The Bohra Gujarati Muslims Rida/Burqa

The Bohra Gujarati Muslims Rida/Burqa

Rida Ritual

No matter what your age, the rida is part of a woman’s daily wear after her misak ceremony of initiation. Petiwala maintains that once a girl comes of age it is “compulsory” to wear the rida before leaving the house. But Aquila Aftab, who has been designing ridas for almost 27 years, disagrees, saying, “It is worn to a masjid… and it’s a very personal thing.”

The misak ceremony introduces a young woman to the rida. “It’s a reason for the entire family to get together and celebrate over a Bohra-style feast in a thaal,” adds Farida Yunus Marvi, who has 25 years of rida-designing experience.

But the ceremony has more to it than just the rida appeal. “The misak, more than anything, is a little ceremony welcoming the consciousness towards the practice and pursuit of the religion,” says Zahra Rangoonwala, the creative manager at Team::ants who had her own ceremony at the age of 13. Her mother affectionately stitched her first rida which was cut out of a pearly white, silky fabric with pink and lilac flower details — purple being her favourite colour. “I wanted to start wearing a rida already, and often practiced doing my pardi on my mom’s rida,” she recalls.

For all-female gatherings, a rida-cum-jori is preferred, as you can simply remove the pardi and wrap a dupatta around yourself.

Farida Yunus Marvi says that all you need is 5.5 yards of fabric for a rida. The beauty of its architecture is that you can turn any type of fabric into one. Although Petiwala says that the women generally avoid see-through materials such as georgette. The type of fabric is mostly chosen by occasion; for weddings you can take your pick from a wide array of silk fabrics or jamavar and stick to cotton or wash-and-wear for everyday ridas.

Along with fabric, the colour selection is also closely allied with the shades of the season. “During summer, pastels and chikkun fabric are in vogue,”