I'm With Her

As the right to public space still eludes women, we photograph them in the streets of the capital city wearing a disguise that guarantees respect

- Ira Mukhoty

DRIVING ALONG THE ENDLESS CHOWPATTY SEAFACE RECENTLY, I realised why Mumbai was, indeed, Maximum City and why Delhi, for all its claims to be Millennium City, might never become as truly inclusive. Set against the opaque Arabian Sea, the boulevard along Marine Drive was heaving with people, and I was amazed to see how many women there were in the crowd. Elderly matrons in sensible sneakers taking their evening constitutional. Slim women in black burkhas tugging at small children, their silhouettes sharply defined against the smoky sky. Young women loping by, in the solitary dedication of adrenaline junkies, and nobody giving them a second glance. In that uncertain hour between the end of the work-day and the beginning of evening chores, these women—alone or in groups—were just whiling away the hours. They were, to use an evocative and quintessentially French noun, ‘flaneurs,’ purposeless and adrift.