Word: purdah
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...among the Baluch is in many ways the same as it was in the days of the British raj, although camels are now less prevalent than the gaily painted trucks and triwheeled scooters that chug asthmatically around the streets of the province's capital, Quetta (pop. 250,000). Purdah (seclusion of women) and arranged marriage are accepted practices in this strict Islamic society. The chief source of relaxation is bung, a finely ground concoction of high-powered local marijuana that is chewed like tobacco or drunk as a herbal infusion. Tribal values revolve around honor, which the Baluch will...
This land "of delicate, delectable emptiness," named for a vanished biblical kingdom, is also rife with American influence. Racial mixing can produce beautiful results; cultural miscegenation tends toward ludicrous juxtapositions. The snap of bubble gum is heard in the Koran school. Fashionably oversize sunglasses are worn by women in purdah while their denimed daughters in platform shoes kick up the dust in the streets of Istiqlal, the capital. Down in the slums the click of cal abashes and the muezzin's call to prayer compete with an alien rhythm, "with words, repeated in the tireless ecstasy of religious chant...
...decision to have the bishops live together in a conclave at the University of Kent as temporary celibates, rather than scatter to London hotels with their wives after the working day. Ironically, while the bishops were contemplating female equality, their wives were cooped up in a sort of enforced purdah in another college three miles away, not able even to telephone except in case of emergency...
...Helena, Napoleon's last home, and a U.S. naval training station in San Francisco Bay, where drinking fountains were sterilized hourly with blowtorches. Nearly everywhere else life for the survivors changed radically. Moviehouses, restaurants and concert halls were ordered shut. Courting became medically dangerous. A sort of mass purdah prevailed as millions learned to breathe, speak, sleep and even play baseball behind surgical masks...
Only an aquiline nose and a pair of scuffy cheeks peeked out from behind the purdah of colored glasses, gray muffler, and hotel towel anchored Arab-style by a pillbox chapeau. But the imperious stare, the twitching extremities and the spindly silhouette of Bob Dylan, 32, belied the Bedouin disguise. The erstwhile revolutionary folkie, rock-'n 'roll innovator and countrified cop-out was back after an eight-year absence from concert touring. Perched atop a hotel couch in Philadelphia (the second of 21 cities in his current six-week tour), Dylan was solidly re-ensconced as the reigning...