- show of grit

A photography festival is on underground in the heart of the city. The corridor of Esplanade Metro station from the Rani Rashmoni Road gate is hosting an exhibition titled About Women as part of Fete de la Photo, organised by Alliance Francaise du Bengale in collaboration with Metro Railway. On one side of the corridor are lined six studies in pink — Viviane Dalles’s pictures of the Gulabi Gang. Dalles had travelled to Uttar Pradesh in 2006 and met Sampat Pal Devi, who had founded the women’s vigilante group which inspired the recent film Gulab Gang. On the opposite wall, there are 10 black and white portraits of female grit. Uzma Mohsin has clicked women boxers as they sweat it out away from the limelight. While the series ends expectedly with a photograph of Mary Kom, the new pin-up girl of women sports in India, the caption says there are as many as 1,000 women boxers in India. The exhibition, on till March 31, celebrates such unknown women, battling it out in and out of the ring. Picture by Pradip Sanyal