A Host of Women, 1949

Kashmiri women at the Baby Show held at Srinagar on September 25, 1949,
during the meeting of the Kashmiri National Conference
[Source: Indian Photo Division]




The photo can be divided in three spaces:

1. The periphery, away from viewer: standing women hiding their faces from the camera. Probably, women from affluent Muslim families. The viewers.

2. The boundary formed by a row of women sitting on chairs. Mostly Pandit.

3. Closer to the viewer can be seen the women from working class: there are Muslim women in Pheran and some Pandit women in Saris. All of them sitting together on the ground. Some women feeding babies. The reason the pheran of women is shaped liked that. A woman with a tyok on her forehead and her head wrapped in a Sari, smiling, looking into the camera, happy to be photographed. A little girl in neat dress, her hair neatly tied with a ribbon, happy in her space, unmindful of the crowd. The girl seems to have run away from her spot in the sitting row and instead slipped away to sit with the common crowd, closer to the absent stage.

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