Textura Magazine - Haryana India, January 2020

Hushed voices and sparkling eyes The women of Haryana have lived silently under gender and caste-based oppression for decades, but with collective whispers that shout “No more,” they are changing the narrative. Welcome to Textura India.

By MADDIE CHRISTY

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locked eyes with Mani, one of our India reporting partners, in the left sideview mirror of the 2019 Maruti Suzuki Swift. Her bronze skin and dewy cheeks glowed against the hotpink turtleneck sweater – the one she wore most days in this January cold. The sparkle in her eyes mimicked the warm gooey feeling drowning me in the back seat. With windows rolled down, Rafi blasted the tune “For Aisha” by MEMBA as we cruised down the gravel road.

We were headed on a sunset mission to capture photos and video of Mani’s mom and other women from her community clearing away brush in the canals.

Earlier that week while Mani and I sat in the sunny courtyard at the hospital in Titram waiting on a woman in labor for a story about prenatal care, I’d asked her to explain India’s caste system to me in detail. She looked at me with eyes that said, “Not now. Not here.” Once midnight rolled around, we huddled together in the corner of a booth in our makeshift newsroom at the Springfield hotel. Mani spoke to me in hushed tones with her face no more than 3 inches from mine.

She spelled out the castes – naming them and sharing examples of their traditional jobs in the system. She patiently answered silly questions only an Ameri-

can would ask. Why don’t people just decide not to have caste anymore? What’s so wrong about marrying cross-caste?

At the end of our conversation, she offhandedly said she was Dalit, formerly and inappropriately known as The Untouchables. There was so much we didn’t know about India and the world as journalists, photographers and designers from The West. And Manisha, our other India partners and our India sources would spend three weeks teaching us. The more we learned, the more we didn’t know.

What Mani maybe didn’t know was that I thought she was incredible, and so was her story, which you can read at the back of this magazine. She’s the first girl in her village to not only graduate with a bachelor’s degree, but also her master’s.

And now she’s excelling at Jawaharlal Nehru University, which could be called India’s Harvard in Delhi. Finding out she was Dalit only made her story more moving to me.

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IN HER OWN HANDS A Haryana woman breaks free from domestic violence in the home of her in-laws.

A PLACE AT THE TABLE

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A village sports festival draws people of all ages to a day of athletic contests.

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A Hindu wedding consists of many rituals in preparation for a bride’s married life.

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NO MORE BRUISES A mother and daughter use their history of domestic abuse as motivation to seek a future of safety and freedom for young women in a rural village.

SEEKING GOD(S) IN HARYANA

BEES BEYOND THE GATE After government interference destroyed the beekeeping profession, the women of one village had to cope with losing freedom.

With more than 27,000 snakes captured to date, a local man uses his passion and skill to spread knowledge and save lives.

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CELEBRATING THE CULTURE

Haryana has a rich religious and mythological history.

THE SNAKEMAN OF HARYANA

PREPARATION FOR A NEW LIFE

A boxer fights through injuries and obstacles to reach her Olympic dreams.

A community festival showcases artists rooted in the spirit of Haryana.

200 libraries across Haryana give hope to villagers in lower caste.

COMPETING IN COMMUNITY

FIGHTING FOREVER

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LIFE UNVEILED After enduring years of inequality, one woman advocates for the social, economic and political independence of all women in her conservative village.

THE LONG WAY HOME Migrant workers settle in makeshift houses while doing manual labor hundreds of miles from home.

EMMA HARVILLE

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COMMUNAL HELP FOR THE HUNGRY A food bank provides sustenance to those who cannot afford it on their own.

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ARTISTRY IN THE BLOOD A family sends children to college through painting business.

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WHERE LIFE BEGINS A government program provides community health workers to assist women in rural villages.

SAFE PLACE TO SPEAK UP A female police officer leads her team to protect women who report crimes in Kaithal, Haryana.

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OFF THE CLOTH

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UNTOUCHABLE DREAMS

Entrepreneurs make and promote sanitary napkins for village women’s health and empowerment.

A village girl from the lowest caste in India survived a childhood of discrimination and domestic abuse to pursue education and bring hope to those who raised her.

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Dresses, dances and rebellion

KATIE VIESSELMAN

by HERSH SINGH

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y mother locked our house and ran toward our neighbor’s door in the village of Titram. While we tried to hide, my father stood outside with a gun.

We were afraid, and he was looking for us.

I didn’t understand why we were rushing out into the night. I tried to ask my mother, but she wouldn’t answer. I was 5.

“Don’t ever be afraid,” My mother said to an 8-year-old-me before she dropped me off at school one day.

She fought for her rights against my father and his family. My mother, who now displays her freedom through brightly colored dresses and a wide smile, was denied access to her salary and couldn’t wear clothes of her choice. A woman who is now known for her extroverted and kind nature was forced to sit in a house and cut off contact with the outside world. She couldn’t be herself. Patriarchy, social pressure and her family – my mother fought against them all. She had my father arrested and filed for divorce.

The social structure binds us in a prison of patriarchy. It may protect what many men call pride and honor, but it eats our freedom from within.

Walking through the villages of Haryana, you’ll feel the eyes of women looking through veils. You’ll see men staring while they smoke Hookah. Go deeper, and you’ll hear whispers and screams for help from girls stuck behind 300-year-old ideologies, customs and heavy metal doors.

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of Haryana have seen the worst of humanity.

The oppression is hidden in the name of tradition and culture. History shows us that with oppression comes rebellion.

Women of Haryana, through their vibrant dresses, songs and dances, come together in the fields and streets of their villages every day. Through their language and actions, they protest.

Haryana is a complex pattern of norms, traditions and interactions, beyond poverty and discrimination. The first Indian independence protest, partition riots and the Green Revolution are all part of its history. Yet, they continue working in their wheat, rice and sugar cane fields all year, surviving on little. But the people of Haryana still smile and invite you into their homes for tea, or a meal.

There’s a saying in Sanskrit “अतिथि देवो भव,” which translates to “Guests are like gods.”

Although people have little money, their hearts are wealthy.

I cannot remember if I ever talked to my father. He left when I was 2. Almost 16 years ago, he walked into our home without speaking and handed me his revolver.

My mother pulled me away and made him leave. People tried convincing my mother to get back with him: the patriarchal thing to do. In the end, they lost.

My mother, like many women here, was stronger than they were.

Out of pride and fear, men take away women’s rights through force. Women

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In her own hands A Haryana woman suffered through domestic violence in the home of her in-laws to claim her independence.

by MOLLY KORZENOWSKI

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urti pulled her cattle car to the side of the road near her field and tied her water buffalo to a tree. Her sister, Roshni, and teenage son, Manjeet, joined her to begin a day of work. In the neighboring field, Murti caught a glimpse of her father-in-law holding a pile of bricks, ready to hurl them at her son. Manjeet dodged his throws while Murti fetched a stick she had hidden in the weeds.

With the stick as her sword, Murti defended her land, beating back her father-in-law with fury fueled by the physical abuse he inflicted on her all those years before. That was about 20 years ago, but she still carries a stick to the fields today.

Murti, a widow living in Titram, a village four hours northwest of Delhi, faced physical and sexual abuse in the household of her late husband’s family.

In the face of centuries of cultural tradition and misogyny, Murti and her sister Roshni armed themselves against

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their in-laws who continually attacked them.

Using a broom formed by long fronds of hay and a tie, Murti, 60, swept a fresh pile of manure away from her buffalo so the manure could dry out in the January sunlight.

She runs her own business by creating firestarters from the manure she collects from her six buffalo, earning her own income. With her sister’s help, she also sells buffalo milk.

Murti and Roshni share a one-bedroom home adorned with old calendars and school schedules. One large bed rests against the stone wall and five cot-like beds fill the rest of the space with thick tie blankets. A shelf filled with books and plastic treasures is decorated with a newspaper garland.

The home is theirs. Finally, they answer to nobody.

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Murti carries fresh cut barsim on her head, bringing it out to her water buffalo. She gets up every morning to cut it down from the field she and her sister, Roshni, own.

THANH NGUYEN

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EMMA GOTTSCHALK

Murti wraps a shawl around her to keep warm from a sudden chill. Through many hardships, Murti has learned to live independently with her sister, Roshni.

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Murti grew up in a family of six, with three brothers and two sisters. She remembers good times playing with her siblings and running around her small village of Ujhana, 10 miles north of Titram. Her father decided not to send Murti to school. Instead, she was to have an arranged marriage when she entered adulthood.

At 18, Murti prepared for her own wedding celebration. Her groom was a man named Rampal and Roshni was already married to his brother Balwan. In the community, it is common for sisters to marry into the same family to have an easier transition into married life and to save money. One wedding for both daughters meant half as many decorations to buy and half as much food to make. Since Roshni was 16 at the time, her father decided Roshni would wait until she was an adult to move out of her home. So Murti left her village of Ujhana alone and moved about 30 minutes south to Titram with her husband’s family.

Rampal was the only gentleman in the family, Murti said. He wouldn’t ever drink too much or act cruel, but his family treated him poorly and they fought often.

He committed suicide by swallowing insecticide that killed him in less than 30 minutes. Murti was devastated, a widow at 19 years old.

The sisters come from the Jat community, a spiritually and socially conservative group of people who focus mainly on farming.

To the Jats, Haryana land is considered the most precious asset, according to Titram community organizer and activist Kumar Mukesh.

“For them, land is very important, and in some cases more important than the women in the family,” Kumar said.

Kumar has known and worked with Murti since he started buying milk from the sisters 15 years ago. Murti would deliver milk to

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his family home in the mornings and evenings.

“We found good friends in Murti and Roshni,” said Kumar, who was just starting to organize community volunteers to celebrate the culture and use media to educate the villagers about social justice issues.

When a married couple in the community has children, the family land is split legally among all siblings, even the sisters. Before a law change in 2005, it was legally impossible for a woman to own land in India. The Hindu Succession Amendment changed that, stating “the daughter is allotted the same share [of land] as is allotted to a son.”

“For them, land is very important, and in some cases more important than the women in the family.”

- Kumar, 50 However, in Haryana, most women follow the custom of haq tyag, the voluntary surrender of rights to these ancestral lands. Because the father pays for the daughter’s wedding and dowry, tradition states land should be strictly for the sons.

“Since it’s a patriarchal society, men own most of the land,” Kumar said. “Traditionally, it is a sin for a woman to have share in ancestral property.”

Without a son to one day inherit Rampal’s land, Murti was the natural heir. So Rampal’s family forced her to marry Rampal’s brother, who was only 11 at the time, in an effort to keep the land in their family. They also hoped that by marrying her to such a young boy, Murti

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Murti ties a tarp around a stack of barsim she cut down in her field and carries it to her cart.

Because of village tradition, she must cover her face if men from her Titram village pass her, even while working her own land.

“Even if they kill me, I will not leave the home.”

– Murti, 60

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would flee back to her family and village, giving up any claim on the property.

Instead, Murti stayed. If she left, she would lose rights to the land she inherited, her clearest path to independent living. If she stayed in her in-laws’ home, she faced constant abuse, she said.

She chose the abuse.

EMMA GOTTSCHALK

Her in-laws beat her with sticks and fed her little to no food. Murti spent most of those days in silence, too scared to say or do anything. Dilbag, her new husband, grew older and joined in on the drunken beating.

When Murti was 22, her sister entered the home at 18. Right away, Roshni fell victim to the same treatment Murti had been facing alone for four years, with an abusive drunk for a husband, she said. The girls were beaten and malnourished. Their father-inlaw would grab at the veils covering their faces as they passed by, commanding them to have sex with him. Murti and Roshni escaped to their shared room, where they would hold each other and cry on the cold stone floor.

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inheritance in the family. The third brother was less harsh than Dilbag, but still became abusive to the two sisters when he was drunk, they said.

When Manjeet was about a year old, Murti and Roshni left him at the house with his grandmother while they worked in the field.

Usually, Murti liked to take Manjeet with her everywhere she went. She knew the family would do anything to make the sisters leave, including harming her son. But that day, she left for the field without him.

————— When she came back to the house, Murti found 1-year-old Manjeet vomiting and suffering continuous diarrhea. Murti asked her father-in-law to help pay a doctor to take care of her son, but he refused.

As Murti tended to Manjeet, a neighbor approached her and told her Manjeet needed medical attention right away or he would die. While Murti was in the field, the neighbor saw Manjeet’s grandmother feeding him shards of a broken lightbulb and electrical parts.

Eight years after her marriage to Dilbag, Murti had a boy she named Manjeet, meaning “conqueror of heart” in Hindi. Murti was happy at first, thinking an heir to the land might relieve some of her problems.

However, the family started rumors that rippled through the village. They claimed the child was not Dilbag’s.

Again, Murti asked for assistance from the family, and again, they refused. So she asked her in-laws if she could go to her parents’ home to get help. Her father-in-law allowed Murti to seek help for one day, but said she must return with Manjeet in her arms. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be allowed back in the house. To her, this was just another of the family’s attempts to scare Murti off their property, to keep her property for themselves.

Dilbag rejected Murti, wanting to marry a younger wife. The family granted his wish, separating Murti and Dilbag. This left her to be married to a third brother, Balwan, who was already married to Roshni. In Haryana, it is common for men to take on the widows of their brothers to keep the land and

Murti boarded a bus on Ambala Road with no money and a wailing baby and traveled 12 miles to her parents’ home in Ujhana for help. There, she paid the bus driver and finally got medical attention for her son at a hospital in a neighboring village 10 kilometers away. He still has chronic

“Even if they kill me, I will not leave the home,” Murti said.

EMMA GOTTSCHALK

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“We learned how to fight.

We live in that village and we will die in that village.”

- Roshni, 58 medical problems 20 years after the incident.

During the week that Manjeet spent in the hospital, Murti stayed with her parents. She told them about the abuse she suffered in Titram, but they didn’t believe her. Every day Majeet rested in the hospital, Murti dreaded going back to her inlaws’ house.

On a foggy, rainy day, Murti trekked back to Titram escorted by her brother. When they reached the house, a fight broke out immediately. The angered in-laws would not let Murti in the house. They screamed at Murti and beat her and her brother. Roshni tried to defend them but was hit over the head with a heavy pounding tool.

Police officers broke up the fight and arrested the raging in-laws.

A crowd gathered around the scene. Murti, Roshni and their brother all were taken to a hospital and the in-laws were put in jail for 24 hours.

Upon release from the hospital, the siblings planned to walk back to the front door of the home.

Neighbors stopped Murti, saying it was not safe to stay in the village. They told her she should leave Titram and go back to her parents.

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This time, Murti agreed. Upon the advice of her brother and her neighbors, she decided it would be best to stay away from the situation for a while. She had a recovering son to think about.

Both Murti and Roshni stayed with their parents for two years, even though tradition demanded that married women never return to their parents’ home. Murti’s family told the sisters they were never to return to the house in Titram. Ever since the fight, they believed what Murti said about the abuse and oppression she faced.

They offered to help Murti and Roshni get remarried to new men, but the sisters refused.

Since domestic violence is common in Haryana, Murti said she would rather deal with her current situation then throw herself into a new one.

Again, she chose to face the abuse from her dead husband’s family in order to seek complete social and economic independence.

“How can you be sure that … another person would be good to us, that his family would be supportive?” Murti said. “We will not marry another man.”

Top: Roshni, Murti’s younger sister, cracks open the shell of a peanut while preparing lunch.

Bottom: Roshni prepares lunch at her and Murti’s home in Titram.

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Murti and her sister Roshni once worked in fields owned and controlled by their in-laws, but their long days in the field now go to themselves, their children and their business.

EMMA GOTTSCHALK

THANH NGUYEN

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At 30 and 28 years old, Murti and Roshni, decided they were fed up with the constant abuse from men. The sisters each had a child and hoped they could give them a better life. But without taking power for themselves, there was no way this could happen.

EMMA GOTTSCHALK

Each sister armed herself with a sturdy stick. Whenever any of the in-laws tried to harass them, the sisters would fight back. Day by day, the family started to leave Murti and Roshni alone. The sisters began to gain power in the house. They got a room together, without their husband. They

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worked their field independently and took the food they needed.

Roshni remembers when Dilbag threw rubble at her daughter, who started crying. Roshni and Murti grabbed sticks and started beating him in defense of the child.

“We learned how to fight,” Roshni said. “We live in that village and we will die in that village.”

The next step was to claim their shares of the land.

Murti returns from the fields, unhooks her buffalo from its cart and walks the animal back to the house to get a drink after the 30-minute commute to her field. The buffalo allow Murti to earn her own income.

EMMA GOTTSCHALK

Both sisters returned to Titram, suffering more abuse every day.

Balwan was an alcoholic who became violent to the sisters when he was drunk, they said.

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“We fight together and will always live together.”

- Roshni Without telling Murti or Roshni, Balwan decided to sell a chunk of their land to buy alcohol, Roshni said. He sold it for 5,000 rupees, or $70, a fraction of the land’s worth.

When Murti and Roshni found out about the sale, they marched over to the home of the buyer with many villagers who had seen the violence and argued in their favor. The buyer agreed to sell the sisters the land for 100,000 rupees – 20 times what he paid for it – which Murti and Roshni paid with help from friends and neighbors. They then had the land registered in the names of their sons.

With the support of the village, the sisters finally got what they wanted. Murti sent her son to college. Roshni, who lost a daughter, has a son who works full days in Kaithal, away from any abuse. Their sons have a future inheritance and Murti and Roshni have a right to their own lives.

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Roshni brought out more seating as neighbors trickled in through the slightly ajar gate leading to their home. An elderly woman threw her feet up on the table while sipping a cup of chai. Murti laughed, revealing her chipped front tooth and web of laugh lines.

Many villagers and even relatives praise Murti for her courage, Kumar says. They claim she was a strong woman for standing up to her oppressors. Murti said Dilbag does not dare confront them anymore.

But she still carries a stick, just in case.

With all her successes, education was one thing Murti still wanted. If she were educated, she would have been able to fight her oppressors through the legal system. In Haryana, about 65 percent of rural women are illiterate and don’t know their own rights, according to government websites. Murti said if she had a daughter, she would educate her and raise a strong girl who can fight any violence.

