Tags
India, indian women, international women's day, travelphotography, women, women of india, women's rights
Every day seems to be Something Day and today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. I don’t think it should be necessary to set aside certain days for particular causes or ideas, but I do have some interest in this one since I am in the middle of my Women of India project. This is an ongoing project which gives me even more motivation, as if any were needed, to seek out interesting tales from India, to photograph the people involved, who in this case are girls and women, and to summarise their stories.
So I have encountered tea pickers in Kerala, young female cricketers in Himachal Pradesh on the edge of the Himalayas, and trainee girl boxers in Manipur in the northeast. I’ve photographed a beautiful Assamese bride and tribal women in Rajasthan, female petrol pump attendants in Delhi and a charming dancer turned designer and entrepreneur in Pondicherry.
There are a lot of negative stories being told to the outside world about India and how women are treated there. There is a lot of bad stuff going on in what is a very patriarchal society. I don’t intend to ignore the bad stuff, but I hope my stories give a counterweight to the negative impressions. There are lots of gutsy women doing interesting things on a day to day basis, not necessarily celebrities or leaders, although there are plenty of them too.
I’d like this to turn into an exhibition and even a book eventually. But meanwhile it seems like a worthwhile thing to do for its own sake, and at my own expense. So in celebration of International Women’s Day, you are looking at a few of the stories so far…
Rahana was one of a dozen siblings born into a Muslim family in the later period of British rule, a decade before Independence in 1937 (her birth was undocumented). Her father was a barrister, a landowner in the time when a feudal society still existed in India. They lived in the small town of Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh. There was rioting in nearby towns at the time of partition in which her grandfather was killed, but Fatehpur was peaceful. Up until partition, Muslims and Hindus lived quite harmoniously together, celebrating each other’s festivals, as they generally still do today. There was a strong sense of community.
“Her father – my grandfather – was a practicing Muslim, but Rahana’s upbringing was not especially religious,” says Nasma. “My mother hates rituals and superstition, and so do I. If you want something, you work towards it, we believe, you don’t try to keep the Gods happy. My mother is very unconventional in many ways. Very down to earth and carefree.”
Rahana’s husband and Nasma’s father, who died in 1999, was the radical Marxist journalist, Najmul Hasan. An especially happy time of her life was in Delhi in the 1970s and early 1980s, when Delhi was a real cultural hub.
“In their house, before I was born, there was a lot of poetry and music,” says Nasma. “My mother was tutored by Begum Akhtar, a well-known Indian singer of Ghazal, Dadra, and Thumri genres of Hindustani classical music. Rahana still sings but she doesn’t like an audience! She experimented with drinking and smoking. She liked to throw parties. My parents were not very conventional. My father had his Communist Party work and studied Farsi and Sanskrit. She was balanced in her views but supported his causes, and he made sure that she went through college.”
Now they live far from the choking air of Delhi, beneath the snow-capped peaks of the Dhauladhar sub-Himalayan range. “I’m here with her, she likes me being around,” says Nasma. “We sit and chat and talk about old times and she tells me a lot of stories. We have huge family albums but we don’t have any shelves to put them on yet!”
