Previous Back To Gallery Next The great woman educator Begam Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, who founded the first school for Muslim girls in Calcutta (early 20th c.), refers in her book on women in purdah (Jahan, R., ed. & trans., Inside Seclusion--see bibliography in Readings) about how they would be packaged up like bundles of luggage in their palkis when forced to travel, so tightly packed that they often fainted, or died of the heat. This drawing by the late, famous Bangladeshi artist Zainul Abedin depicts such a palki, but this one is meant to be a village model, probably made of woven bamboo, thus it would be somewhat airy as compared to one made all of wood.