Veils and Skullcaps

Veils and Skullcaps (Short Stories from India) is a collection of twenty six short stories. It is written by Ms. Mumtaz Mazumdar. It is the first attempt by her in writing short stories. The stories are about the Bengali Muslims who live in India's North-Eastern State of Assam. They actually speak a dialect of Bengali. They chiefly live in the Barak Valley of Assam. The lives of the characters try to reveal how they think and live. They are not an isolated community. Rather the stories reveal how they can be linked to the Muslims of the rest of the world. The stories reveal about their past and the present. They can also be seen how and where they lie in comparison to the Muslims in the Arab World and beyond, where the latter are much in news for going through fierce change in the various aspects of lives. The Arab World in revolution and the Muslims in the Barak Valley can be interestingly compared.