I found this picture to be a shocker.... well not really as we have known about women's exploitation through books etc.... but knowing something and seeing something are two different things.
This is not a photograph of some movie of the times of Nawabs... this is the real picture clicked in a photo studio of Raja Deen Dayal, the photographer.... This is the picture of power.
I wrote about the pic of a nautch girl in this post... and promised to post something which will make you sit up and think.
The presence of girls (understandably nautch girls or prostitutes) and the bottle of some hard liquor makes a statement, when it's clicked in a photo studio. It's a statement of power. And why I say so, is because of the helpless expressions the girls have on their face. The attire, the sherwani, the head gear (pagdi) and the mustache of the men surrounding the girls, one of them holding one girl, gazing at her as if he is looking at an object of desire says it all....
This was a shocker for me.... I stood still for some time.... feeling the helplessness of the girls sitting there.
Pic courtesy here. (Raja Deen Dayal Photo exhibition : IGNCA)
RESTLESS