Murti pulled the stalks of barsim, a Haryana hay, taut as she cut it down using a sickle with a worn wooden handle in January. She rode her oxcart to her field to gather food for her six buffalo who were tied up within 30 feet of the room where the family sleeps, a task she completes every morning. When she returns, she feeds the animals.

Murti ground the barsim while Roshni prepared roti and ghee. The sisters split housework and labor, earning enough money to survive on their own. Murti’s small figure emerged from the stone door, carrying a basket of food for her buffalo. Bracelets dangled from each wiry arm as Murti shoved an adult buffalo to the side to pour his food in the trough.

“Now we live a happy life without any restrictions and sadness,” Murti said over a fire outside her bedroom.

“We fight together and will always live together,” Roshni said.

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JAKE VAN LOH

Badlav founder Anil Sirohi helps Shiv Kumar with his studies in a public library where free textbooks are available.

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Teachers in Haryana turn bars into public libraries to help lower castes pursue education and hope for better lives.

by EMMA EIDSVOOG

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single water buffalo stands outside the home of Shiv Kumar, a 15-year-old boy who would rather play cricket with his friends than fill the animal’s water bucket.

His mother, Ramrati, doesn’t mind. She milks the water buffalo, works in the wheat fields and cooks rice and roti to support her small family. She’s just happy to have a son.

As long as he gets an education, Shiv can keep on playing.

Ramrati wants Shiv to do more than milk their water buffalo and do field work that barely pays. With a government job, he could make enough money to live comfortably and exceed the expectations and limitations of his caste. Entrance exams stand between Shiv Kumar and a higher paying job. Without money for books, Shiv Kumar couldn’t study outside of school and would be left behind.

Poverty is common for many of the people of the Sudra caste, a lower class of farmers, carpenters and laborers. These families struggle to pay for basic needs, such as food, shelter or medicine. Education takes the back burner, as families need their children to work to survive.

“Only a person’s hand can support themselves,” Ramrati said. “Not anyone else.”

Twelve teachers in Kaithal, a town of 200,000 people in northern India, noticed this shortfall and wanted to make a change.

In August 2018, the Badlav team formed to give lower castes a better life. Badlav, which means “change” in Hindi, supported 200 libraries throughout Haryana to allow those in poverty to seek education.

Students like Shiv Kumar can pursue their dreams rather than doing what their parents have always done, or their ancestors before them.

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“Only a person’s hand can support themselves. Not anyone else.”

– Ramrati, 40

Lore “Right now, it’s like we are sitting on the floor, but with education it’s like we are sitting in chairs like the upper caste,” said Gurmail Singh, a science teacher and Badlav member.

Of 200 libraries open in Haryana, 45 are in the Kaithal district, where the literacy rate is almost 6 percent lower than the state average, according to the Haryana government. The libraries provide free access to textbooks and a place for students to study without distractions like TV or chores. At Shiv’s library, what was once a place for men to play cards, drink and do drugs is now a place for kids to practice their Hindi, math and biology.

Computer science teacher Anil Sirohi grew up in the Dalit community and belongs to the Chamar caste. He remembers the sting of being made fun of for a caste he was born into, being ignored in a room full of people.

He founded Badlav and opened the first library in his own village of Ambedkar Nagar where Shiv Kumar lives. A place where all castes are welcome.

Anil says he spent his childhood reading by the stove light to study. He lived with his parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.

Being the only one with a government job, the money he made was split among everyone, and he ensured everyone had study materials. His father’s generosity inspired Anil to give back to the Shiv Kumars in his community.

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Shiv Kumar with his mother, Ramrati, at their home in Ambedkar Nagar.

Community members provided money to buy chairs and textbooks. The lighting was installed by the people of the villages who needed the work.

At Ambedkar Nagar library, men still sit outside the building in a circle playing card games. The Badlav team faced backlash from the communities, not only for occupying the men’s hangout, but also for giving a space for girls and boys to study together and claiming casteism still exists.

Anil says they will slowly change

their minds, as illiterate parents learn through their children.

In one location, a man threw rocks at the windows, upset that his social spot was confiscated.

Later, his son attended the same library and passed the exams for a government job. His father turned his life around, giving up alcohol because of the success of his son.

The Jyoti library has both male and female teacher, allowing boys and girls to study together,

“Right now, it’s like we are sitting on the floor, but with education, it’s like we are sitting in chairs like the upper caste.”

- Gurmail Singh, 33

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Students study at Mata Savitri Bai Phule library.

India’s 2018 Literacy Rates: (age 15 and over)

Total:

74.4%

Men:

82.4%

Women:

65.8%

SOURCE: 2018 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK

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but some libraries haven’t progressed as far. At Ambedkar library, women such as Kavita, a teacher with a bachelor’s and master’s in education, still have to study in a separate room.

The women who once studied at the Jyoti library disbanded, so now only men remain in the upper room. Kavita’s sister is a wireless operator for the police, and her cousin works at an industrial training institute. Their success proves women can be successful if given the same resources as men and upper castes, Kavita says.

She says rural communities like hers believe women are for housework. Neighbors tell her: “That’s enough studying. It’s time to get married.”

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“I ignore bad things people say and, in return, make people understand education is for girls,” Kavita said.

For Shiv Kumar’s mother, education would have changed her life. She lives in a one-bedroom home with a kitchen, a bathroom and a stall for her water buffalo.

Ramrati gave birth to four stillborn children before Shiv Kumar: two girls and two boys. Each died within minutes of being born, likely due to blood diseases, according to Ramrati. She didn’t know she could have given birth in a hospital.

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With the 150 rupees, or $2.10, she makes from water buffalo milk each day, she barely has enough to pay for her husband’s medicine and her son’s favorite meal: mattar paneer, a dish of peas and cheese.

Shiv wants to be a teacher despite being born into poverty and belonging to a lower caste.

He says boys at school mock him because of his place in society.

“I don’t listen to what others say,” Shiv Kumar said. “I want to take my own step toward life.”

PHOTOS BY JAKE VAN LOH

Then came Shiv. Family came from all over to see him – the miracle child.

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Competing in community A village sports festival draws people

of all ages to a day of athletic contests.

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itram villagers gathered at the grounds of the Titram Government High School in January to watch women and children compete in various games, from tug-of-war to foot races with clay pots on heads.

A men’s competition was held for many years, but there was no such thing for women. The village celebrated the women’s sports festival on International Women’s Day in 2019 for the first time.

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For the last 13 years, volunteer organization Sambhav, or Possible, has been building toward events like this one for 13 years.

“Some of the girls said, ‘Why can’t we play?’” Sambhav leader Kumar Mukesh said. “‘We have one place in the village for sports and it’s for men and boys only.’”

Women wanted to be more than audience members.

“The 364 days they feed the household and feed animals, one day could be fun for them,” Kumar said.

Three women who participated in the Titram games shared pieces of their lives outside of the annual event. Their stories appear on the next three pages.

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No stone unturned A local woman does not give up on her passion for sports.

By JENNY SINGH

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“I see my dreams in the dreams of my children. I will leave no stone unturned to fulfill their dreams.”

– Nirmala, 30

She’s now a housewife with two sons, ages 8 and 5. Ever since Nirmala’s mother-in-law and father-in-law died, she has been burdened with so much farm and house work she rarely has time to think about herself. She makes food for all members of her family. She goes to the field to bring feed to her animals every day and takes care of the baby buffalo.

But still, her dreams live on.

Whenever she gets a chance to become a contestant at a sports event, Nirmala never stays home.

She always participates and she always wins.

“I see my dreams in the dreams of my children,” Nirmala said. “I will leave no stone unturned to fulfill their dreams.”

MADDIE CHRISTY

MADDIE CHRISTY

Nirmala, 30, placed first in every event at the Titram sports competition. She had been an athlete since childhood until her parents pressured her to get married.

After 10th grade, she quit school to marry. She wanted to study further and make her place in the sports world, but her parents told her to skip her games and learn stitch work.

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Running toward freedom Racing against her neighbors brings a young woman’s freedom into perspective.

By HERSH SINGH

Megha, 18, goes out every day to bring back water for her family in a Matka on her head. She says it gives her and two of her friends an excuse to get out of the house and wander around the village. “[The festival] gives the women an opportunity to come out and be together,” Megha said.

She’s been helping her family out with household work since she was 10 years old, which is true for almost every girl in the village.

Megha walks a block every day to fetch water from her cousin’s house, as her neighborhood does not have a water supply.

“The hard part is getting back to the house because of the weight of the Matka on my neck,” Megha said.

KATIE VIESSELMAN

The Matka can weigh from 22 to 30 pounds.

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Her 8-year-old niece Dakshita clings to her side whenever Megha leaves the house. She said with a smile her niece loves spending time with her, since their houses are right next to each other.

She returns to her parents’ house before lunch to help her mother with cooking. Megha spends most of her afternoons in a beauty parlor where she is training to become a beautician. She spends the rest of her time studying, as she is in her final year of high school and wants to pursue her studies further in college.

Megha and 12 of her friends love the bus rides to the government school in Kaithal. School gives them an opportunity to get out of the village and interact with the world. They rarely miss a school day. This was the first time Megha participated in the sports festival because she’s usually busy with school work and household tasks.

“It wasn’t always like this.” Megha said, referring to her parents’ agreement to let her participate in the festival. “Parents didn’t trust their daughters enough to send them to school in the beginning. Parents were also afraid that other boys might misbehave around their daughters. With time and patience, people are changing now. They now believe and trust their daughters.”

Megha added that she wants these events to happen more often, as they help families understand how they’re robbing the daughters of their freedom.

KATIE VIESSELMAN

Running with a Matka, an earthen clay pot, on her head, Megha Rati finished second during her home village’s annual sports festival.

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When love breaks social stigma A young woman faces a dilemma between choice and tradition.

By MANISHA SHAKUNTALA

Manisha married her husband Parveen last year after secretly seeing him for five years. Her family did not accept the marriage because her mother and Parveen’s mother are from the same clan (Gotra) “Dhull.” This makes them siblings in society’s eyes. Under Article 21 of the “Right to Life and Personal Liberty” in the Indian Constitution, an adult citizen in India has the fundamental right to choose their life partner. But while a love marriage is not a crime in India, it is also not culturally acceptable.

Manisha was faced with a choice: marry the man she loves, or maintain honor in her family. Her family was not ready to accept her relationship, so she could not choose both. Because Parveen is an orphan, she felt she is the whole world to him. After they were married in a court, they took shelter at a “SAFE Home,” a government-initiated program that protects couples who opt for inter-caste or love marriages for 15 days. If couples do not get protection, they may be subject to honor killings by their families.

“We have taken the risk to marry who we want,” Manisha said, “but it is society that needs to change.”

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Satish Kumar holds a wolf snake during a student demonstration Jan. 19. He catches many wolf snakes each year because they look identical to the deadliest snake in India, the common krait.

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The Snakeman of Haryana With more than 27,000 snakes captured, a local man uses his passion and skill to spread knowledge and save lives.

by ZACH WALKER

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hen Satish Kumar was 13 years old, a rat snake bit him.

Harvesting grass for his family’s water buffalo, he sprung backwards when the snake first struck. But it wasn’t quite finished as it slithered toward him through the field.

With a quick reaction that would serve him well years into the future, he wrapped his fingers around the snake’s neck as it twisted itself around his arm. His brother yanked the tail that dangled from Satish’s forearm, unspooled the reptile and tossed it back in the grass.

Although he no longer felt the cold scales on his skin, he thought the venom was already mixing with his blood and flowing through his veins. But his doctor didn’t think so.

In the doctor’s office, he learned that the rat snake was not venomous. Like most snake breeds in India, its bite did no harm past breaking skin. But

most people don’t know which snakes are deadly.

On that day, Satish Kumar became The Snakeman.

To date, Satish, now 42, has captured more than 27,000 snakes. He is known across Haryana and on the internet through his YouTube channel, which boasts more than 30,000 subscribers, as an expert in the craft. He uses his experience to educate the public about Indian snakes and aid poor communities, like parts of his home village of Phaphrana in the Karnal district of Haryana, with life-saving services.

“A lot of people were dying before I came along,” Kumar said. “I want to teach people.”

India suffers the most annual snakebites in the world, with an average of 81,000. Of those, approximately 11,000 are fatal. About 7,000 bites occur each year in the United States, with only seven causing death.

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It was this harsh reality and the lack of snake identification capabilities in India that inspired Satish to take action against both snakes and public ignorance. He knows most snakes can’t hurt him, but of the 270 breeds found in India, 60 can be deadly, and he wants to alert others of that life-saving fact.

After the rat snake, he began catching both harmless and venomous snakes with just his bare hands for people in his village. He read books about snakes by Romulus Whitaker, a world-famous Indian snake expert and television star. After several successful captures, nearby villages heard about the boy who caught snakes, and Satish began to travel across Haryana to offer his reptile-snatching services.

He had a snake in his office and wanted the help of Haryana’s most trusted reptile equalizer. But Satish and Manjeet were nervous about revealing their lack of certification to a government official.

They decided to capture the snake and, in return, the magistrate gifted them a pair of orange leather gloves with metal studs on the fingers to protect from sharp fangs.

On Aug. 15, 2012, India’s independence day, Chief Minister of Haryana Bhupender Singh Hooda awarded Satish a certificate of appreciation in recognition of “social service by giving valuable contributions in catching poisonous deadly snakes and [saving] lives of 645 persons bitten in his village and adjoining areas.”

He spent years supplementing his main job as a farmer with his passion for capturing snakes on trips he calls “rescue missions.” Once, he climbed 40 feet down a well with a rope tied around his waist to catch a king cobra. Another time, he squeezed through cramped slots in the inner workings of a rice-processing machine to catch multiple snakes.

Satish still does not have the proper certification to catch snakes in India. But after the chief of the Wildlife Trust of India wrote letters to every district magistrate in Haryana granting Satish and Manjeet permission to continue their work, he works without worry.

In 2010, he enlisted the help of his nephew, Manjeet Singh, who had always been interested in Satish’s work after growing up watching Romulus Whitaker on the Discovery Channel.

With no set fee for his services, Satish asks for an open donation from those who come from visible wealth and snatches snakes for the poor free of charge.

Together, they wrangled snakes with metal hooks and claws and kept them secure in a plastic grain bag. They always identified the snake for their clients and took extra safety measures if it happened to be one of India’s “Big Four,” the four deadliest snakes found in the country.

“I don’t care about this money. If I can save even one life, that’s fulfilling.

- Satish, 42

If a customer happened to be bitten by one of the Big Four in Satish’s home village or during a rescue mission, he brought them to the hospital and often paid their medical bills with the money he earned from seizing snakes and farming rice, wheat and sugarcane.

They practiced without the proper license from the Indian Forest Service, a blemish in their qualification that they didn’t worry about until the district magistrate of the city of Assandh in Haryana called.

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He remembers catching a snake for a 70-year-old man early in his career. He planned to charge 2,100 rupees or $27.56, but later noticed that the man lived with his two grandsons in a house made of mud and brick with no floors. He learned that the man’s son, the father of the boys, had recently died.

He removed the snake from the home for free.

“I couldn’t take money from him,” Satish said.

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His YouTube channel, “Snake man Haryana Satish Kumar,” which he started in June 2019, has more than 3.3 million total views. The red YouTube logo is pasted on the drivers side door of his white sedan with the words “Channel YouTube Snakeman Haryana.”

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success. He plans to use the money to pay for the hospital bills of poor people bitten by venomous snakes.

“I don’t care about the money,” Satish said. “If I can save even one life, that’s fulfilling.”

PHOTOS BY WILL JACOTT

In January, he received a check from Google for $364, or 25,852 rupees as payment for his channel’s

Satish poses with a wolf snake he caught earlier in the day.

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Preparation for a new life A Hindu wedding consists of many rituals in preparation for a bride’s married life.

By JHENNA BECKER & AASTHA GILL

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itu sat on a red wooden pedestal, her knees pulled up to her chest. Turmeric dripped down her dark eyebrows as her family members pressed the grass brushes to her forehead, shoulders and knees. She turned to pose for the photographers. Shutters clicked in the room, mingling with the harmony of Haryana wedding folk songs for the third ritual of the day, the Tel Baan ceremony.

Today was the day: Jan. 17. The day that Ritu’s life would change for her and her family.

Ritu, 27, and her family prepared for a Hindu wedding in Haryana. Ritu’s marriage, like most in Haryana, was arranged by her parents. She knew what her fiancé Parveen’s house and family looked like, but she didn’t know how they would receive her.

“I’m nervous about living with a different family for the first time and not knowing how they live,” Ritu said.

Earlier in the day, Ritu’s family held the first ceremony, called Bhaat. Ritu’s maternal family members visited her home with gifts, items, clothes and jewelry.

A big crowd gathered outside Ritu’s home as her family welcomed the guests inside.

Ritu’s mother and aunt applied tilak, a small orange mark between the eyebrows of the family members, two by two. It’s custom for two family members to stand on the red wooden pedestal to receive gifts while the women sing mangal Bhaat songs, specific for the Bhaat ceremony, for the arrivals.

The second ceremony, a smaller ritual, is called Manda. The manda is made up of clay bowls with a red thread for Ritu and a white thread for Parveen, and

represents human life. During this ceremony, the manda sits to the side while a pandit, or Hindu scholar, chants mantras.

The mantras signify the bride’s prayer for a long life with her husband and for a marriage filled with peace and harmony.

The third and final ceremony, the Tel Baan, requires a turmeric paste made from herbs, mustard oil and fresh milk curds. Six women took turns pressing the mixture to Ritu’s forehead, shoulders, knees and feet seven times in order to make the bride glow. The women then gathered around Ritu to rub the same paste onto her head.

As Ritu’s mother, sisters and female family members press the grass and turmeric onto her head, Ritu met the eyes of her relatives. These were the people who watched her grow up. Now, she is ready to start a new life.

PHOTOS BY JASMINE JOHNSON & JHENNA BECKER

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12:21p.m.

Bhaat Ceremony 12:21 p.m.

Ritu’s mother, Santosh Ravish, receives a dupatta from her nephew in the Bhaat ceremony. The Bhaat ceremony is meant to welcome guests into the house. A crowd of women surround Ritu’s mother to witness her applying tilak to family members’ foreheads. Santosh works as a housewife.

12:27 p.m.

During the Bhaat ceremony, Ritu’s family members sing folk songs that are native to Haryana and specific to Bhaat.

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12:27p.m.

