Serious Business Women
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 50mm F/7.1 1/80s ISO2500
Women of India:
Deepti Asthana
A
n engineer by training, Deepti was
introduced to photography in 2012. She
developed her passion for photography and
explored different facets of it along with her
day job, as an IT engineer.
In 2016, she took the leap of faith and started
to work as an independent photographer.
Deepti wants to tell her story through the
stories of Indian women settled in small
towns and villages to highlight the gender
issues in those parts of India, which are
largely differentiated from urban India and
the western world. We get in talks with her
about her project ‘Women Of India’ and
below is an excerpt from her conversation
with ANUSHREE SONI. photography and got involved in it. Later
when I moved to Mumbai, I got different jobs
and got into travelling as I needed more time
for photography. Soon after I started with
my travel blog datravelography.com which
helped me to make a name for myself. I started
getting different assignments and invitations
from the tourism sector through which I got
to travel around 10 -15 countries. As a child, I
have been through a lot and I used to see that
in the stories wherever I travelled. I started
working towards a project called ‘Women
of India’. Now my travels are more about
photography than travelling. I try to stay
for longer time to talk to people,understand
their issues, conduct their interviews and take
pictures.
Let’s start with the obvious question, how
did it all start?
I was inclined towards art from the very
beginning. I was working in UK in an IT
company, where my colleague, who is also a
landscape photographer, introduced me to
photography. This happened in 2012. When I
came to Delhi, I saw a couple of people doing Your project “Women Of India” has a very
special and aesthetic feel connected to it.
What was the idea behind it?
The idea was to get a platform for the women
and their stories.They are extraordinary
stories of very ordinary people that endeavour
to bridge the gap between rural and urban
areas. I really want to cover places which are
more from rural India because I think those
are the places which are untouched and less
talked about.
Rights of Indian women are very unfairly
distributed and there is a very slow
development towards it. What are your
views about it? And how can you bridge the
gap between the two worlds through your
project ‘Women of India’?
When we talk about the issues of rural India,
the urban class seems to be unaware about
these things. Even today, in certain villages,
the girl child is struggling to go to school and
get basic education. Child marriage is very
common and in some areas, girls don't even
have access to menstruation products. These
are the things which urban class cannot relate
to. For them, it used to happen 50 years ago.
But a large part of India still lives in such way
and people are still centuries behind in these
areas. The idea is to make them aware that
this is not the India you know, there is much
more to it. That is how I can bridge the gap,
through my photo stories.