Tumah ***

Have been reading a quirky book : “The year of living Biblically”, courtesy of the younger son, who has of late been my chief guide pointing out the readable books and watchable movies. The character in this book, Jacobs, tries to live out the Bible – literally, leading to some hilarious scenes, especially in the parts when Jacobs tries to follow some of the more confounding provisions in the holy book.

But one part was curiously familiar. It concerns Leviticus 15:19, containing stipulations relating to women having periods – yes, menstrual periods. Apparently the Hebrew Bible forbids the faithful from touching a woman for the week following the onset of her period. During this period (the week long one), the woman is considered to be in “tumah”, a state of spiritual impurity. Another law decrees that everything upon which she lies or sits during this period of impurity shall be unclean.

The thing that came to my mind when I read this is the Hindu (or is it Brahmin?) practice which is similar. Even today there are households in India (including some of my relatives) who practice a form of apartheid on menstruating women. They are separated, and usually confined to a part of the house or a corner of a room. No contact is allowed with anyone. Anyone accidentally touching them will have to take a bath, and change their clothes. Generally clothes, water and food are conductors of the "impurity." Curiously, if you wore new clothes, or clothes just back from the dhobi, the clothes were immune from the “uncleanness”. In my grandmother’s home in Kerala, when the old lady was still alive, this practice was strictly followed, at the pain of a public tongue lashing by grandma. The joint extended family being a huge one (grandma had 12 children), at any given time there would be a handful of women going through their respective periods. The house had a “rendam kattu” , a separate area where the said women would be confined. Food would be delivered to them after everyone else had eaten. They would be required to retreat to the innermost areas while the person who brought the food served it on their plate - dropping the food items from a safe height, to avoid the possibility of contamination from the unclean plate. The women were said to be “theendal”. Many women welcomed this practice, mainly for the relief from the daily chores of the house.

I asked the wife if this practice still exists in any household she knows about. She thinks it does, in a little more watered down version. Naturally it is followed more strictly in houses where the older generation (especially mothers-in-law) are still around, and still exert their authority.

I wonder how many today find these practices absurd.