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Manda Ceremony 1:23 p.m.

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During the Manda ceremony, Ritu and her father, Balvir Singh, scoop turmeric into the fire. A pandit chants mantras as a prayer for peace and harmony in married life.

Tel Baan Ceremony

1:37p.m.

1:37 p.m.

2 a.m.

Ritu’s female relatives take turns sitting before her and performing the ritual of pressing turmeric seven times onto Ritu’s forehead, shoulders, knees and feet.

In this ceremony, called Tel Baan, the preparation starts for the bride’s beauty for her wedding day.

1:48 p.m.

1:48p.m.

Ritu sits on the floor while her female family members put turmeric paste on her head. This is the Tal Baan ritual to help the bride glow before the wedding.

Saat Phere-Seven Steps Ceremony

Ritu and Parveen walk seven full circles clockwise around the agni, or fire, each step representing the principles they promise to each other for

their married life. Each step is called a phere. This ceremony establishes their commitment.

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No more bruises A mother and daughter use their histories of domestic abuse as motivation to seek a future of safety and freedom for young women in a rural village.

by ZACH WALKER

Geeta pours gray water from a metal bowl after washing her family’s clothes in the brick area outside the rooms of their home in Gohran.

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himla Devi works as a servant in the house of an upper-caste man in Gohran, a rural village in the wheat fields of Haryana, but because she is paid by a man other than her husband, the village men think she does not bear a good moral character.

After work, she walks home past men smoking hookahs alongside piles of garbage speckled with hungry feral dogs.

When she gets home close to 3 p.m., her alcoholic husband is two hours away from his first drink.

He’ll be drunk by 6 p.m.

Inside the house, her daughter Geeta Rani boils masala chai tea over a clay stove and hangs clothes on a string suspended between two brick walls without a ceiling. She cares for her 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son whom she had with a husband who didn’t have a conversation with her until one year after their wedding but had a child with her after six months.

After moving in with her mother after months of verbal abuse from her husband, Geeta spends her days with Shimla inside a two-room brick house or outside working to feed her father who uses all of his earnings to buy alcohol at 120 rupees, or $1.69

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Above: Geeta sits with a group of Gohran women in the house of Reena Devi, Shimla’s childhood best friend.

Geeta wishes she could divorce her husband, who has verbally abused her for years, and feels more comfortable in a group of women. “We wouldn’t have to feed our husbands,” Geeta said. “Nobody would oppress us.”

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Shimla stirs potatoes in a pot of boiling water over a fire of sticks and water buffalo manure. While her husband, Ramkaran, sleeps or drinks, she handles the housework with Geeta. “I do everything for the home,” Shimla said.

“But I’m still the one who gets the hate from the community.”

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a bottle. But when the two women are together, they smile and laugh and talk about how they will never let Geeta’s daughter, Shivangi, go through the same abuse they’ve suffered.

“We’ll get our freedom when all of us come together,” Shimla said. “I don’t want women to be afraid to get out.”

According to the 2018 National Family Health Survey, one in every three Indian women beyond age 15 have experienced domestic abuse. The U.S. statistics are also bleak: one in every four American women experience the same abuse.

Shimla and Geeta represent a trend of domestic abuse against women in rural India that is propelled by traditional gender roles and female silencing that begins at childhood.

But they also represent a budding future for Indian women that promotes education over tradition and freedom over barriers.

The two women are working for young girls like Shivangi to reach a future not defined by male preference. Suffering is routine for Shimla and Geeta, but they hope it doesn’t have to be for the next generation.

ZACH WALKER

Geeta lifts a pair of pants toward the clothesline to dry.

Before hanging clothes, she washes them and beats the water out with a heavy wooden plank.

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To begin that routine, Shimla and Geeta wake up at 5 a.m. to walk to the village water tap. There, they are met by a line of women waiting to fill buckets with the only usable water in Gohran.

They need water to bathe in a six-by-four-foot brick bathroom. Holes in the wall where bricks have been removed hold three bars of soap, a washcloth and a plastic packet of shampoo. A two-compartment shower caddy hangs by one rusted nail to support tubes of toothpaste and face wash.

They boil the water in a charred steel bowl over a fire fueled by twigs and discs of water buffalo manure.

After steam rises from the bowl, they cook for Ramkaran, Shimla’s husband, who wakes up an hour earlier than the women or whenever the previous night’s alcohol wears off.

“It doesn’t matter if I come back drunk or sober,” Ramkaran said. “[Shimla] is always going to take care of me.”

The house among the brick pathways of the village usually houses only Shimla, Ramkaran, Geeta’s 19-year-old sister, Beeta and young sons Sachin

ZACH WALKER

Shimla pounds vegetables with a wooden rod to make chutney while her son, Sachin, holds Geeta’s son, Ayush.

“We’ll get our freedom when all of us come together.”

-Shimla, 46 and Anmol. But ever since Geeta’s husband accused her of being attracted to his brother, Geeta and her two children call the end of the alley home.

Now, Geeta can’t hear her husband’s screaming. And after helping her mother fight off her father, she doesn’t worry that Ramkaran will take on the role of abuser, that shadow that has followed her mother since she was a girl.

The shadow twisted Shimla’s childhood into a series of bruises and scrapes.

Shimla remembers the wounds on her arms after following her mom up the staircase and tumbling back down at the age of three. She remembers the bruises down the side of her body after a snorting pig who wanted the two rotis she was holding dragged her 1,600 feet through the village by her hand.

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He always drank alcohol, but he balanced it with food. As he aged, he started to eat less and drink more. To work less and sleep more. He would often fall over after a night of drinking, which he said hurt

Like her father, Geeta’s husband was nice for the first three months. They met on the wedding night, when she was 15 and he was 19, and exchanged occasional pleasantries for the months it took for him to get jealous.

He once wanted to eat a meal with his wife off the same plate, but she wanted her own. He screamed and threw a glass alcohol bottle at her. Most nights, he would beat his wife and daughter with wooden blocks he cut the week before.

The jokes turned to curse words. And the conversations to fights.

more than any manual work ever did.

Pradeep started using every instance of other men being present around his wife as ammunition against her. Like the time

Shimla says Geeta would blend in with Americans because she is so fair, a quality that her husband wanted to hide from everyone but himself.

She once forgot to veil her face in front of her new brother-in-law, a tradition in rural Haryana that requires a woman to hide her face from any man older than her husband. Her husband, Pradeep, accused her of having romantic feelings for his brother.

-Shimla, 46

But he made jokes. And he talked with her and helped her cook. She would even laugh when he would splash her with a bucket of water.

“We didn’t talk and whenever he came to my house, I used to hide,” Shimla said. “I didn’t know what he would do.”

The fear continued when she met her husband for the first time after the ceremony of their arranged marriage. She was 13, and he was a 17-year-old who was bigger than her.

Her father was the man everybody feared.

He killed a wolf by striking its neck with a stick, the same weapon he used against her when she was 10 and went to a friend’s house to watch the Indian war drama “Mahabharat,” her favorite television show, without telling him.

Her fondest memory is playing a game with her friends where they would hide a rupee coin in a pile of water buffalo manure and race to dig it out. Whoever found it first got to keep the manure and sell it at one rupee (or less than one cent) per bucket to buy ice cream.

She stopped applying makeup because her husband thought it attracted other men too much. And she only wears dull colors around him instead of the bright, shiny Punjabi clothing she favors because he thinks the purples and pinks will attract other men.

Or when a man from the village spoke to Geeta, and Pradeep responded by breaking the man’s leg. Pradeep accused her of putting sleeping pills in his food so she could sneak away to see the man. After she refused to testify against the man to the police, Pradeep stopped buying milk and medicine for his children.

“You should run away with him,” Pradeep said to her.

Geeta says she and her friends danced at a wedding after the other guests had left but didn’t notice an old man sitting in the corner.

But the women had to act to escape.

Shimla and her children had to punch

Both men stay away now. Shimla’s husband lies on a cot and stares at a 10-inch television while his wife and daughters cook meals and wash dishes. And Geeta’s husband lives at home without his wife.

“He [doesn’t] want anyone looking at me other than him,” Geeta said.

“The jokes turned to curse words. And the conversations to fights.”

Ramkaran sits on a wooden cot and poses in one of the two bedrooms of his house in Gohran. He spends most of his time sleeping or drinking and refuses to allow his daughters to have a life outside of the village. “That man ruined my life,” Geeta said.

-Ramkaran, 51

“It doesn’t matter if I come back drunk or sober, [Shimla] is always going to take care of me.”

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and kick Ramkaran in a locked room before he stopped beating them.

And Geeta had to move back in with her parents to get away from her husband’s verbal torment.

and relies on her teenage daughter, as well as her two sons who once dropped her in the middle of the road and ran away laughing during the year when she couldn’t walk.

Their actions also saved Shimla’s childhood best friend, Reena, who lives in their village.

And she has to worry about the men in the village calling her vulgar names like they did when she wore only a pajami, a legging-like pair of pants that is traditionally worn only under a dress, to her job as a school bus conductor at a school in the nearby city of Kaithal after waking up late and not having time to change.

But she does have to worry about feeding herself and her three children with an income of 48,000 rupees a year, or $685. She can barely use the left side of her body after surviving a stroke four years ago

“It doesn’t matter how bad a man is, he will always be respected.”

-Reena, 40

Reena Devi sits in the front seat of a school bus in the parking lot of the Guruteg Bahadur Khalsa School in Kaithal. Every school day at 8 a.m., she loads the bus to watch 54 children whom she knows individually by name.

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When her husband poured gasoline over her and her young son while they slept and lit a match only to be stopped by a neighbor, police locked him in jail for three hours before releasing him with no charges.

The abuse continued until Shimla and Geeta stepped in. After helping Reena return the bruises to her husband in a locked room like they did to Ramkaran, the violence faded.

But, unlike Reena, he could still work in his family’s tire shop

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Reena Devi’s husband died after years of alcoholism, so she says she doesn’t have to worry about him beating her or spending the family’s money on alcohol.

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alone without being heckled by customers. And he could wear jeans or sweatpants or whatever was comfortable.

Ramkaran flips through television channels while his grandchildren nap on a cot behind him. Despite Shimla’s and Geeta’s remarks, he believes he is a supportive husband and father. “Some ups and downs come in any family’s house,” Ramkaran said. “But my family is happy.”

“It doesn’t matter how bad a man is,” Reena said.

“He will always be respected.”

At Shimla and Geeta’s house, though he spends all of his truck-driving wages on alcohol and says being drunk is harder than farming because it hurts when he falls down, Ramkaran is respected.

He can order a crowd of children away from his front gate with a few words and a wave of his arm and laughs with other men on the side of a pea field while his youngest daughter, Beeta, 19, hunches over and harvests the pods with other village women.

The other men in the village don’t call him names like they do to his wife and daughters. He can be confident nobody will touch him on his midnight walks down the alley after a night of drinking.

And he can venture outside the village without permission.

cruit her to attend his classes, but Ramkaran refused to let her leave the house, the same answer he gave when she was interested in college.

“If you give your children freedom for even a month, that is bad,” Ramkaran said. “Why would I let my children go somewhere where I can’t go for three years?”

Geeta’s sister, Beeta, says she wouldn’t do anything other than her current job of planting and harvesting crops in the fields a mile outside her family’s home because it gives her a chance to get outside the brick walls. She remembers her father as a man who was always drunk and fighting with her mother. “[They’re] going to listen to what I say,” Ramkaran said. “That’s how it’s going to be.”

But he doesn’t want his daughters doing the same.

When the leader of a dance academy saw an online video of Geeta dancing, he came to Gohran to re-

Geeta wants to make sure her daughter will be the first to evade the kind of abusive future so familiar to the women in Gohran.

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At two years old, Shivangi spends her time clinging to Geeta’s pinky to follow her into the fields or sleeping in a cot next to her little brother while Ramkaran watches television.

ple days. Seven people cram into the house at the end of the alley, but that’s where she feels safe.

But Geeta wants her daughter to escape Gohran and be the first in the family to attend college.

She wants her to be at least 22 when she gets married and the husband to be someone she loves rather than a boy from another village who her daughter won’t see until he lifts her veil on their wedding night.

Shimla doesn’t plan to move out or divorce Ramkaran or do much outside of the normal routine.

She’ll continue waking at 5 a.m. to walk to the temple and fetch water from the tap. But until her daughter moves back in with her husband, at least she’ll have a companion.

A divorce from Pradeep would allow Geeta to have control over her daughter’s future, but she knows that if she signed the papers, men in the village would say she had an affair.

For now, she plans to stay at her mother’s house, although her father claims her fight with her husband will blow over in a cou-

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“I feel the most free at my mother’s house,” Geeta said.

On Jan. 15, two days after the celebration of Lohri, a Punjabi holiday that marks the end of winter in northern India, Geeta sang in the family bedroom lit by a single LED bulb.

Wearing a bright purple dress split into two pieces called a kurta and salwar and a gold shawl called a sunni with blue and red flowers embroidered onto the fabric, she

Beeta, Geeta’s younger sister, picks peas in a field outside her village while a group of men stand on the dirt path above and watch. She says her relationship with her mother is bland, her father is always drunk and she likes working in the fields because it gets her out of the house. “I wouldn’t want to do anything else,” Beeta said. “The women all work together. So, that’s good.”

sang several verses from a Punjabi song titled “Filhall” by BPraak.

As the melody was absorbed by the chipped brick walls and the patterned cloth of the bed comforter, Shimla’s eyes welled with tears.

Translated into English, a verse reads: “There is no reason that you can’t love again.”

After Geeta sang the final note, both women smiled. Then, they left the room to boil potatoes.

Ramkaran took their place on the bed.

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Geeta holds her son and poses in front of her home’s closed wooden gate. She hopes that her children will not suffer as much oppression and abuse as she has. “Under no circumstances will I ever take my [children] out of education,” Geeta said.

SHIMLA

ZACH WALKER

-Sung by Geeta, 20

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Boxer Sapna Saini fights through injuries and obstacles to chase her Olympic dreams.

by EMMA EIDSVOOG

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apna Saini straps the red boxing gloves onto her hands under the lights that decided to work that January day at Diamond Jubilee training center in Kaithal, Haryana. The 20-year-old stands outside the ring on one side of the gym while other girls, and some boys, shadow box on the other. She prepares to spar with one of her coaches, Kuldeep Singh, 31, whose professional career earned him medals from Ukraine to Singapore. She lifts the rope and enters the ring, armed with her red headgear, gloves and grit that comes from her beautician mother and a burgeoning sense that she will not be constrained by any cultural limitations on women.

Rajandra, the gym’s lead coach, starts a four-minute timer on his phone, and an exchange of light taps to the face takes place between Kuldeep and Sapna. Sapna’s shoulders bounce up-and-down over her shuffling feet as she calculates her first punch.

Left, left, right. She grunts with each shot she fires.

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Sapna Saini cools down after a few rounds of sparring against her teammate. She works out in the January cold in hopes of fighting for her country in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

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She hesitates for a moment, and Kuldeep strikes her jaw. Sapna steps back in surprise. The coach stops them so she can ready herself for another string of hits and bruises. Then she’s ready again to take the hits she needs to become an Olympic medalist.

India has the fewest medals per capita of any country. Its 28 medals rank 142nd, one for every 44 million people. The cricketfanatic country has seen fewer medals than Uzbekistan. The British game of cricket isn’t big in Haryana, but a male boxer from Haryana won a bronze in 2008 in Beijing, then a female boxer from

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the eastern border of India won a bronze in London in 2012.

Sapna wants one of those medals.

Despite Haryana’s reputation for athletes and the growing boxing community, her gym isn’t of Olympic caliber, with spotty electricity and few resources. But if Rajandra’s gym loses power, like today, boxers will run drills in the dark or outside in the cold. If they have no jump ropes, they’ll simulate jumping rope in a circle with the same seriousness and heart rates. And maybe that kind of toughness will get Sapna to the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

————— Her tough skin holds her together. After six years of boxing she’s used to pain. She doesn’t notice her sore left ankle. She never flashes a smile while in the ring and outside no one would guess the beaming smile across her face is made of fake teeth courtesy of a tumble off a neighbor’s roof. Her T-shirt covers the scar on her left shoulder from when she leaned too close to a table fan and the time a cow ran into her while she stood in the street holding her thumb in her mouth.

For another two minutes, they go back-and-forth, Sapna’s unveiled

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Sapna and her coach rest between rounds of a sparring match at RKSD Stadium in Kaithal, Haryana, in January. Sometimes, the power goes out in the gym, but coaches don’t postpone practice.

face dripping with sweat and her stance weakening. The round ends, and Sapna yells to a friend for water.

“If I fail once, I’ll try again,” Sapna said. “I’ll try again and again and again.”

The next round, she boxes a younger man wearing a camouflage shirt. She deflects a jab to her abdomen and hits him back with a left, left, right, pushing him to the ropes.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!,” her coach Rajendra yells. Victory for Sapna, a story rarely told in Haryana, where many women cover their

faces if a man from their village can see them, many wish to escape the field work, domestic work – and sometimes domestic violence – that are worse than poverty for some. They want to win control of their lives.

Control for Sapna began in the ring where she isn’t afraid of fighting back.

“No matter who’s in the ring, a boy or girl, they are an opponent to me,” Sapna said.

————— Sapna’s note was scrawled on the concrete wall above her bed

covered with floral patterned sheets: Never give up. Work hard. I want to play India.

She signed her name, looping the “S” two times. A punching bag hung three feet away.

Once their home centered around the punching bag and the trophies and medals piled up on shelves, Sapna realized she could do more than cook, clean and raise children. Sapna dreams of boxing at the 2024 Olympics.

Each medal on the shelf defies those who say she’s too short,

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“Girls are not only for cleaning houses. They can have their name in society.”

– Asha, Sapna’s mother

Sapna and 31-year-old Kuldeep Singh face off at practice at RKSD Stadium in January. Kuldeep won medals internationally in his career and hopes to push Sapna to global success.

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those who pay off officials so their boxers can compete ahead of her and those who say she needs to accept her place in society as a woman.

“I want to be a boxer forever,” Sapna said.

And no injury, man or corruption will stop her.

Her inspiration: 5-foot-2inch Mary Kom, the Indian boxer who won bronze at the 2012 Beijing Olympics.

