[West Ender]

The term purdah means isolation of women and, strictly, it has nothing to do with the menstrual cycle. It encompasses the practice of covering oneself from head to toe in public and not appearing outside the home without a chaperone. Maybe some of our politicians should follow it more literally.

It's a word we have adopted from the Indian subcontinent, like pukka for excellent, tiffin for a light meal and even jodhpurs which are named after an Indian city, and it sits alongside all the words from other languages that have enriched English over the centuries. It's not offensive, was never meant to be and could only be thought so by the most paranoid of the Politically Correct.

Stop worrying.