. My mother is no better off than the two of us, even though she is the queen. In a way, she is even worst than us because she doesn't even get a break while retiring for the evening.
My father is very loving and very generous, mind you. He showers us with affection and loads us with all the material things our hearts may desire. There is no way we can complain about our lifestyle or about lacking anything we need. As a matter of fact we are rather spoiled as a family and he makes sure that we are well-provided for. In return all he asks of us is that we follow a few strict guidelines of his.
He is very fond of his first born, who thank the Almighty, was a boy, as he had hoped and prayed for. That would be me. I am the apple of my father's eye and the fact that I do so well in my studies and play his favourite sport on a semi-professional level, makes him even more proud than my just being a boy. I started my college only recently and my father finds that to be an additional reason for his pride. He never made it to college because of the way things were in his family those many years ago. The fact that he made sure his boy went to college, in a vicarious sort of way, makes him feel very accomplished.
He is very protective of my sister, who is the delicate little flower in his life. She is well-kept, to say the least, but more appropriately she is well-preserved. She is thoroughly looked after and her needs are seen to immediately. My mother treats her like a little doll, mostly because my father wants her to be treated that way, and my sister is a little doll when it comes to her looks and behaviour.
There is only one problem, and this problem is the main reason for our house being labelled a fortress. The women represent a man's honour and that honour is guarded with one's life. My father guards his honours (two of them) very jealously. It is understandable that he would be so shielding of my mother---typical male behaviour when it comes to his mate---but he is even worst when it comes to my sister.
Our culture dictates that a woman cannot go in front of strangers without her head and body being fully covered. That usually means that our women normally wear an
abaya
over their normal clothing and a scarf over their hair. An
abaya
is basically a garment, most often worn by the Middle Eastern women, that hangs from head to toes like a gown and hides whatever is underneath or inside of it from prying eyes. These eyes don't have to be real, so the paranoia requires the household to be a fortified sanctuary where no intruding eyes can see a woman in her actual form.
This actual form can be an interesting thing, if you see it from the other side. Behind that rather conservative and concealing garment lies a world of wonders. Since the outer garment hides what is underneath, many women---my mother and sister included---tend to dress rather provocatively underneath, just to be subversive, in a quiet and passive sort of way.
The women are not supposed to consort with strangers; usually that means strange men. As the explanation goes, the idea is not that we don't trust our women, but we don't trust those men. Their eyes fall upon our women and they immediately start thinking sexual thoughts about them. It is those thoughts that we fear the most and find them insulting, so we try to stop them from ever coming into existence by making our women less desirable, by hiding them behind a lot of clothing, and by keeping them from wearing makeup that would tantalize the perverted imagination.
The rules are not as strict for married and elderly women, so my mother is at least free to talk to strange men when shopping or when there is an occasion where she is forced to come across a stranger who happens to be a male. She is also free to talk to certain uncles, cousins, or other relatives of the family.
The rules are extremely strict for a young girl, who is of the marrying age. My sister, being such a girl, cannot show herself in the presence of a man, stranger or related, and she is not allowed to be alone with our male cousins or even some young uncles, no matter what the occasion is. She cannot talk to them or look at them in a way where some remote possibility of a sexual thought exists.
Where am I from, you ask?
Believe it or not, I am from Africa. Where exactly in Africa, that'll be my secret, but I am not black African or even a white African. I am an Indian African. Our roots are somewhere in India; our religion is one of the religions in Indo/Pak territory; and we follow the customs that our ancestors brought with them almost a century ago. Only problem is that our customs are much more rigid than what our cousins back there practice nowadays. While they have moved on with times, we have stuck to lessons that are almost a century old. It is now a matter of pride to be old fashioned like our great-grandparents, than to be one of the "modern" families where the words like honour and respect have no meanings.
Some of you would have rightly noted that
abaya
and scarf are not part of any Indian/Pakistani dress. We have borrowed a few traditions from other cultures in order to become more orthodox and we have clung to them as if they were always part of our own traditions. The
burqa
that Indian/Pakistani women use is worn only by the wives of religious leaders and the rest of us make fun of them, as an act of self-justification and personal consolation. We can say that at least we are not that bad.
Of course, there is a double standard that we practice religiously on a daily basis. I am allowed to venture out and experience the life outside. I am allowed to attend a college and skip on religious studies. I am allowed to play sports and go to places by myself. My sister can't even think about any of it. She has to study religion and matters of religious importance and she must learn to be a good cook. She can't go out without an escort and she cannot go out during the evening hours unless she is with the family. Thus her use of the word fortress for our house.
