Tudungs and Such.

Like most ladies my age, I was not brought up as a naturally tudung wearer.

We didn't go to school wearing the compulsory white scarf as they do now for all muslim students in the public schools in our country.
In fact, we were happily trodding the corridors of our school in mini skirts uniform, and white shorts for PE classes.

If I remember, the serious tudung wearing in our community only started when I was in form 2 in 1971, when Rafiqah's sister, who was our senior, went to further her studies at UPM and came to visit us at school donning one.
Those days, it was classified as joining the Dakwah and one is thought of as being a follower of an extremist group if you go around with your head covered.

Of course now, time, perceptions and the span of our religious knowledge have changed.

The decision to start covering up was not made without a prolonged debate with myself.
There were lots of skirts to discard.
And the short sleeved blouses will be such a huge waste....

Until one day when I was waiting for Imran outside the school, his very young friend at standard two asked:
Kenapa mak awak tak pakai tudung?
Imran asked me how to answer him?
I didn't have any plausible excuse worthy to be understood by an 8year old!

Later, I went for an umrah trip, got used to covering up for 2 weeks whilst there, and it gave me the best opportunity to continuously wear the tudung from then on.

Since tudung has been a part of my costume, it has become easier for the hubby and my sisters and my friends to get me a gift whenever they travel abroad.

The collection multiplied faster than a pair of hamsters.How do you store them?

A friend told me that she hang them around an unused lamp shade, which doubled as an interior decor. But then I'll need a lot of them all over the dressing area.

I tried to clip the same coloured scarves on to a hanger, but they are so difficult to be retrieved and chosen from whenever I need to use one.
Papa once brought me to the hawkers' street at Jalan Tuanku Abd. Rahman where there were many tudung sellers.

They hang their wares around a circular metal stand.
Papa wanted to get me one but I thought it would look horrendous at home!


For the moment I've solved the problem by using this canvas shelf which I bought from IKEA.
It comes with a velcro top which you can strap to the wardrobe's metal bar where we hang our other clothes, and a covered box at the bottom where we can keep those nice chiffon beaded and drycleanable scarves out of sight and protected from dust..
























Of course I have to be very disciplined in storing each piece back after wearing one. And I better not be in such a big hurry in the morning, or else the whole organized work, according to hue and colour will turn out to be like this after a week......






















Well, actually my shelves did look as chaotic as the picture above, before I sweatingly sort them out in one whole hour yesterday..