At 5 feet 4 inches tall, Sapna started boxing when she was 14 after years of jumping off the school bus to skip school and spending hours every day sucking her thumb. Her life began once she stepped into the Diamond Jubilee Sports Center .

GRAPHICS BY BRAEDEN PETERSON

Sapna arrived with an already athletic physique and confidence – a gift from her mother, Asha Saini, a former judo athlete. The one who feeds Sapna millet roti and almonds, when she can afford it.

Asha practiced judo until age 18, when her in-laws forced her to give up her sport to be a housewife – someone who would be quiet, stay indoors and cook meals. Now, she “sees the world through [her] kids’ eyes.” Her dream is for her daughter to box internationally.

“Girls are not only for cleaning houses,” Asha said.

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“They can have their name in society.”

————— Sapna means “dream” in Hindi, but she almost didn’t have a name. She almost didn’t live long enough to get one.

At last count in 2013 to 2015, only 831 girls were born for every 1,000 boys in Haryana, according to government websites. That’s the lowest of any state in India, which has a national average of anywhere from 900 to 940 girls born for every 1,000 boys, depending on who is counting.

Families wanted boys to carry on the family name, home and land. In 1994, the government outlawed gender screening by doctors, even though it was already illegal to abort a baby simply because of its gender.

However, those laws weren’t enforced when Asha became pregnant with Sapna. Asha’s in-laws told her to have an abortion if she was having another girl.

Asha cried once the doctor revealed the gender of Sapna. She wouldn’t abort her.

“A voice from my heart said, ‘It’s wrong. You shouldn’t do this,’” Asha said.

After the appointment, she and her husband didn’t tell

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their family they were having a girl. Her husband simply told his parents, “What you want is there in her womb.”

Asha dreamed of raising a strong daughter, so she drank milk every day during the pregnancy to help her grow.

When Sapna was born, Asha’s sister, a mother of one son, offered to adopt her. Asha gave into the pressure from her family, so her sister prepared a name and announced a party for the adoption.

Three days later, Asha changed her mind. She couldn’t give a part of herself to anyone else.

parlor and the little money sent from her husband. Asha’s mother helped pay for medical expenses.

During hospital visits, Asha would seem optimistic with Sapna next to her, but upon returning home, symptoms worsened.

Sapna recalls holding her mother in her arms and consoling her one night when she began to lose hope.

Sapna’s sweat-drenched, black locks of curls fell on her face during practice. She begged her mother to cut her hair short like the other female boxers at Diamond Jubilee. Once Sapna won gold, her mother said, she could cut her hair.

“Come near me. I’m going to die,” her mother said. “I’m so weak that I don’t think I can survive anymore.”

Then in 2017 at the Junior Women National Boxing Tournament in the state of Assam, Sapna won gold.

Sapna had to be strong for her mother, who was always the

This didn’t surprise her mother, who saw the strength in her daughter at a young age, and cut the hair short.

————— The two became more like sisters, as they teased each other over the years. Sapna was able to pick up her mother by age 11. Although her mother took care of her, Sapna still cries “Papa” whenever she’s hurt. Her father lives hours away in another state for work but visits once a month.

Another trial brought the mother and daughter together when Asha discovered bumps on her neck in 2019. The first doctor in Kaithal thought cancer, but months later, a Delhi doctor diagnosed her with tuberculosis. Boxing took second place, as Sapna skipped practice to carry her mother throughout the house. Asha’s weakened state left her with a breathing problem, and she struggled to walk up stairs or dance.

Suddenly their finances dipped, with only income from the beauty

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“When I become something, people will see my work, not my face,” Sapna said.

“When I become something, people will see my work, not my face.”

- Sapna, 20 strong one. Asha’s life didn’t grant her the freedom of following her passions. Her marriage took her from judo, and dengue, a mosquito-borne virus, and took her from a training gym she ran for five years. She opened a beauty parlor 16 years ago in a small front room of their house to help pay the bills.

Sapna helps from time to time, a hard-hitting boxer specializing in bridal makeup, but she never wears it herself.

Before boxing, Sapna spent all day sucking her thumb. To make her kick the habit at 14, Sapna’s mom tried medicine and even burning and cutting her thumb as punishment at the most desperate of times. It took getting dental braces for her to stop sucking her thumb. Once she was freed from the habit, Sapna got addicted to boxing.

In 2018, four years into the sport, Sapna faced another obstacle. She sliced her shoulder on a table fan and got 17 stitches from the cut.

With the Youth Commonwealth Games trials approaching, Sapna kept training. She gave her shoulder 10 days to heal.

Despite the injury, she was chosen to represent Haryana at the Khelo India games.

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After traveling 38 hours to Guwahati in the Easternmost part of India, nearer to the home of Mary Kom, Sapna checked in with a coach who told her she wasn’t on the list. They replaced her with another girl whose parents, Sapna and her coach believe, could afford bribery.

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Sapna’s teammate helps strap on Sapna’s helmet before a sparring match.

Sapna’s coach Rajendra admits this is a common occurrence in boxing matches. Without corruption and with Sapna’s dedication, he says Sapna could fight all the way to the Olympics. Maybe she’ll need to get to a better gym, but she has what she needs inside.

In January 2019, one year later at the same Khelo India tournament, she boxed the same girl who replaced her. Sapna won the match.

Sapna approached the coach who took her off the list and said, “See what I am and what I can do?”

Sapna now attends RKSD College in Kaithal, where she’s in her second year of general studies, juggling school and her Olympic dream. If she doesn’t make it to Paris, she’ll need a job, so she keeps studying.

She is preparing for her next match at the Khelo University Games in February, where she’ll be among 4,000 athletes from 100 universities across India. But Sapna’s already competed in international competitions in Bulgaria and Kazakhstan. Her mother misses her when she leaves, but supports her dreams.

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“I have learned one thing from my mother. If it is not done in your first effort, do it again . . .

I will definitely get what is mine. It can be late but I’m definitely going to get it.”

– Sapna

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“I have learned one thing from my mother. If it is not done in your first effort, do it again. It will be done at some time,” Sapna said. “I will definitely get what is mine. It can be late, but I’m definitely going to get it.”

And the times when Sapna’s defeated, Asha says “Go back to the ground,” the Hindu School for Girls gym to where she runs two miles every morning, except for Sunday.

At 6 a.m., Sapna works out on the basketball court doing pushups next to her friend Neha. Sapna sits down on the concrete, raising her arms next to her as Neha jumps over them like bar jumps.

She trains with girls like Neha, who wants to be a phy-ed teacher, and Muscan, who believes women should be able to defend themselves.

Sapna just wants to box forever.

Marriage is a distant thought for the girls who shadow box for 10 minutes, hop from their hands and feet on the floor and strap up their calloused hands day after day. They practice from 5:30 to 7 a.m. and 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., before the sun comes up and until the darkness falls on the gym. Sometimes the lights in the gym work, other times they need to stand on the steps outside to see.

Sapna stands with her red gloves on in the looming doorway of Diamond Jubilee with the setting sun hitting her face.

Sapna and her mother Asha embracing at their home in Kaithal.

Left, left, right.

PHOTOS BY JAKE VAN LOH

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Celebrating the culture Hundreds of Titram villagers surrounded the Rangshala stage Jan. 8 where performers sang and danced in traditional Haryanvi and Punjabi styles, wearing vibrant red and green skirts and headdresses.

The villagers came young and old and of many castes. Students in red school uniforms huddled together on the right side of the auditorium, laughing at the hosts and clapping to the music. Titram has hosted cultural events for the last 15 years, run by Kumar Mukesh’s volunteer organization Sambhav, which means “possible.”

“This event was a kind of [an] international event, you know?” Kumar said. “We have been doing it in our community and there were small infights within the community, but this time, the whole community was unified... Textura made the whole community unified.”

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KATIE VIESSELMAN

Sambhav also stands for Social Action for Mobilization and Betterment of Humans through Audio Visuals. The group began showing documentaries and films in 2002, presenting a vision of what Haryana could be. This year was different. With Americans photographing with their school-issued Canon cameras, the crowd united to be hosts.

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Free to dance

By EMMA HARVILLE

A thick black gel settled into the creases around 17-year-old Gurmeet’s brown eyes as the hem of her orange skirt flowed around her bare, dusty feet. She practiced her performance of the traditional Haryanvi dance for five days leading up to the festival and now stepped off the stage. With red paint smeared across her lips after the dance, she smiled as she went over the steps.

“I just dance, dance, dance,” she said.

Gurmeet takes dance classes at the college she attends in Kaithal and began studying this Haryanvi tradition at 13.

She credits her father, a local shopkeeper, and her mother, a housewife who mainly takes care of the animals, for giving her the opportunity to learn outside the village.

Gurmeet studies economics and accounting in hopes of becoming a bank manager at the Reserve Bank of India after her three years in school.

She estimates that only about two or three out of 10 girls go to college in Titram. While education is not too costly in India, many women are expected to care for the home and children. Gurmeet mentions there is a social security issue among women.

“Now that I am educated, I have become more aware and I caution others,” she said. “Women’s safety is an issue all over the world.”

BRAEDEN PETERSON

A village girl defies the oppression of women within her society.

For the world to see and hear

An 18-year-old recording artist dreams of being a Bollywood star.

By JASMINE JOHNSON

Sahaj Pal found his place at center stage for the Titram festival. Surrounded by green and white curtains adorned with floral and checkered patterns, the village stage felt a little different than the school audience he was accustomed to.

He planted his feet on the red and gold carpet and belted out original lyrics without any instrumental background. No honks emerged from the street as hundreds in the audience leaned forward and listened closely to his words.

His eyes closed behind his wire-rimmed glasses as he imagined what could come from his musical career. One hit single could lead to another, and he could be performing in Bollywood movies.

Sahaj left the stage to roaring applause. He strolled over to his friends in similar red cardigans and checkered button-ups, resting his hand on one’s shoulder.

“It made me feel happy and relaxed,” Sahaj said.

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Moving with heart Manisha finds joy performing traditional dances for community and friends.

By EMMA EIDSVOOG

Manisha, a 12-year-old Titram villager, lined up onstage alongside others her age in front of many Haryanvi townspeople Tuesday during the annual cultural festival.

In a blue and gold dress, she flipped her skirt and twirled along with the booming music.

Manisha doesn’t see herself being a dancer forever. She wants to be a banker someday because her favorite school subject is math. Once the dance was over, she retreated to the changing room with the rest of her friends. She removed her silver necklace and changed from her dress to blue sweatpants. Her third performance was over and she couldn’t stop beaming.

“I don’t get nervous,” Manisha said. “I feel good when dancing.”

Her smile never leaves her face onstage or with her friends; where she’s happiest.

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Saving culture A local musician uses his art to preserve a culture in danger of extinction.

By EMMA HARVILLE

Anil Bharti appears taller than his five feet and six inches with a neon yellow Pagri wrapped around his head. The garment is the traditional headgear for men, which is now worn mainly by the older villagers.

Anul, a dancer and Haryani musical program director, works to preserve the culture of his village through art.

EMMA GOTTSCHALK

“People are going to forget our culture,” Anil said. “We want to save it.”

Anil grew up in Jakholi, a village near Titram in Haryana and has been studying traditional forms of dance for more than 15 years. He teaches musical and cultural classes to children with the goal of putting on a performance that can unite the entire village.

“Culture is the identity of a society,” Anil said.

Anil believes every child in the village should have the opportunity to wear Haryanvi clothing. School uniforms are currently western-style, and he is pushing for more formal, traditional attire for school – something that can remind the students of where they came from.

“Now the culture of our dress is disappearing because of the impact of westernization,” Anil said.

“Young generations are not using that dress. They wear jeans and shirts.”

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MOLLY KORZENOWSKI

Man with the moves A local dancer shares his passion for teaching both dance and language.

By MOLLY KORZENOWSKI

Akshay has two brothers, but he is the only dancer in the family. He received his bachelor’s degree in dance and specializes in break dancing as well as traditional Haryanvi dance. One day, Akshay hopes to be a famous dancer

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in Haryana, both onstage and on TV. “It makes me happy,” Akshay said. “I enjoy it.”

Akshay teaches free dance classes to anyone who wishes to learn. He also would like to be a professor, teaching students in Haryana the Punjabi language which originates from the state of Punjab.

Whether he’s whacking a ball with his cricket bat or moving gracefully across the stage, Akshay doesn’t stop moving.

ZACH WALKER

Akshay Bedi danced across the stage in lime green and electric pink, feet and hands moving in unison. He was one of many traditional Haryanvi dancers who performed in front of hundreds in Titram Jan. 8.

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Dancing through doubt A professional dancer overcame family pressure to pursue his passion of dancing and spread the culture of his home state of Haryana.

By ZACH WALKER

The bright white of Shivam Ashok Sihaan’s smile contrasted with the deep red of his headdress and the string of gold medallions that rattled around his stomach as he popped his hips to the side and twirled across a metal stage.

pursued a master’s degree in the Punjabi language.

He remembers when his uncle came to his house and said that he should give up dancing to focus on his degree.

The 25-year-old had performed for bigger crowds, like the sea of 10,000 who watched him compete in the national dance competition in Delhi. But he still smiled wide enough for the audience to see both rows of teeth. And his steps shook the stage.

Now, he owns a dance studio and performs professionally with his students at least twice every week. Even his parents join the crowds to cheer for him. He says they especially like when district officials attend his shows.

As a young boy, he spent his time outside of school watching television programs and YouTube videos about dancing. He wasn’t part of the top 5 percent of his class like his parents wanted. He focused more on learning moves than math.

“It was really hard convincing my parents,” Shivam said. “Dancing is not just goofing around. It is a serious profession.”

Shivam didn’t think so.

At the Titram festival, a bead of sweat dripped down Shivam’s right cheek as he danced in the middle of four of his female students whose orange and yellow dresses plumed above their tapping feet as they spun.

The five moved to the music of Haryana, as Shivam does not dance to any other type of song.

“I want to showcase the beauty of Haryana,” Shivam said. “The best parts.”

After high school, Shivam kept dancing while he

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Seeking God(s) in Haryana

The region has a rich religious and mythological history.

By HERSH SINGH

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rom one of the biggest mythologies, Mahabharata, to the first Indian independence protest in 1857, the land of Haryana has seen battles, protests and struggle.

Haryana is known as the agricultural state of India. Named in the 12th century A.D., Haryana means “The Home of God.” The state has four major organized religions: Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity.

HINDUISM (88.2%) Historians say Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world.

Haryana was part of the Indus Valley civilization, which is believed to be where this religion originated. Although Hinduism began between 2300 B.C. and 1500 B.C., many Hindus argue their faith is timeless and has always existed. The Geeta is their holy text. Unlike other religions, Hinduism does not

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have a founder. Instead, it’s a compilation of many traditions and philosophies.

Mahabharata is one of the two major epics written in the ancient Sanskrit language. Sanskrit narrates the tale of Kauravas, Pandavas and their battle against each other. Kurukshetra, an hour northeast of Kaithal, is the city where the battle took place. Similar to that, Kaithal and Karnal are two cities in Haryana that were a part of the Mahabharata. Haryana is as important to Hinduism as the Middle East is to Christianity.

SIKHISM (5.53%) Sikhism was born in the Punjab region of South Asia, which is now divided into India and Pakistan. The Sikh faith began around 1500 A.D. when Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, started teaching a faith different from Hinduism and Islam. Sikhism tried to part itself and the followers

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Major organized religions on Haryana:

Hinduism - 88.2% Sikhism - 5.53% Islam - 5.53% Christianity - .12%

Left: Interior of a Gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Haryana.

Below: A Granthi reads from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh holy book).

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Steeple of a Christian church in Haryana.

from superstitions and misbeliefs which the other religions followed. The followers of the religion are known for their unique appearance: turbans, metal bracelets and daggers. The religion’s followers were known for their military strength during the time of Khalsa Panth, which started in 1699. The religion has had 10 gurus, and all of their teachings are written in the holy text Guru Granth Sahib for future generations to follow.

ISLAM (5.53%) Islam arrived in India through the Turkish invasions in the 12th century A.D. and has since become a major part of India. The spread of the religion can be traced back to the rule of Delhi Sultanate during the Mughal Empire from early in the 16th century to the mid-18th century. Some of the Mughal emperors tried to impose the religion on the people with military strength. Islam is one of the youngest of the major world religions, tracing its origin to the 7th century A.D. The holy text of the religion is the Quran.

CHRISTIANITY (0.12%) According to Indian tradition, the Christian faith was introduced to India by Thomas the Apostle, who reached the Malabar Coast, the state of Kerala, in 52 AD, although no written proof seems to have survived from this period. He established seven churches and evangelized people. Another major step was the arrival of the Portuguese. In 1527, the residents of Kanyakumari in South Indian coastal areas were threatened by Arab fleets. The residents sought protection from the Portuguese. The protection was granted on the condition that the leaders of the state would be baptized and help the Portuguese in spreading the religion. The spread of the religion in the northern states came with the British era of colonialism – and the English Anglican Church – in the 17th century A.D. In the East, many Indians converted because they feared the empire or wanted the benefits that were offered. In Northern India, some people changed their religion to Christianity for many reasons, including monetary benefits offered by the church, Haryana community organizer Kumar Mukesh said.

PHOTOS BY JAKE VAN LOH

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The congregation of a Christian church in a village in Haryana worships on a Sunday morning. Shoes of the congregation are left outside of the church.

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Beekeeping once sustained the residents of Gohran, including a group of women, but after government interference destroyed the profession, the women had to cope with losing freedom.

by ZACH WALKER

“When you are at home, you have no time to talk to others.

[Beekeeping] gave me an excuse to socialize.”

– Babbli

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he bees helped Babbli Devi open the wooden gate that marks the entrance to her home. Her work let her creak the hinges after being appointed in 2010 as the leader of a women’s beekeeping group. And the planks opened into a world that was more than cooking and cleaning for her family.

dropped from approximately 550 to seven, with Babbli being one of the many who lost their jobs.

But that world has been hidden since she filled her last jar with honey. In 2017, the Indian government reduced the wholesale price of honey by 100 rupees per kilogram to benefit large corporations. Crop fires burned many of the wooden boxes that held beehives. And beekeepers began to steal each other’s boxes as many people could not afford new equipment.

