Girl Uninterrupted

Around 120 similar photographs make up the book Women Changing India (Rs 1,995),which marks the 25th anniversary of the publishing house Kali for Women and its imprint Zubaan,and 150 years of banking major BNP Paribas in India. Six photographers from Magnum Photos Agency — Alex Webb,Patrick Zachmann,Alessandra Sanguinetti,Olivia Arthur and Raghu Rai,besides Franck— fanned out across the country to capture the images for the book. Select works are on display at IHC till November 2.

“Women are changing their own lives and lives around them and we were keen to document the process,both pictorially and textually. When BNP Paribas initiated this project,we found that it fitted in with our ideas,” says Urvashi Butalia of Zubaan. Divided into various segments,the images range from Arthur’s “Generation Now”,in which a picture shows college girls dressed in white salwar kameez and sneakers busy with sports,to Sanguinetti’s series from the film world includes Kiran Rao and Farah Khan at work as well as a 24-year-old camerawoman called Hetal Dedhia on the sets. Webb’s segment,called “Women Driving Change”,follows drivers of the For She Taxi service in Mumbai. One image shows a young Nazleen Babusheikh at the wheel while an urchin stands at the window for alms. Rai’s images capture women newsmakers— Ela Bhatt of Sewa,Apollo Hospital MD Preetha Reddy and ICICI’s Chanda Kochhar among others. “I am a street photographer,so I was a bit uncomfortable shooting posed pictures of famous women,” he says,adding that,as the project progressed,he was floored by Bhatt,awed by Mahasweta Devi and completely mesmerised by political and social activist Aruna Roy.