Our house is a fortress in its physical makeup as well. There is a high wall with an electric fence on top of it running all around the house. There is a heavy-duty electric gate with a video-com to see the visitors before opening it or to talk to them and turn them away when we don't want them to come in. There are four maids that work in and around the house and they all have strict instructions to not let anyone come near the residence without prior approval.
Of course, things are not as bad as they sound. My sister has female friends who come to visit her and she does go places, usually accompanied by my mother. She does spend time going to stores, going to a beautician, going to learn cooking from a female teacher, learning to bake from a neighbour, and all that. Almost all of the time she is accompanied by my mother, or by a female who is then answerable to my mother.
My mother is not as strict with her, though, as my father. Being a woman herself, she understands the frustration my sister feels while growing under strict rules and she does let her have quite a bit of freedom. But she will never, ever, ever, allow my sister to associate with a boy where something can develop between the two of them. My sister is being raised to be a good wife to a man that my father will choose for her, and one of the requirements of a good wife is to be chaste, innocent, and virtuous.
Those qualities basically mean the same thing, with slight variation in connotations. What those qualities really mean is that she should be a virgin when she gets married and she should never have had any kind of feelings for any man other than her husband. That way, her first love will be her husband, to whom she'll then devote her life and be a good wife, who is a good cook and a good housekeeper.
Of course, a wife should also be a good lover. While she is given full training for being a good cook and a good housekeeper, there is absolutely no training for being a good lover, or even a good mother. She is even forbidden from discussing sex or learning anything about it. I guess the assumption is that the husband will teach her everything she needs to know. That way he'll mould her to his liking and they'll have a happy marriage.
But there is more to keeping her pure. Her purity personifies the father's honour. The purer she is, the more honoured her father becomes. A really proud father has a daughter who never spoke of sex, never heard of sex, and never, ever thought of sex.
I don't blame you if you find this background a little difficult to believe but those who have grown in a culture similar to mine, will recognize this to be true, and while we may be a bit extreme, they can easily recognize my family in their circles.
One thing that parents like my father and mother do not understand is that such restrictive environment makes a person more curious about the things that are forbidden. As a blatant example of contradictory practices, while we try to shield her from things that would be considered immoral, we have a large screen TV with Digital Satellite Television dish, DVD, and VCR attached to it. The images one sees on TV, or even in the magazines, then take on an added dimension and become disproportionately exciting; whereas a little bit of freedom would dilute their effect to almost negligible proportions. The contacts with males during weddings or other family gatherings become much greater events than they otherwise would, or even should for that matter. Men become more significant than they deserve to be.
Of course, being curious is one thing but having the means to satisfy one's curiosity is another. In my sister's case, I was probably the only male of her age---and mindset---that she associated with. The rest were older men who were either our father's age or our grandfather's age. Even I was only around her when she was younger. I went to an all male boarding school, so I was away during my high school years. From there I moved to a university, where I lived in a hostel with another male roommate. My presence around her only came during summer vacations when I came back home, or during holidays when I came for a visit.
I was free from the fortress during my boarding school days, but that freedom was only physical. My mind was still under my father's control. My true freedom only came when I started college. Being in the presence of mixed company, I bloomed and flourished. Of course, this story is not about that time in my life, so I'll skip it. Suffice it to say, I became a lot wiser in my one year in college than I ever did during my life before that.
The affect our household had on my sister was to render her immature, both in body and behaviour. She grew in years but her body stayed very slender, making her look a few years younger. Her mind also stayed younger. Even though she was over eighteen when this story takes place, she looked and acted like she was only fifteen years old. She was the doll of our house; she looked like a doll and she behaved like one.
This story begins with my first summer vacation in college. I came home a different man with a different outlook on things. I was more mature and saw the world differently than I did at the start of my college. You can say that I had grown---but I found the household stuck in a time warp. Of course, the minute I stepped inside the fortress, I fell under its spell and the restriction and binds once again became a reality for me, even though I could analyse them from a different perspective or frame of reference.
My sister had resigned to her fate and I found her to be more subdued than I remembered her from our past. Well, subdued may not be the right word for it. She was rather passive and she had lost her heady zest of adolescence. She became lively with my arrival but only like a robot that had acquired new batteries. I didn't feel sorry for her because that was the way she was supposed to be and it seemed like she had accepted her lot in life. Technically, therefore, there was nothing to feel sorry about.