According to a study conducted

by The World Bank Group, less than a quarter of women in India participated in the workforce in 2018 compared to nearly 80 percent of men. Babbli’s beekeeping success demonstrates the value of female employment in rural India, while her current reality shows that many vocational decisions are still controlled by men.

In just 18 months, the amount of beekeepers in Gohran, a rural village among the wheat fields of Haryana,

Babbli used to wake up at 6 a.m. to cook for her family and do the dishes before departing for the

Now, for most of the day, she stays behind the gate. The abandoned boxes sit among overgrown weeds while she sits waiting for the two hours every day when she can escape.

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Babbli Devi stands outside the metal gate of her home in the village of Gohran. After losing her beekeeping job due to price cuts and loss of equipment, she spends most of her time inside the gate. “Now, we don’t have work,” Babbli said.

“So, we just sit in our houses.”

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WILL JACOTT

Baburam, Gohran’s first ever beekeeper and one of the seven still working, collects honey from a hive of bees with his fingers.

One wooden frame can hold more than two kilograms, or four pounds, of honey. “Honey is the thing that provides … for my family,” Baburam said.

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beehives four hours later. She and the other women in her group put together wooden boxes filled with wire frames made for honeycomb and collected honey until 2 p.m. when they returned to their separate homes.

Sometimes, the women would take trips on public buses into the nearby cities of Kaithal and Siwan to walk, chat and eat samosas.

If they told their husbands first, they could stay out until 5 p.m. while the men didn’t arrive home until 10 p.m. or later.

“When you are at home, you have no time to talk to others,” Babbli said. “[Beekeeping] gave me an excuse to … socialize.”

Her husband, Ramesh Kumar, was also a beekeeper. As were 95 percent of the men in Gohran, which has a population of 850, at the peak of the profession.

With both incomes, the family saved 250 thousand rupees, or approximately $3,500, each year.

Enough money to buy a new bed and television and expensive fruits like apples. Enough to afford backpacks and notebooks for their children. Enough to take family trips to bathe in the sacred River Ganges, which is said to cleanse a person of their sins.

After losing their beekeeping jobs, she and her husband can only save 20 thousand rupees, or approximately $280, each year through his job as a private driver. Not enough to buy apples or eat anything other than dal, potatoes, peas and roti. They no longer venture to the River

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Ganges and have to buy fewer vegetables and half as much milk as usual to afford school supplies for their children.

Her husband won’t allow her to get another job. Like many men in the village, he says women shouldn’t earn for themselves.

“Why would women go out [and earn money] when their men can do it?” Babbli’s neighbor Baburam, Gohran’s first beekeeper and one of the few still working, said.

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“Why would women go out [and earn money], when their men can do it?”

- Baburam, 42

After seeing the impacts of her employment on her family, Babbli doesn’t agree with the men.

Due to her beekeeping, she encouraged her relatives to send the young girls in the family to school. And after venturing into Kaithal and Siwan, where women could walk through the streets without men pulling down their head scarves like they do in Gohran, she realized she deserves to be treated like the women she saw walking freely in the cities.

A few times every week, Babbli opens the gate to take a walk on the outskirts of the village with the women who comprised her beekeeping group. They walk without any men and spend just a few hours talking about themselves. Like they used to do when the price of honey was enough to convince the men that their time outside their homes was worth it.

By the numbers Honey prices/kg Peak: 150-165R (2012) Current: 50-65R (2020)

Gohran beekeepers Peak: 500 (2016) Current: 7 (2020) SOURCE: BABURAM

“Men shouldn’t say we can’t go out,” Babbli said.

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by EMMA HARVILLE

After enduring years of inequality, one woman advocates for the social, economic and political independence of all women in her conservative village.

Life unveiled

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One by one, villagers poke their heads out from balconies and windows, greeting her with a feverish chatter. A little boy tugs at the hem of her scarf, begging for just a moment of her attention. Once she steps inside the four walls of her gray cement home, she strips the mask from her face, each line around her deep brown eyes a testament to her strength.

Behind the village-required veil, this Santro, the one who laughs in the face of suffering, the one who sees men not as gatekeepers of society, but as equal partners in community growth, is the Santro women throughout Peoda have come to revere.

She was confined to the cultural customs of her time and place and broke down those barriers for her daughter’s independence, helping to drive a movement of women

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antro Gill walks down the cobblestone paths of Peoda, a rural village in Haryana four hours from New Delhi, her smiling face fully veiled by a thin blue scarf. The light brown streaks in her gray-black hair gleam in the morning sunlight like the two red bangles around her left wrist or the silver ring on her finger. She walks with a quiet authority, her feet slapping the earth beneath her as she navigates the winding streets.

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for social change in Haryana, one of India’s most conservative states.

At 16 years old, Santro was the only girl in her village to graduate 10th grade. As a young woman, she had three options: become a housewife, a nurse or a teacher. She wasn’t qualified to teach, and she was determined to work outside the home, so she settled on nursing. Santro credits her parents with this freedom, saying most other parents in the village didn’t give their daughters a choice at all.

After applying to a nursing college with near-perfect high school grades, she says she was denied admission “on technical grounds.” An administrator at the nursing college told Santro he could get her admitted if she agreed to spend the night with him.

“I didn’t tell anybody,” Santro said. “I fought back and said ‘No.’ With tears in my eyes I left that office and went home.”

When her mother asked her why she didn’t get admission while other girls with lower grades qualified, she simply replied, “The administrators were not good people.”

Meanwhile, her father had arranged for her to marry a 24-year-old man named Hoshiar Singh. When

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Hoshiar and his family discovered Santro wanted to become a nurse, they quickly extinguished any dreams she had of working outside the home.

“They said, ‘We don’t want this girl to work or study any further,’” Santro said.

“They thought that if I went for higher education, then I wouldn’t agree to the promise my father made with his family for the marriage.”

So Santro married Hoshiar against her will, soon learning he was an alcoholic without a stable job. He had three major accidents while he was drunk, the third causing an injury to his chin that required plastic surgery in 1989.

Santro spent her days working in the fields and cooking meals for her husband, a stranger who now slept in her bed.

Hoshiar worked odd jobs, like electrical work in the village houses, but his income was unstable. Santro wanted her own job so she could support her family herself.

She noticed women were not respected in her village or society. She noticed they were beaten by their husbands and could not leave their homes. And she noticed their children were watching and learning.

When she gave birth to her

son and then a daughter a few years later, she knew she wanted to create a life of independence for them.

“At that time, there was no difference between an animal and a woman,” Santro said. “After marriage, I lived my life like an animal, always busy and working hard.”

At age 25, she started working at an anganwadi center, a rural child-care system started by the Indian government in 1975 to fight child hunger and malnutrition. Santro never became a nurse, but at the anganwadi center, which means “courtyard shelter” in Hindi, she fuels a fierce courage in the women and children of her own village.

Every day for the past 25 years, Santro has walked to the center and played with the 15 to 20 preschool children who skip through the orange, white and green gates, singing the Hindi alphabet with them and teaching them how to count to 10 in English.

Because wages were low and the conditions of the center were poor, Santro soon joined a labor union and began attending protests, meeting deputy commissioners and creating connections that have helped her spark change in her community. Through her

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Santro instructs a young girl before leading her class in a song at an anganwadi center.

Santro started the job because she wanted independence outside of the home. “When I was not an anganwadi worker, and my husband and his friends would sit together and drink, I couldn’t join them,” Santro said. “But now I can join them with a glass because I am much more confident.”

“At that time, there was no difference between an animal and a woman.”

- Santro, 51

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relationship with a doctor at the local hospital, she gets subsidies for women in need of immediate care.

“The doctor said, ‘Do you run an orphanage? Because you bring in someone new every day who cannot pay their bill,’” Santro said with a smile.

Many of the mothers who drop off children at the anganwadi center each morning endure domestic violence and oppression, so Santro has made it her mission to help the women who are afraid to step out of their homes. She says she has helped at least 25 to 30 women escape abusive situations by offering them refuge at the child care center and inspiring them to earn their own living.

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and she spent several nights outside huddling under an ox cart because she believed it was safer than living with the abuse in her own house.

“When we were married, he was very nice for a few days,” Nirmala said. “But then he started to spend money on clothes and mobile phones. Today, if I ask him for money for our children, he fights with me.”

In 2004, Nirmala’s husband told her he was seeing another woman in the village and wanted Nirmala to leave. He didn’t want her anymore. In response, Nirmala swallowed a bottle of pesticide.

“I thought it would be better if I was not there,” Nirmala said.

————— Nirmala is one of those women. Her husband routinely beat and slapped her in front of their three children,

Moments later, her three children saw their mother vomiting outside and alerted neighbors who rushed her to the hospital.

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Nirmala’s husband followed her to the hospital and tried to remove the IV bag from her arm.

Nirmala also grows rice and wheat in the fields and earns 50 rupees, or 70 cents, per kilogram of milk she gets.

gressive] views. She’s educated, and I trust that she will give me good advice.”

“I am living with the same man today, despite everything,” Nirmala said. “But I am in authority now.”

When Nirmala’s husband heard she got a job as an anganwadi helper in 2003, he asked why she washed dishes at a child care center when she could be managing her family’s land.

Her husband, who still fights with her, has refused to eat food with her for the past six months, she says. Santro says although Nirmala’s husband is still upset with her, he will no longer beat her because Santro taught Nirmala to say, “How dare you touch me?”

Now, Nirmala takes inspiration from Santro to empower her own children. Nirmala’s 22-year-old daughter Jyoti says although her father still wants to divorce her mother, Nirmala will not leave her or her two siblings. Jyoti says she hopes to become a clerk in a school or hospital to earn money before preparing for a higher-level job through India’s Union Public Service Commission, the country’s premier central recruiting agency. She says she is not ready for marriage.

Santro learned of Nirmala’s situation when Nirmala’s son attended the anganwadi center and helped her get a job there.

“Santro is more than a best friend,” Nirmala said. “She is my sister. There are other women, but I like her [pro-

“I don’t want to be dependent on another person right now,” Jyoti said. “I am inspired by my mother. She gives us education

She believes he wanted her dead.

Today, Nirmala’s right hand is limp from the incident. When she builds a fire or washes dishes for the children’s center, it serves as a reminder of what happened and how she battled to move on.

Santro and her best friend Nirmala stand on the rooftop of Santro’s home. Santro encourages Nirmala to defy her abusive husband and the restrictions placed on women in her village. “Nirmala’s husband beat her and she never said anything,” Santro said. “But now her husband is afraid of Nirmala because she has guts. She can say to him, ‘How dare you touch me?’”

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“I am living with the same man today, despite everything, but I am in authority now.”

- Nirmala, 43

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so that we can find a partner someday who won’t behave like my father.”

Santro remembers another woman whose alcoholic husband died abruptly. Always borrowing money for liquor, he was indebted to many other men in the village. These men came to the widow and demanded she pay them her late husband’s debts. Santro recruited the woman to cook meals for the children in the center, a paid position.

“I said to her, ‘Be bold. And if someone comes to your house and asks for money, call me,” Santro said. “Say, ‘I will give you your money, but give me time.’”

Within six months, the woman paid off the debt she never owed.

————— Sheetal, Santro’s 23-year-old daughter, stands behind her mother with her arms wrapped around Santro’s neck. With tears in her eyes, she says she admires her mother’s courage and conviction, which allow Sheetal the freedom to choose what she wears, where she travels and what education she gets.

Nirmala’s hand was left partially paralyzed after she swallowed a bottle of pesticide in 2004. Her husband, who would beat her regularly, had told her he was having an affair before she attempted to take her own life.

When Sheetal attended a prestigious boarding school in Titram, where only 2.9 percent of applicants qualified this year, she only saw her parents on the occasional weekend. Deciding to ask her mother for new clothes the next time she saw her, Sheetal was astounded when

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her mother arrived with the clothing already in hand.

“She knows what I want before I even tell her,” Sheetal said. “I admire the way she talks and her courage to speak anything. And her tolerance and her capacity to bear anything.”

In May, Sheetal will take the International English Language Testing System, a standardized exam that will measure her proficiency in English and determine whether she can travel to Canada to continue studying writing and reading.

Santro says she wants her daughter to become a geography professor in America. But the only thing she really wants is for her daughter to be free.

“What I’ve experienced in my life, I won’t have that happen to my daughter,” Santro said. “We had so many relatives who have said, ‘Why aren’t you finding a husband for your daughter?’

But I said, ‘No, I want to give a different kind of life to my daughter.’ ” Santro’s husband still drinks.

He says he drinks around eight glasses of Malta masti – a fruitbased country liquor – every night. His empty bottle is tucked away on the cement staircase between a vent and a red tank of propane.

When Santro began to attend activist meetings and events, he would accompany her to confirm where she was going and what she was doing. Eventually, he stopped coming.

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Santro gathers women to compete in the races at Titram’s female sports festival Jan. 14. “Whenever there is a new kind of event in Titram, I love to visit and be involved,� Santro said.

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“I see the good she is doing and I like the way she speaks in the community,” Hoshar said. “She’s outspoken and not submissive, and that’s earned her a reputation.”

A majority of married women in Peoda, as well as in all other rural villages of Haryana, are required by their husbands to wear a veil over their faces in the presence of village men who are older than their husbands.

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“What I’ve experienced in my life, I won’t have that happen to my daughter.”

- Santro

Kumar Mukesh, a community organizer and activist for women’s rights in Titram, a nearby village, says while educated families who have migrated to cities have largely abandoned this tradition, the practice is still very common in rural villages like Peoda.

“It is believed that if a woman tries to come out of her veil, she is not of moral character,” Kumar said. “But many people in the village are saying that Santro has broken this tradition. Many people who follow this tradition, including women, don’t like Santro because she is teaching them that they shouldn’t do it.”

Santro says if she were prime minister of India, she would ensure women had the freedom to leave their homes when they want, unaccompanied by men.

“I would also make them not have to cover their faces,” Santro said. “It is a disease – women having to cover their faces.”

From the roof, Santro can see her husband in his cream sweater, his leathery skin weathered from years of playing cards in the sun. He is surrounded by four or five other men and a thick cloud of smoke. She steps down the cement steps and then out the front door, slipping the blue scarf over her face again.

But when the men turn their backs, Santro slowly inches the scarf from her face, revealing the deep brown eyes that sustain the women of Peoda.

Santro’s daughter, Sheetal, stands over her mother with tears in her eyes. Santro has sparked a movement for women’s independence in her conservative village in order for her daughter to have better opportunities. “In the beginning of the marriage, my husband would ask why I would do that,” Santro said. “And I would ask, ‘What’s wrong with it?’ I had the guts to walk around in the village alone at midnight!”

PHOTOS BY KATIE VIESSELMAN

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“I want to be a doctor. I don’t want to get married because then I’d have to leave my family.”

- Khushboo, 9

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What do you hope for?

Several women from Santro’s village gathered at a friend’s home in Peoda one Sunday afternoon for tea. After three women performed a traditional Haryana dance for the group, they all stepped outside into the courtyard, where each woman answered this question: “What do you hope for?”

Here are some of their answers:

Geeta, 32

Santro, 51

Meena, 20

Ramarti, 48

“My hope was to study well, but I wasn’t able to. Now, I am a housewife.”

“My grandson has gone off to take competitive exams to prepare for a job. My hope is that he will settle.”

“I am studying 12th grade and I hope to pass with flying colors.“

“I hope for success for my grandson and granddaughter.

I also hope for just one more grandson.”

Premo, 62

Kali, 50

Sonia, 25

Parmilla, 32

“My hope is to stay fit, so that all my body parts will work until the day I die.”

“I don’t have many hopes because my son died when he was very young.”

“My hope is for my two daughters to study well and get a job.”

“I didn’t get the chance to study in my childhood, so my hope is that my children will.”

PHOTOS BY KATIE VIESSELMAN

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A group of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh sit on cots in their village outside the Sangam brick factory in Titram.

More than 100 of the 150 workers are from Uttar Pradesh, and they all do the same job of filling metal molds with clay while migrants from other countries heat and transport the bricks.

The long way home Migrant workers settle in makeshift houses while doing manual labor hundreds of miles from home.

by EMMA EIDSVOOG & ZACH WALKER

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nu Rekwar leaned down to pick up a bowl of cement powder. She carried the bowl on her head and trotted down a ditch to a 8-foot wall surrounding a private school yard in Titram, a rural village in India’s Haryana state. The migrant laborer crouched down, handing the bowl off to a man who began slapping the globs of cement onto a brick wall. After 10 months of cement work, the migrant laborers had two sections of the wall remaining.

On the other side of the wall, next to the track and volleyball nets of the academically exclusive school, sat the workers’ houses: four brick homes and six made of metal poles covered in tarps.

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with six other workers. They waited out the rain, afraid to go back to their shelters for fear of losing a day’s wages. The rain settled the dust blowing in their eyes from trucks and cars speeding by on Jind Road.

Before cementing a wall from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Anu woke up at 5 a.m. to take a bath in the dark before the men woke up. Between sifting cement and baking roti on one-foot high mud stoves, there’s no break for the women. They need the 400 rupees, or $5.62, they make every day to ensure a better life for their children.

“We are grateful to God for gifting us nights. Otherwise, how else could we have taken the much-needed rest?” Anu said.

Migrant workers travel from city to city throughout India finding jobs to support their families, all the while longing for the comfort of their permanent homes.

Just a few miles from the school, another group of migrants labor in hopes of a more secure future. But unlike those at the school, they just started.

The families live 310 miles away in Uttar Pradesh, a neighboring state of Haryana that contains 200 million people, compared to Haryana’s 20 million. These workers opted for more pay through migrant work rather than living in their villages, where they would make 100 fewer rupees per day, or $1.50, for the same work. They pay the price by being separated from family and friends and sleeping in one-room homes.

In the roadside villages on the outskirts of the Sangam brick factory, even the toilets are made of bricks.

Blue and white clotheslines hang from brick walls glued with mud and tufts of red dust cloud around the ankles of anyone who scrapes a boot or flip flop against the earth.

A few drops of rain landed on Anu’s face while she stood near the road

About 150 workers from across northern India dot the dirt fields patterned by stacks of red bricks for eight hours every day unless the fog is too thick. The migrant workers, everybody other than the few who commute from nearby villages, have

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“We are grateful to God for gifting us nights.

Otherwise, how else could we have taken the muchneeded rest?”

