Salwar kameez and a woman broken.

Dining table conversation with guests who have come over centers around how vegetarian food should be repackaged again and the regional courses can then become global. We talk about a lot of examples. Some of the examples are about Soyabean. How that's never picked up pace and become a global delicacy, Indian style. My mind wanders to a completely different tangent. How the salwar kameez has stuck with the South Asian label and couldn't move beyond it to the ramps of the western and the far eastern world. Few years back, in a lounge in Doha, among many hijabs and burqas, I spotted this woman with a toddler wobbling all around her. Lime green and navy blue salwar kameez ensemble. Very quiet. Long manicured nails. Shampooed hair sheathing her face as she bent down over a magazine. The toddler asked her something after playfully poking her thighs for a bit. Pink lips moving in unintelligible language mime. She understood. She leaned forward to take a bottle of water kept on the table near her. That instant I saw her face. Someone had beaten her black and blue on the left side. The side I could see from where I sat. She leaned back and again bent over so that the hair sheathed the injured portion of the face. Her dupatta was on the side. I knew she would artfully cover her face before standing up. The toddler was oblivious. It jigged around the mother fully oblivious of the mother's plight. I debated in my mind. Pakistan or India. Her face, her bone structure and her demeanor stated that she was from either Punjab, Delhi, Kashmir or from Pakistan. Yes, she could be Sindhi too. And therefore, she could be from anywhere in the world wherever Sindhis, the super successful business people are based. But the salwar kameez was a giveaway. Somehow, I pinned the Pakistan tag on her. I decided I would wait for her flight to be flashed on screen and when she would get up to go. I would know. My own Jet flight to Delhi was some while away. It happened nearly an hour later. A screen flash. Qatar airways to Karachi and she started putting up the dupatta around her face. The toddler kept looking up at her as she arranged herself slowly. Deliberately. Taking care that her face and neck didn't hurt. Then, she stood up. Clutching the handle of the chair. Painfully. Lips nearly biting on the searing pain that was probably shooting through. Pale. Very pale. She straightened herself and stood there, tall and as stately as she could be. The salwar kameez straightened out into a beautiful ensemble and gave her the statuesque persona that she needed desperately to walk out from that lounge. The dress kept her dignity alive. Just about. The woman tottered in her first steps but then became confident as she strode out of the lounge. Her toddler skipping alongside her. She left the broken world of a relationship behind. Probably, never to be back. That dress kept her going. It's important to respect that dress and give it it's due. For how many such incidents it must covered, nurtured and guided it's wearers through. We have no clue.