Still others mentioned, albeit half-jokingly, that the girls hid themselves in this way from being recognized when they went for rendezvous with their boyfriends. Their answers were surprisingly vague: while some suggested it was indeed the pollution that caused women (and some men as well) to use their scarves as filters for breathing, others mentioned the fear of becoming dark-skinned (considered unattractive in females in India) from the sun that forced these young ladies to cover their entire faces when they went outdoors. At first I assumed this was done to protect themselves from the increasing air pollution in urban India but why the whole face, I wondered and asked my relatives and friends. I was struck by the unusual, boldly flamboyant way in which they covered their faces. They came to my notice almost immediately when I returned to India and to Chandigarh in September of 2014 after a decade-long absence from my native land. They are neither bandits nor queens but city women (students, workers, housewives) who proudly go about their business of living in the Le Corbusier-designed city of Chandigarh with an air of nonchalance about them.
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