- Anu, 35

Left: Anu carries a bowl of cement powder next to Jind Road while her crew cements a wall at JNV school in Titram, Haryana.

Once the wall is finished she’ll leave the one-room brick house she’s lived in for the past 10 months. Her village of Jhansi is more than 12 hours by bus away in Uttar Pradesh, India.

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His wife, Khushboo, didn’t work before moving into the one-room brick shack with a view of the black smoke that billows

Ranveera, 30, traveled 100 miles to the factory from the city of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh in search of something new.

He wanted to fill metal forms with clay instead of picking up rocks at construction sites like he did back home. And he wanted to make more than 300 rupees, or $4.17, a day.

For some, the wages will simply pay for basic necessities like vegetables and plastic packets of soap. For others, the money will be saved.

traveled from the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which lies to the east of UP, to seek consistent work.

- Ranveera, 30

“We have to work.

It’s nothing to enjoy.”

Khushboo tasked 9-year-old Pulit with looking after his 5-month-old sister, Pallavi, after trading child care for brick-mak-

Ranveera and Khushboo’s three children look after each other while their parents work. They gather in a clump with children of other laborers to play in the dust, close enough so mom and dad can still spot them when they look up from the bricks every three minutes.

“We have to work,” Ranveera said.

from a towering chimney. Her husband said “back home, women don’t work.” But at the factory, she works the same eighthour shift as her husband and, if she can make 1,250 bricks in a day, makes the same 600 rupees, or $8.50.

The community of one- to two-room brick homes sits just outside of the village of Titram in Haryana. Another group of identical homes sits across the factory and houses the other half of the migrant workers.

“We are forced to labor,” Khushboo said.

“We need to work every day.”

At some point, they want to send Pulit back to Uttar Pradesh to start school as he has received no education in his nine years of life. But Ranveera doesn’t understand how grades work. And he is not confident that he will have enough money to educate his children past 12th grade.

Back home, Ranveera and Khushboo live with seven relatives in a two-room house.

With the extra money gained from their eight-month stint at the job site, they hope to improve the conditions for everyone.

ing three months after their arrival. For 5-year-old Rashika, the playgroup is her chaperone.

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“Sometimes I think creatures of God also punish us for our poverty.”

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- Dharmendar, 25

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Siyaram, another brick-maker who resides in the shacks that overlook the factory, has a different idea for his future: One that involves his two daughters not ending up like him.

The 32-year-old, also from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, moved to the brick village with his wife three months ago to find daily work. They do the same work as Ranveera and his wife and earn the same wages if their final brick count pleases their manager.

A one-room shack at the end of the village with brick enclosure for bathing holds Siyaram and his 28-year-old wife, Sangeeta. Their two daughters, Tanu, 10, and Seema, 8, live in Uttar Pradesh with their grandparents but visited the factory in January for close to 30 days during school break.

While their parents craft bricks, Tanu and Seema explore the narrow corridor between the brick homes of the village. They crunch miniature plastic bottles with quick steps and walk past feral dogs sniffing food wrappers.

Siyaram made 300 rupees per day before venturing to Haryana, and he hopes to use the extra 900 from his and Sangeeta’s wages to save for his daughters’ college education.

Their daughters’ futures are important enough to Siyaram and Sangeeta that they left home to make more money for six months of the year.

The parents plan to forgo arranged marriages and encourage both Tanu

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and Seema to not marry until after college. And they make bricks for eight hours every day to ensure that their daughters have that choice.

“Every person should have the right to choose their own life,” Siyaram said.

In the brick-lined area of dirt outside Siyaram and Sangeeta’s home, Tanu said she wants to be an agent for the Indian Criminal Investigation Department when she grows up, a job that requires education until at least 12th grade. In her home state of UP, 57 percent of females are literate, according to the most recent census.

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Left top: Dharmendar, 25, sits outside the one-room brick house as a stray dog chews on one of the family’s shoes. This is where the family stayed during the 10 months it worked on the wall in Titram.

Left bottom: A migrant worker smooths the wet cement wall with a wooden board.

“Every person should have the right to choose their own life.”

- Siyaram, 32 Seemu didn’t want to share her dreams. She was too busy playing with her friend in the brick shack across the corridor.

Meanwhile, at the school yard, Urmila Singh fed her two daughters for the last time before leaving Kaithal.

She hasn’t worked for the last two months, but has stayed with her daughters at the site to care for them during the winter months. After dropping out of school before sixth grade to help her family in the wheat fields of Uttar Pradesh, she began migrant work with her husband, Dharmendar, whom she married when she was 18. She’s now 25, a mother, and all she wants is to go home to her village of Jhansi in UP.

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86 Her husband turned off the light of their one-room brick house and tied the rope to keep the door shut. For 10 months, they slept on an iron door held up by bricks and covered in empty Shree 43-grade cement bags, warming themselves with thick floral blankets in the 55-degree cold. For 10

Three-year-old Ishika stands in the doorway of the house, twisting the curtain around her. Her playground of dirt is covered with scattered trash laid out in front of her. In one year, she won’t be with her parents and will stay with her grandparents to start school. Urmila won’t

Urmila held Ishika tightly as her husband stuffed clothes and pans into flour bags. On

“Are we all made for this work?” Urmila said. “After studies, [my daughters should] have a choice.”

see her for about four months at a time, but she wants her daughter to do what she couldn’t: finish her education and have a better life.

- Urmila, 25

“Sometimes I think creatures of God also punish us for our poverty,” Dharmendar said.

months, they bathed from a 3 by 3 foot water basin using a bucket, the same reservoir they used to collect water for washing dishes and cooking. For 10 months, they fought off leaking roofs and rats that bite.

“Are we made for this work? After studies, [my daughters] should have a choice.”

a Tuesday in January, Urmila, with her two daughters and husband, began a 310-mile journey back to Jhansi by bus and train.

“I had dreams,” Urmila said while sitting outside her one-room brick house. “I never wanted this.”

On Jan. 14, the Singh family crosses the street to the bus stop on Jind Road near Titram carrying flour bags full of their belongings. After stepping onto the Haryana bus, they began a 310-mile journey to their village of Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh.

They bring 26,000 rupees, or $365, home to loan to others and give to family.

Until then, she’ll make another home five hours away in Delhi, where the next job awaits.

Meanwhile, Anu sat on a bench watching longingly as Urmila boarded the bus. Anu, from the same village, can’t afford to spend two days and 2,000 rupees to go back home. She’ll return next month, she hopes.

“I’m happy as I am going to my village to meet my people,” Urmila said.

Urmila wore her favorite red saree. The women she had worked alongside held her daughters while Urmila packed. They sang a traditional departure song from UP and handed the girls each 10 rupees. At last they walked the mounds of dirt down to the school gate, the men carrying the luggage and Urmila holding tight to Ishika’s hand. They crossed the road, boarded the grey Haryana bus and began their 310-mile journey to their permanent home.

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Communal help for the hungry A food bank provides sustenance to those who cannot afford it on their own.

JHENNA BECKER

Ashok serves roti and rice to Amit, 27, Ishwar, 72, and Karam, 56.

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by JASMINE JOHNSON

The roti bank provides about 300 free meals every day to whoever stops: homeless people, low income workers or anyone looking for their next meal. A 27-yearold, 72-year-old or a 56-year-old.

While looking out at rickshaws, cars and bikes passing on the road, the hungry can stop by the roti bank between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Orange benches frame the space beneath the thatched-roof overhang.

Roti bank manager Balwinder Nain lives in Vadodara, a city that’s a 20-hours drive south of Kaithal. As the workers’ legend goes, one day when Balwinder ate his food in the railway station, he gave a homeless child his plate.

He felt good about the experience, so he thought to bring two plates the next day. He continued to expand until he established the first roti bank.

In Kaithal, 44-year-old Mumsi Sligh has been the caretaker and donor of one roti bank location for two years. There are seven similar organizations throughout Haryana.

Mumsi first visited a roti bank in Jind near a hospital because he was on his way to visit a patient.

He spoke with the manager, asking about the system of the roti bank and how he could join.

“My wish is to do something for the society; I want to help someone.”

“I have a soft corner in my heart for the homeless,” Mumsi said.

-Rani, 28

The two cooks, 28-year-old Rani and 25-year-old Pooja, live half a kilometer away from the bank.

Rani and Pooja wake up at 8 a.m. every day and spend three hours preparing food in their home kitchen before delivering it with a bike trailer.

50,702

homeless population in Haryana According to the 2011 Census

They use a roaster connected to a tray to make the roti. They cook 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of rice and 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of vegetables. Depending on the day, the women throw in a mixture of cabbage, potatoes, peas or other vegetables.

Gurmeet, 56, eats the main dish at the roti bank containing rice, vegetables and roti.

On Sundays, festival days and other special occasions, Rani and Pooja sometimes make sweets, too. The most common is kheer, which is a mixture of milk, rice and sugar. People also donate both money and leftover food from other celebrations.

“My wish is to do something for the society,” Rani said. “I want to help someone.”

BRANDON BARNAAL

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mit, Ishwar and Karam sat crosslegged on the orange and green carpet, and received a meal of roti on silver plates. Roti is a thin bread made throughout India used to scoop rice, curry and other food.

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Artistry in the blood A family sends children to college through a painting business.

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ukesh moved his wrist gingerly and applied a thin layer of dark green paint to a large canvas. He sat perched on a small chair, the mint green wall behind him filled with watercolor scenes and battered badminton birdies. Speakers peeked out from each corner, allowing the practicing artist to listen to Mohammed Rafi or anything with a good beat.

“My mind is focused on painting,” Mukesh said.

Laundry swayed on a few unsteady lines on the family rooftop, above where seven artists live in a two-story home. A neighbor whacked a guava out of a tree while a group of men played cards on the stone road below.

In the quiet village of Kalayat, the family business was built by three generations of painters. Mukesh and his uncle Satish worked in rooftop studios painting six hours each day.

The two artists painted replicas of Renaissance masterpieces and special portraits commissioned for the family business.

The replica money pays better than the landscapes he loves, built from his imagination. Younger siblings, nieces and nephews from 2 to 22 years old scurried across the patterned green floors, five of them with art portfolios of their own.

Satish pulled out a large book, its yellowed pages peppered with sketches of repeating

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patterns created by a skilled hand. In the early 20th century,

“You can see his presence in these artbooks.

Artistry is blood in our family.”

- Mukesh, 21 Satish’s grandfather, Soran, was a construction worker. But in his free time, he worked as an artist, sketching these elaborate patterns which he would later translate into frescoes painted in the local temples.

“You can see his presence in these artbooks,” Mukesh said. “Artistry is blood in our family.”

Satish was inspired by Soran’s work and taught himself how to paint after dropping out his second year in high school. He was then able to make a stable income by selling his paintings. One of Satish’s recent paintings took one month to create and was sold for 50,000 rupees, or about $700.

With this money, the household was able to send Mukesh to college, the first in the family to go. He went to school for four years to get his B.A. in Fine Arts. Everyone in his family pitched in to get him to school and will continue to support him as he plans to return for his master’s degree.

Left: Mukesh stands on his roof holding one of his oil paintings.

He enjoys painting depth using light and dark shadows in his compositions.

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Sulekha, Mukesh’s little sister, also paints.

She is the first female in the family to attend college as she pursues her B.A. in Fine Arts at an all-girls school in Mumbai. When Sulekha finishes school, she plans to join the family business as well.

Sulekha has less hope for a job on her own.

Education levels are not as good in private schools, she said. Her degree mainly focuses on practical artistry, such as jewelry-making, instead of painting.

She said one day she would still like to have a job, but she hasn’t given it much thought.

Sulekha doesn’t have faith that she will be able to be a solo artist as a woman.

Behind Mukesh’s easel rests a rendition of Rembrandt’s “Sacrifice of Isaac,” almost indistinguishable from the original. Each stroke was placed with the same precision and style as Rembrandt, down to the smallest detail. Mukesh said he loves the way the artist uses dark and light contrast in his paintings, but his real love is reserved for the impressionistic style of painting used in much of his own work.

“The strokes are very good, very pure and natural,” Mukesh said. “I like that.”

Although commissioned work earns the family more money, that’s not what he wants to do forever. Mukesh said he plans to open his own studio and institute so he can teach others how to paint, free of charge.

“I don’t want to be restricted,” Mukesh said.

“Artists are free.”

PHOTOS BY EMMA GOTTSCHALK

Right: Mukesh paints replicas to make money for the family in Kalayat, but he longs to return to school and paint original landscapes.

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A family’s artistic legacy Soran Ram Soran was the original painter, the first in the family and the inspiration for the following generations. He sketched and painted elaborate designs to decorate local temples while he worked as a construction worker.

Satish Satish grabs his paintbrush as he prepares to work on his latest project. He contributes to the family business by creating commissioned paintings for customers.

Satish carried on the painting tradition, dropping out of school in his tenth year.

He was a self-taught artist, gaining inspiration from the work of his grandfather and starting the family business.

His brothers were also artists but work in other professions with more regular income.

Mukesh

“I don’t want to be restricted.

Artists are free.”

Mukesh was the first in the family to attend college, getting a B.A. in Fine Arts. He paints every day for the family business and plans to get his masters degree this summer.

Sulekha

Sulekha is the first female to attend college and is working on her B.A. in Fine Arts. Her favorite type of painting is realistic; she likes to paint live subjects.

- Mukesh

Anjali

Anjali is 10 years old and already has her own portfolio of artwork. She creates art at school and copies pictures from her books at home. She will continue to family tradition of artistry by perfecting the trade as she grows up.

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ASHA worker Reena Kumar takes newborn Dipeesh’s temperature for his first in-home checkup. Dipeesh, which means “Lord of light” in Hindi, was born Jan. 12 at District Civil Hospital in Kaithal.

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Where life begins A government program provides community health workers to assist pregnant women in rural villages.

by EMMA HARVILLE

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inki Punia rests her head on a rusted metal bed frame inside District Civil Hospital in Kaithal, Haryana, clutching her swollen belly as the pink fitted sheet slipped off the plastic mattress. She has been in labor for more than 60 hours.

The light filtering from the green curtains made the golden flecks in her eyes resemble the earrings dangling from her ears. A tear ran down her freckled cheek as she raised a shaky hand to pull a fleece floral blanket over her head, her IV bag shaking along with her entire body. It was 55 degrees Fahrenheit outside and the hospital did not have heating. In just over an hour, 24-year-old Pinki would be taken into the operating room for a cesarean section.

Pinki is just one of more than 5 million women giving birth in Haryana this year. But because of ASHA workers like Reena Kumar, she doesn’t have to go through her pregnancy alone.

ASHA, which stands for Accredited Social Health Activist and means “hope� in Hindi, is a government-run program that provides community health workers to rural villages. Reena says she has aided 250 to 300 pregnant women in Titram, a village near Kaithal, since she became an ASHA worker in 2012, about 35 per year. Of those 35 births, she says only about 10 are cesarean sections.

Hour one: Reena woke up at 1 a.m. on a Friday to a call from Pinki complaining of pain. Reena, one of four ASHA workers in Titram, the village where Pinki lives, has been assisting Pinki throughout her pregnancy.

ASHAs are selected and trained by the Indian government to aid women in childbirth and will go to households in the area to give out vaccines, medicines and contraceptives. They also educate women about childbirth and take women who are in labor to the hospital.

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Reena is one of four ASHA workers in Titram, and is responsible for helping deliver about one-fourth of her village’s population of more than 4,300, which covers about 1,075 people in 287 homes.

She administers vaccines and contraceptives to the women, while also educating them on how to care for themselves during their pregnancies.

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“ASHAs are not doctors, but rather a bridge between the health system and pregnant women,” Reena said. “I wanted to be independent; I wanted a job to help my husband financially and the job is also welfare to society, so that’s why I chose to do it.”

Reena’s job begins when a new bride arrives in the village.

After a woman is married, she is encouraged by her family to become pregnant within one to two years. The average age Expectant mother Pinki Punia rides in an ambulance to Civil District Hospital in Kaithal with her sister Rekha and ASHA worker Reena Kumar due to possible complications with her pregnancy.

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for a woman to be married or pregnant in Titram is 18 to 22 years old, according to Reena. If the woman is 18, she may want to continue her studies despite being pregnant, although Reena says society urges a woman to complete her education before getting married.

Unmarried women have fewer options. If an unmarried woman gets pregnant, that news rarely leaves the walls of the family home, and families often seek abortions at illegal clinics, community activist Kumar Mukesh says.

“If a woman is unmarried and becomes pregnant, she will prob-

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ably go to an illegal clinic to get an abortion,” Reena said.

Hour nine: Pinki writhed from contractions every 10 to 15 minutes. Sunlight peered through the wooden window panes of the Primary Health Center in Kaithal as she stood with her older sister, Rekha, who has two children.

With both hands on her hips, Pinki mustered a small smile when her husband, Kuldeep, sat on the yellow bedspread in front of her. She sat down next to him, her blue sneakers dangling off the bed.

In the next room, a different woman from Titram hoped to someday be in those same shoes.

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Twenty-three-year-old Priyanka visited the clinic to get her intrauterine device removed.

a bench in the back of the ambulance as the vehicle bounced over potholes. Pinki didn’t flinch.

Priyanka, hoping to become pregnant soon, let her pink skirt fall to her ankles as she lay underneath a sign that read “smoking leads to tuberculosis.” In only a few moments, Renu Bala, a nurse at the PHC, pulled out the blood-tinged IUD with a grin, dangling it for Priyanka to see.

Outside in the courtyard, other nurses sat on a white bench while they waited for their next patient to walk through the rusted gates.

Reena stood beside them.

Reena says ASHAs spread awareness to pregnant mothers on how to avoid cesarean births.

Hour 13: Renu brought Pinki into the examination room and spread a thick, clear jelly over her protruding stomach. Using a fetal doppler, a handheld device used to monitor an unborn baby’s heart, a steady beat is heard over the sound of young boys yelling outside. The monitor reads 144.

It’s within the safe range of 120 and 160. Pinki breathed a sigh.

She will have to wait another two hours to find out if she can have a vaginal delivery.

Hour 15: No progress. The nurses talk about a cesarean section.

They say Pinki must be taken to the main district hospital because the PHC, where most Titram women give birth, doesn’t perform such procedures.

Kuldeep followed his wife to the ambulance waiting outside the clinic, carrying a fleece blanket and her carefully packed hospital bag. Pinki and her sister sat on

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“If a woman does household work, exercises and has a good diet, that often leads to a normal delivery,” Reena said.

In Indian culture, it’s important for women to give birth to at least one son, as it ensures that someone will be there to take care of her and her husband when they are older – if a woman gives birth to a girl, she will surely one day marry off and live with her husband’s family, Reena says.

Many families in rural Haryana are impoverished, so they cannot afford to have more than two to three children – this becomes complicated if a woman continues to have daughters. Reena estimates 20 percent of women in Titram will opt to get a tubal ligation surgery after the birth of at least one son, virtually eliminating the possibility of future pregnancy.

She attributes this percentage to those families in higher castes who have more land – if a family has several sons, they must divide their land among them. According to Reena, it is preferable for one son to inherit the entire plot of land.

Hour 49: The morning before Pinki’s operation, Kuldeep sat on a bench outside the hospital with

“Reena is very helpful. She is like a sister to me.”

- Pinki, 24 his hands folded. Men are not allowed inside the pre-op room for more than an hour, and are not allowed anywhere near the delivery room. Somewhere deep inside the white building, Pinki clutched the hand of her sister Rekha as Reena rubbed her head and back.

“Reena is very helpful,” Pinki said. “She is like a sister to me.”

Pinki shared a bed with another pregnant woman, their legs spilling over the thin mattress as nurses bustled in and out.

The white floors and fluorescent lighting illuminated the grime on the bed sheets and the dust on the windowsill next to her. The cement walls were covered in signs with step-by-step instructions for delivery and breastfeeding and how to wash your hands.

“I have some tension,” Reena said. “I have another pregnant woman at the private hospital. I am very busy.”

The nursing assistant, Sushma Rani, explained the cesarean section procedure to Pinki. She told her it shouldn’t take more than an hour to complete. Pinki

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nodded as she shivered in the same green cardigan and red knit hat from the day before.

Hours later, Pinki didn’t remember anything about the procedure. After receiving anesthesia, all she could recall was the sound of her baby’s crying and the nurse telling her it was a boy.

“I couldn’t think properly,” Pinki said. “It was the happiest moment I’ve had in nine months.”

At 8 a.m. Monday morning, Pinki lay wrapped in lavender sheets on Bed No. 170. At just over 2 kilograms or 4.4 pounds, her newborn son lay curled in his grandmother’s arms, swaddled in

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a brown scarf. Pinki smiled at her son as he scrunched up his pink nose. He didn’t have a name yet, but the hardest part was over.

“I am feeling very healthy,” Pinki said the day after her 60-hour delivery. “It didn’t take much time.”

Five days later, Reena made her first visit to Pinki’s Titram home to check on the baby. She entered Pinki’s dark bedroom, the only light coming from two or three cell phones. Pinki and her husband had named their son Dipeesh, which means “Lord of light” in Hindi.

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Reena unwrapped Dipeesh from the brown scarf, revealing an orange, white and blue knit sweater. She placed him in a navy cloth sack and attached it to a scale as he let out a single cry – 2.5 kilograms, or 5.5 pounds. Reena placed a thermometer under his left arm and took out a stack of documents from her metallic handbag.

While Dipeesh fell asleep under a fleece blanket with his mother, a different Titram woman endured labor. And another needed a prenatal check-up. Reena packed up her things and left Pinki’s home, making her way back to the rusted metal bed where life begins.

PHOTOS BY KATIE VIESSELMAN

Reena comforts Pinki as she awaits news for about her delivery. Pinki winces in pain as Reena gently rubs her wrist.“Reena is very helpful,” Pinki said.

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Police inspector Nanhi Devi receives an update from one of her officers.

JAKE VAN LOH

Safe place to speak up A female police officer leads her team to protect women who report crimes in Kaithal, Haryana.

By THANH NGUYEN & VADA STODDARD

Four years ago, before the women’s police station opened in Kaithal, a city of about 150,000 in the province of Haryana, most of these women would have felt too uncomfortable to step foot into a police station full of men. Now, they have a place where they are able to

report crimes to other women. A place where they don’t face judgment.

“Women’s crime numbers have increased, but more people are reporting now because they feel more comfortable,” Nanhi said.

Nanhi grew up in poverty in the village of Narnauni, which has a population of 7,700. Her father was a farmer and mother a houseworker. She rose to the top of her university. Later, she became a professor at Priyadarshini I.G. College in Nagpur, teaching Sanskrit.

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nspector Nanhi Devi sits in a white chair in her newly acquired office, looking out the window into the sunlit lobby of the Kaithal Women’s Police Station. From here she watches women enter the station, where it’s her job to make sure they will receive the help they need.

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“Women’s crime numbers have increased, but more people are reporting now because they feel more comfortable.”

Right: Sumn Deri, 35, is a constable for the Special Female force, the Durga-Shakti. Deri patrols in her blue camouflaged uniform around the city of Kaithal and tracks the location of reported cases.

Nanhi enjoyed teaching, but she wanted to help more than just the people who could afford to attend a university. So she became a police officer.

Nanhi was appointed as the fourth head inspector of the station Nov. 7. In this position, she oversees 64 officers who cover cases including sexual assault, harassment and domestic violence. She also oversees the DurgaShakti, the special female force. A Durga is a Hindu warrior goddess, and shakti means power, she said.

-Nanhi, 41

The Durga-Shakti offers a toll-free helpline for women, who call this number to get connected to the nearest police station when they face domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment. In order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the female police force, the Durga-Shakti officers wear bright blue camouflage-patterned uniforms and drive a specially marked car while on patrol.

This helps women feel comfortable with their more inviting yet official appearance.

Durga-Shakti is also the name of a mobile app where women can connect with a police officer to report a crime or incident. If women are unable to speak on the call, the app tracks their location so officers can efficiently be dispatched.

The hotline receives on average one to three calls a day.

The officers also lead seminars at local colleges in order to educate women on self-defense, protective laws and domestic violence. Inspired by the Durga-Shakti, RKSD College in Kaithal started a bus service for women who commute to campus.

Superintendent of Police Virender Vij oversees Nanhi and all of the police forces of Kaithal. Vij

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“The Durga-Shakti is meant to give women power,” Nanhi said.

says he has pride in the women’s station and the women who work there. “[Female police officers] have more pressure because they have to maintain many things,” Vij said. “They have to maintain their job, house and family.”

Nanhi works from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a given day but she is always on call.

For Nanhi and the 64 officers who work under her, the Kaithal Women’s Police Station is a place where they have made life safer for women to report the crimes against them.

When it comes to the job though, the female officers want to be viewed just like any other male officer.

“When I’m on duty, I’m a police officer,” Nanhi said. “There is no man or woman aspect to that.”

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Off the cloth

Entrepreneurs make and promote sanitary napkins for village women’s health and empowerment.

by JASMINE JOHNSON

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t age 13, Meenu Mungria got her period. She didn’t know what was happening.

After six months, she worked up the courage to tell her mother, who showed her how to use cotton cloth but said many diseases and infections spread that way.

After a few days of using the cloth and hearing about the risks, Meenu decided to start using sanitary napkins. She saved up her pocket change and asked female relatives to purchase pads for her when they went into the city.

However, three out of four women in India don’t have access to sanitary pads, according to a 2014 study by the Indian Nonwovens Industry Association.

Meenu doesn’t want women to struggle to find sanitary products, so she joined a group that makes pads for women and girls in rural areas.

These local village organizations, called self-help groups, were created to address social and economic issues in communities and provide villagers a secure source of income, according to education technology start-up ClearIAS. Women from five self-help groups in Kheri Ghulam Ali, a village in the Kaithal district, make sanitary napkins at a cheaper price for females from the area who previously had to resort to unsanitary alternatives.

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Meenu, 30, joined because the self-sustaining work making feminine products is done by women for women. As the village facilitator, she gathers materials and distributes money while bouncing between groups.

“A woman can understand another woman,” Meenu said. “When we are going through it, then we get to know about another’s situation.” ___________ Meenu walked into a large hall, noticing the bustling atmosphere

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as women trained for different trades such as stitching, bag making and producing sanitary napkins.

Each member of the Suraksha self-help group must receive a training certificate before they can start helping with the production process. The group name Suraksha literally translates to safety.

Meenu joined the self-help group in 2014. She said she feels proud to be known by her individual identity rather than always being defined in terms of her husband.

“We only get happiness over there,” Meenu said about the pad-making shop. “We haven’t gotten a single sorrow from the group.”

After going through six days of training on how to make sanitary napkins for the self-help group, Meenu said she no longer felt too shy to talk about menstruation, so she set out to recruit more women. She reached out to 24 women who agreed to join the group, but no one showed up for training. They were skeptical, asking Meenu if it was really work and if she felt embarrassed

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The group of women come together in the small room to share joy while doing their work.

They were too shy to talk about periods in front of other women, said Meenu Mungria, 30. Now they can talk about it in front of men and don’t have a problem with it.

about it, but she didn’t give up. She convinced eight of her neighbors to join the day training started.

While bumping elbows and gathering in the pad shop, Meenu explained to the eight Suraksha group members that women can understand each other and that menstruation is a natural thing.

“Men always say that we are unclean, but we are more clean than men,” she said.

In addition to working together in the small shop, the Suraksha group meets with all Kheri Ghulam Ali

self-help groups bi-weekly. Women arrived in small groups, removing their sandals and finding a spot on the red and navy rug.

They began by standing and singing a Hindu prayer: “O Lord, let the faith in our hearts never waver.

May we walk the path of goodness, and may we not make a mistake, even accidentally.”

Conversations echoed in the gathering space. Meenu passed around an attendance sheet.

Children wandered over and whispered in the women’s ears.

“Before joining the group, we had to depend on our husbands for a single rupee. Now, we have our own money.”

- Meenu, 30

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Meena, 32 Children: 1 boy and 3 girls Age when married: 18 Hobbies: Stitching & weaving

Reshma, 37 Children: 1 girl Age when married: 18 Hobbies: Weaving sweaters

Urmila, 35 Children: 2 boys and 1 girl Age when married: 18 Hobby: Dancing

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Meena Jangda dips her brush in paste to attach the plastic sheet onto the pad. The women in the self-help group make sanitary napkins by hand, and strive to make up to 500 pads per day.

Whether they hand embroider, sell dairy products or make sanitary pads in their respective groups, the village women have this opportunity to discuss any problems that arise in their work.

“If a woman can give birth, she can do everything,” Meenu said. ___________ Fifty years ago, women used soil instead of cloth to absorb their periods. Today,

about 80 percent of women over age 30 use cloth, said Dr. Nirmal Banjaran, assistant professor of literature at D.N. College Hisar and cultural activist in Haryana.

She also said many continue using cloth because it costs less. They often wash and reuse the same cloth without throwing it away. As a result, she said about 50 percent of women get infected.

Some women still don’t use sanitary napkins because there are misconceptions

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about them containing chemicals, according to Nirmal. There isn’t much publicity surrounding sanitary products, and some stores in the village have feminine products hidden behind a drawer or counter that are only sold upon request.

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have to sleep separately on a folding bed, which is reserved for women on their period. They can’t cook in the kitchen because others are scared their hands will make the food inedible. ___________

If others in the village find out about a teenage girl’s first period, they may think she is ready for marriage since she is capable of getting pregnant, Nirmal said.

When washing her clothes, Nirmal used to hide her underwear where the men couldn’t see them. She washed them and put them under the bed, but it would take 20 to 30 days to dry. Primarily in northern India, women can’t take part in any household work while on their period, according to Nirmal. They can’t be present at holy events or religious occasions.

In most families, women aren’t allowed to take baths during this time. They also

Some cultural superstitions surrounding menstruation remain. Self-help group member Reshma Soni, 37, believes that she can’t go to gurdwaras, Sikh places of worship, or pray while on her period.

Her mother taught her that women are impure while menstruating.

“It’s just the way it is,” said Kolan Devi, Reshma’s mother.

If Reshma begins a religious fast to promote health and happiness for her family and gets her period, she must stop fasting for five days. She can’t even wash her hair.

Reshma helps carry a bench out of the self-help group shop. She joined the group after divorcing her abusive second husband. She runs a snack shop next door.

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Nirmal described these cultural ideas in one sentence.

“If a shadow of a woman having her period falls on a plant, the flowers will fall,” Nirmal said.

Nirmal said many people still believe having a son is the better option. Some of Nirmal’s colleagues who gave birth to girls kept trying to have another child in hopes of having a boy.

“A girl does not have any value in this society,” Nirmal said.

“Compared to the change that is coming to our lifestyle, this is extremely slow. People are following the western lifestyle but are not ready to accept this change just yet.”

Although many parents count on having sons to carry on the family name and care for them as they age, Meenu wishes she had a daughter.

“I have two sons, but I really need a baby girl,” she said. “If I was having a baby girl, I would want to make her feel strong and not shy.” ___________ Sunlight filtered through the red and gold curtains, spilling onto the five women sitting cross-legged on red checkered mats. The women’s knees bumped against each other as they gathered in a circle in the small shop.

Before joining, Suraksha members experienced long days in their homes with no contact

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with other women. Now, they come together across castes and have found a new type of family.

“There’s a sense of unity among all the women,” Meenu said.

“We have a source of employment.”

Rolls of cotton and plastic materials lined the back wall, beige paint chipping away to reveal concrete walls on three sides. The women tucked the edges of plastic gloves under their bracelets and started the routine they know all too well.

Bed sheet. Wood pulp. Bed sheet. Plastic sheet. Microdot wrapping. Floral sticker. Gel seals. Sanitizer. Plastic bag.

Repeat.

Suraksha member Reshma said her team made 4,000 pads in the first few weeks, but they need more materials to be delivered 508 kilometers, or 315 miles, from Gwalior to Kheri Ghulam Ali to finish the order in the next three months.

After completing the government’s first order of 14,000 pads, each woman will earn 4,000 rupees, or $56. The next order will be 36,000 pads.

“Before joining the group, we had to depend on our husbands for a single rupee,” Meenu said.

“Now, we have our own money.”

Once she arrives at the shop, she doesn’t want to return home. Right next door, she started her own snack shop.

Snac Lite Fun Fries and Amer-

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“If a woman can give birth, she can do everything.”

– Meenu

Reshma measures the amount of bed sheet she will need to make a sanitary napkin. She uses plastic gloves to keep the napkins clean.

Reshma originally came to the organization with encouragement from her mother, Devi. “I just want her to earn some money for her daughter so she can make her sturdy and she can get successful in her life,” Devi said.

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ican Style Cream and Onion Lays line the entryway.

Each Suraksha member added a side business because they haven’t completed the first order and are still waiting for more materials. In order to receive the government’s money, the women must complete the order of 14,000 pads.

Other group members bought water buffalo, opened clothes shops and started beauty parlors.

The women can take loans from the Haryana Gramin Bank through the self-help group to kickstart these other initiatives.

Since Reshma works with the Suraksha group during the day, her mother, father and uncle help her run the shop. She’s the only family member making an income.

Reshma married at 18.

When her husband died from a snake bite, she married again. But she says her second husband became abusive and divorced her.

Since she could no longer live with her ex-spouse’s family, she was forced to return to living with her parents. Reshma said she felt humiliated because she had to return to de-

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pending on people other than herself.

Determined to find work, she and her mother, Kolan, 69, set off to talk to the sarpanch, or village leader. They asked about any available positions around his home, but he said he didn’t need a maid. Next, they went to a school, but the principal said they would only accept workers approved by the sarpanch. When they returned to the village leader to ask about the opening for a school cook, he refused to hire her.

On their walk home, Reshma and Kolan ran into Suraksha member Nirmala Kashyap. When she heard about their problem, Nirmala visited their home and told them about the self-help group.

Reshma’s family didn’t have any other source of income, so Kolan encouraged her daughter to join.

On her walk to training, Reshma heard men mocking her for making pads.

“People laughed at us, but we didn’t care,” Reshma said. “My mom said, ‘They are dogs. Let them bark.’”

PHOTOS BY JHENNA BECKER

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Confidence and sanitary pads available at Geeta’s Bangles

BY JENNY SINGH

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y opening up a shop just for women, Geeta created opportunities for herself and for her customers. Others followed her path, she said, bringing a sense of freedom with them.

Geeta is an independent woman in her Titram village.

She opened her own shop, called “Geeta Bangles,” five years ago for women to have a place to fill their needs and not face men or bring husbands with them.

Two women visit with Geeta in her shop on a weekday afternoon in January in Titram.

She loves to sell bangles – blingy Indian bracelets. She says women from all levels of society visit her shop.

Geeta, who was educated to the 10th grade, established the shop to become independent and contribute to her family. She earns for herself and does not depend on her husband, a driver and volunteer, for money.

Geeta’s shop, which competes with 10 to 15 others, is in the front of her house, which makes housework easier.

She opens the front door to her shop from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., but customers know she is really available 24 hours a day. When Geeta gets other work, both of her daughters manage customers, and her husband helps too.

There are toys for children and everything for women, particularly personal items, such as bras and panties, pads, makeup kits and bangles. Women buy necessities, Geeta says, but when the women buy sanitary napkins, they speak mostly in low voices. They feel ashamed, just like when they buy bras and panties.

She whispers back to them. Pads are still purchased by women at a low rate. Sometimes they say the price is too much. Pads cost 20 to 40 rupees, or 28 to 56 cents.

EMMA GOTTSCHALK

Geeta goes to Kaithal to shop for goods about every two to four weeks. She goes to the city by herself or with her husband. When she goes out, she meets other people and interacts with them, which she says has increased her knowledge as well as her confidence.

She says the best part of her career is that the entire village used to know her by her husband’s name, but since opening her shop, they know her by her name.

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Manisha sits in a corner of the second floor of her home in Titram. To her left is a storage room where her mom fries roti over an open flame every morning after praying in a small room decorated with paintings of a religious prophet.

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Untouchable dreams A village girl from the lowest caste in India survived a childhood of discrimination and domestic abuse to pursue education and bring hope to those who raised her.

by ZACH WALKER

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anisha stared at the stanzas of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost under a solar lantern. The electricity in her home was out, like it was every day between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m.

She mumbled the 20 lines of the American poem in English until she could speak it from memory like her teacher wanted.

She recited it perfectly in her ninth-grade classroom at the Government High School in Titram, a rural village in Haryana, the next day. She spoke in front of the same classmates who wouldn’t drink water if she helped the teacher deliver it to the room. They were upper caste and Manisha was not. She was Dalit, the lowest caste in Northern India, a label that has haunted her family for generations, classifying them as “untouchable.”

The poem reading was another success that led to her fourthstraight ranking at the top of her grade level, but she had no idea what the words meant.

To her, “The Road Not Taken” was a collection of foreign sounds written by an American poet 30 years before Indian independence that, according to her teachers and the Indian education system, would make her smarter if she could repeat them without looking down at a piece of paper. She had no idea those four stanzas told her story.

Manisha’s story is one of exceptions. It tells of breaking from the norm and not allowing India’s history, traditions, misogyny or caste system to determine her fate.

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It is a story of possibility. Of what can happen when a father stops drinking, a mother labors in the wheat fields, a professor believes in a shy student and that student studies hard enough to disprove the classmates and teachers who often made her feel untouchable.

————— Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both –“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (1916 in England) Manisha, now 22, wanted an education, a future free of domestic abuse and caste-based discrimination. But to get what she wanted, she needed help.

“I am the product of many people,” Manisha said.

In public school, Manisha’s upper-caste teachers would never pick her for the honor of getting water for the class. They thought she was unclean.

Even though she finished at the top of her class in fifth grade, an achievement her mother, Shakuntala, calls her proudest moment, the teachers and students from other castes saw her as untouchable.

Manisha’s parents never expected her academic rise. Even after naming her Manisha, the Hindi word for “wisdom,” they were more focused on their future children. After two girls, Manisha and her older sister, Pinki, they wanted the next one to be a boy.

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“Society [in rural India] is orthodox patriarchal,” Titram community organizer and friend of Manisha’s family Kumar Mukesh said. “The son is assumed to be the real representative of the family dynasty. The daughter is someone else’s property.”

Manisha’s parents’ hopes came true when Sachin, 20, was born, followed by Sourabh, now 18.

The family is classified in the Valmiki caste, a group of North Indian people considered Dalit, or “untouchable.”

The Valmiki people have been bound to sweep streets like her father does or scoop excrement from outhouses by hand like he did as a child and his ancestors before him did since ancient times. Of the hundreds of castes that fall under the Dalit classification, which is not a government restriction but a societal and religious norm, Valmiki is the lowest.

More than 100 Valmiki families live in Manisha’s neighborhood in Titram, just four hours from the business meetings and progressive student protests of New Delhi. But the people of Titram mostly work in the fields.

Manisha remembers gathering wheat one day with her mom and sister outside her village, the only source of income apart from her father’s job as a sweeper at the local police station. The entire day, they picked up single grains from the dirt. By sundown, they had collected two handfuls.

But before they returned home,

a woman from an upper caste stomped into the field.

“Why are you in this field?” the woman screamed. “You are lower caste!”

She knocked the grain from their fists and Manisha, her sister and her mother wandered home with dust-covered palms.

And Manisha remembers the time her sixth-grade classmates tossed balls of sweet rice that was to be their school snack into the garbage because it was made by a woman from Manisha’s community.

Upper-caste parents complained to teachers and refused to allow their children to eat food touched by untouchable hands. So, the next day, the woman was fired and replaced by a worker from a higher caste.

But Manisha received top marks at the end of the year, finishing ahead of every upper-caste classmate.

Her memorization was better than the others, and because the government education she received through 10th grade was based entirely on memorization, that was enough.

Her parents can’t read, but they gave her time to do her schoolwork. Shakuntala rarely forced Manisha to do household duties or field work because they would take time away from doing homework and studying for the battery of exams to qualify for the next educational checkpoint.

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Manisha laughs with her aunt, Rani, and another woman from Titram on the concrete area outside her aunt’s and uncle’s home. When Manisha was a child, Rani gave her the nickname “Ghadla,” which means “very cute.” “If [Manisha] becomes something, it will be good for our whole family,” Rani said. “The whole village will know that she is from our family.”

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After talking to five female police officers at the Kaithal City Police Station about their education, her father started saving money for his daughters’ tuition bills.

“The female officers talked confidently and everyone in the community said ‘Namaste’ to them,” Manisha’s father, Madan Lal, said. “Education is the only means.”

So Manisha studied.

She wasn’t invited to her 10thgrade award ceremony in the nearby city of Kaithal after topping her class in academics.

An upper-caste teacher listed another student in her spot because that student wasn’t Valmiki. Manisha’s grades were higher, like they had always been, but the teacher thought caste mattered more.

Manisha missed the crowd and the cheering and the chance to accept the grand prize – a red solar lantern powered by a two by two-foot panel – on stage in front of her friends and her parents and the people who thought she couldn’t do it.

“I am the product of many people.”

– Manisha, 22 Instead, Manisha took the lantern home from the Public Welfare Office without a celebration.

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Instead of cheering, she heard car horns.

he went back to the liquor bottles and the yelling.

“I missed that golden opportunity,” Manisha said.

Shakuntala fled to Jheel several times after that, sometimes taking her four children.

————— And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Even with the prize lantern to brighten her studies during blackouts, the darkness persisted at home.

Her father had been a drinker since he was a teenager. He would come home drunk after a day sweeping and scream at his wife for not cooking dinner to his liking. Sometimes, the carrots didn’t have enough salt. Other times, the roti was over fried.

Most times, he just wanted to fight, because no matter how his wife altered her recipes, he found something to criticize.

Manisha said she watched many nights as her father beat her mother with a stick or his fists.

She sat outside the door or in the adjacent room as the screams and penetrated the brick walls.

When Manisha was in fourth grade, her mother left home without the children for two months to escape the abuse.

Her father went to her mother’s childhood village of Jheel, one hour from Titram, where she hid, and promised he would stop drinking if she would just come home. But when she returned,

But through the drinking and the screaming and the beating, Manisha and Pinki kept studying.

In 2010, Pinki became the first girl in her neighborhood to enroll in 11th grade, beyond the traditional 10th-grade graduation.

When he wasn’t drunk, Manisha’s dad would assure his children he was going to make enough money to pay for their college education.

Shakuntala said, even when he stumbled through the house, he encouraged them to finish their homework. But the beatings didn’t stop.

For 10 years, the abuse was routine for Manisha’s family. Like harvesting grain in the upper-caste neighborhood or memorizing poems. But one night in 2011, when Manisha was 14, Shakuntala decided she wanted out.

The neighbors heard the screaming from several houses away. When they arrived, only Manisha, her father and her three siblings stood in the hall outside the two rooms. The door to the left was closed.

Shakuntala had locked herself in the bedroom after a screaming match with her husband. Then Madan Lal’s brother, who lived in the house to the left, spotted her

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through a small window in the corner of the green wall. She was tying a rope around a ceiling fan. He ran to the house and told the family to bust down the door.

When the lock popped, the door swung open. Shakuntala stood on the bed slipping a noose around her neck. But Manisha’s uncle forced her off before she could hang herself.

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If Madan Lal were in the upper caste, Hinduism would have been the answer. But since his family was deemed untouchable centuries back, the most common religion in India was not as common within the alleyways of Titram. His caste didn’t visit the temples on a regular basis, and his ancestors weren’t allowed to be cremated with the bodies of upper-caste worshippers.

Later that same year, Manisha’s father bought his final drink.

“Generally, lower castes never worship Hindu gods,” Kumar said. “Rather, they worshipped local gods or natural powers like sun, earth, fire and mountain.”

His brother-in-law, Nawab Singh, had called him three times a week for a year and encouraged him to pray to an Indian sage named Valmiki, the author of an epic poem and the religious namesake of Manisha’s family’s caste.

After a year of refusing to adopt any religious practice, Manisha’s father caved.

He traveled four hours alone by city bus to the Valmiki temple in New Delhi.

“Follow Valmiki and everything will be OK,” Manisha’s uncle would say. “The drinking will go away. The abuse will go away.”

He stood before paintings of Valmiki and prayed. After the drive back to Titram, he never laid a hand on his wife again. The drinking stopped. Valmiki had taken its place.

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Manisha’s parents, Shakuntala and Madan Lal, sit on a cot patched with a plastic bag on the second floor of their home. After Madan Lal gave up drinking, he stopped his routine of screaming at Shakuntala before dinner and instead started to sit down with her and his children at meals to talk as a family.

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Shakuntala digs a metal hoe into the ground to extract weeds along a canal on the outskirts of Titram. After she completed the job, she sat on pure dirt with the nine other women in her work group, and ate halwa, an Indian sweet dish, to celebrate. “The work is finished with peace,” Shakuntala said.

“That is why we are happy.”

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For the next six weeks, Manisha’s father traveled to the Valmiki temple every Friday to repeat his prayers. At home, he prayed twice a day. Before finding Valmiki, he would stand on the brick surface outside his home while a spiritual teacher sacrificed pigs, goats and chickens, and local boys cleaned up the blood that pooled around the dead animals. The community was superstitious and suggested sacrifice to get rid of family troubles.

But he stopped screaming at his wife about the food, and instead sat around a plastic table and talked with his family about his sweeping at the police station and Shakuntala’s labor in the wheat fields and Manisha’s dream to attend a prestigious university.

“It was a new life for us,” Shakuntala said. “Peace and harmony came to our family.”

After 10th grade, Manisha and her family had a choice. She could stop right there like most people in her village. She could forget further education and take up goat farming or street sweeping or washing her future husband’s clothes.

Or she could keep studying. She could continue her streak of academic achievement that is celebrated by the metal trophies painted gold and wrapped in plastic foil that sit on a wooden shelf above the bed in the room opposite where her mother tried to hang herself.

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And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.

Manisha’s plan was to move on to 11th grade like her sister. She memorized more poems and sharpened her Hindi writing skills and scratched physics formulas onto lined notebook paper.

But going to school meant leaving home, as the school she wanted to attend required its students to live on campus. It meant sitting through classes taught in English, a language Manisha couldn’t speak, and missing the first month because it overlapped with harvest season.

After 10th grade, Manisha was accepted into Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, or JNV, an upper-level school for 11th and 12th-grade students in Titram, where only 80 applicants are accepted for each class from a pool of up to 4,000, about 2 percent.

She didn’t memorize poems at JNV. She learned their meanings with help from her new teachers, such as Gupreet Kaur, who mentored her in geography and encouraged deep analysis of every piece of writing assigned to students.

Teachers supported her beyond academics as well. Mrs. Angeli noticed Manisha crying in the hallway outside a physics classroom during her first week at JNV and hugged her until the tears stopped.

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didn’t see the green paint or smell the mustard oil in her favorite rice dish. She didn’t hear the buzz of her little brothers talking about wrestling and cricket. And because everyone was new to her, she didn’t stroll through residence halls and chat with every face that popped through a door like she did in her neighborhood.

She cried every night for the first two months, even when she called her parents. But as classes continued and Manisha aced monthly exams, the brick buildings and dirt courtyards started to feel more like home.

Outside of the seven hours in class each day and four more studying, she hung out with friends, including Sheetal, a girl who lived across the hall and joined the school at the same time as Manisha.

Each year on April 14, her birthday, at JNV, she danced in one of the school courtyards to a Haryanvi beat played on a metal plate.

Her 34 classmates danced around her and the group ate chocolate candies purchased with the five rupees given by each student to fund the party.

Students from every caste danced together, and nobody mentioned they were celebrating an untouchable. In that moment, they were celebrating Manisha.

————— Back home in Titram, her family was still untouchable.

Her dorm room was a new home, but it wasn’t her real home. She

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“To start a journey, we need to decide our path.

We are not following anyone else. ” – Manisha

Her father rode a Honda Hero motorcycle into work every morning to sweep leaves from dirt paths with a bamboo broom.

He swept past closed doors with upper-caste police officers inside to make 8,000 rupees, or $112 each month.

Her mother worked, too, which is a rare occurrence in rural India, as more than 75 percent of women stay at home to care for their husbands and children, as reported by The World Bank Group in 2018.

Shakuntala is a laborer through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MNREGA, an Indian government program that guaran-

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tees 100 days of work to poor members of rural communities, including almost every adult woman in her neighborhood.

Shakuntala joined the program in 2015, when Manisha was 18, adding a second stable income to put toward education for Manisha and her siblings.

She has worked in places like a schoolyard and a human-made pond and a rural canal in the middle of a wheat field, where she rode to the site in a threewheeled vehicle called a tuk tuk with nine other women, cleared a half-mile of weeds with a metal hoe and danced with her coworkers in a circle –after eight hours of work – while she waited for the tuk tuk to pick her up.

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With the extra income from Shakuntala, Manisha’s family continued work on the second floor of their home that was built in 2014 with 16 years of savings.

Now, a stone staircase leads to an exposed area between two additional bedrooms, a kitchen with coffee-themed wallpaper, a storage room that Shakuntala uses to cook roti over a cow manure-fueled fire and a small prayer room adorned with framed pictures of Valmiki and a stick of incense.

After graduating from JNV, she became the second person from her neighborhood to attend college – the first was Pinki – which Manisha did at Dev Samaj College for Women in Firozpur.

After paying for the addition, some of the family’s money went to daily necessities like clothing and bags of flour. The rest went to Manisha.

She spent three hours every day for six months working through practice books for the JNU entrance exam, a test few

After college graduation, she wanted to go farther.

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prospective students crack each year as the school accepts about 5 percent of applicants. But with the help of Jasmeet Brarj, an upper-caste political science professor at her college, she learned from his experience of failing the exam twice.

Manisha cracked it.

“Crack.” That’s the verb Manisha uses to describe what she did. To describe the moment when she became the exception.

“The only equalizer is education,” Manisha said. “We don’t have means. We only have education.”

Shakuntala’s work group walks along a canal outside Titram. The 10 women work together at every site during the 100 days of work guaranteed by a government program. “Because of our work, we become closer and our lives become happier,” Shakuntala said. “It creates harmony with each other.”

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She wanted to attend Jawaharlal Nehru University, a university in New Delhi that is considered the Harvard of India for the study of humanities.

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“The only equalizer is education.

We don’t have means.

We only have education.”

– Manisha

————— Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, Manisha entered JNU the daughter of illiterates. She stepped into an unfamiliar world and was met by more than 2,000 new faces. She was no longer top of her class, but the students above and below her academically never asked about caste or if she had touched any of the food.

The other students’ glances toward Manisha were accompanied by smiles, and everyone, even those from different castes and religions and states of wealth, wanted to speak to her.

But it took time for her to return the favor.

She sat in the back row of lecture halls and didn’t speak during class. The proper British English language her professors spoke sounded partially foreign. While the students

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who came from lifetimes of English language education scribbled notes and asked questions, Manisha kept silent and pressed the record button on her cell phone.

She would listen to a lecture recording three to five times in her dorm room until she understood the lesson.

And she tried to speak English when she chatted with her new friends. After a few months, she could comprehend the lectures in real time. After a few more, English became, at least at JNU, her first language.

Back home, her mother worked hard like her daughter so Manisha could pay for tuition, housing and food at JNU. Of the 12,000 rupees, or $168, her mom and dad earn each month, 8,000, or $122 go to Manisha.

After work one day when Manisha was visiting from New Delhi, Shakuntala rode a tuk tuk back home and walked to the washroom,

a small tiled area where she scooped lukewarm water from a plastic bucket onto her body.

After her bath, she kneaded wheat flour with water to make roti dough and fried the discs over an open flame fed by twigs and water buffalo manure. She brought the fresh roti downstairs and served it with chicken curry, mustard-leaf saag and a plate of salted carrots and radishes for her family. Then, she prayed to Valmiki in the incense-scented room and crawled into bed below the ceiling fan.

The routine was a way for Shakuntala to ensure that Manisha wouldn’t suffer like she did.

That Manisha could make a living doing more than her mother did as a child, picking cotton for upper caste families who would steal the profits after the harvest, and that Manisha wouldn’t end up abused by her husband and unable to read the signs at bus stops.

“I wanted my kids to be educated,” Shakuntala said.

Her father kept sweeping, brushing away dust and leaves with the same motion he’s been making for 27 years, that steady rhythm that put his daughter through college.

Every other morning, after bathing out of a bucket, praying to Valmiki and eating his regular breakfast of roti and masala chai, he shines his black work shoes with Cherry Blossom polish.

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But at the end of the work day, dust covers the shine.

The same type of dust coated Shakuntala’s blue jeweled slippers one day next to the canal.

Every scrape of her hoe kicked up more dirt that covered her feet.

The same happened for the nine women next to her chopping weeds.

The sun beat on their patterned shawls that covered downturned heads. Underneath, their faces were wrinkled. Some of their teeth were missing, but they still smiled.

“I want to be remembered as somebody who never said

anything bad about anyone,” Shakuntala said. “If you do good works and have good intentions, people will remember you.”

On the same bank, Manisha stood wearing brown Vans and a pink faux-fur-lined jacket. She remembers doing the same work as a girl, matching her mother’s motions with a hoe and working to keep a roof over the stone floors and roti in their stomachs.

She didn’t swing a hoe that day. Instead, she talked about the future. She explained how she wants to parlay her degree in international relations into a position as the first female District Collector of Kaithal, an

Manisha talks with friends and family in her aunt’s and uncle’s house, which sits across a small pond from her house in Titram. Manisha used to visit her aunt and uncle every week as a child, but only sees them a few times every year after leaving for JNU. “[Manisha] has become a reason to make our family proud,” Manisha’s aunt, Rani, said. “[She] has given us a better name in the village.”

administrator who handles city finances and planning and can enact policies that change the status quo.

Under Collector Manisha, every boy and girl would be educated until the 12th grade. Teachers would teach meaning over memorization. Women would go

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to school just as long as men.

And caste wouldn’t matter.

“Unity is good, but uniformity is not good,” Manisha said.

“Differences are always with us. Our differences make us unique.”

If Manisha were District Collector, her neighbor Santro would be literate and wouldn’t have to depend on milk from the three water buffalo that graze in a dirt field speckled with food wrappers and plastic bottles outside her brick home.

“If I was literate, I could get a job,” Santro said. “People didn’t know about education [when I was a girl]. They were too focused on agriculture.”

The local shepherd, Sube, wouldn’t have to sleep in a bamboo hut with 20 goats. And the others, those outside the alleyways of the untouchable neighborhood, would treat Manisha’s neighbors, whom she calls family, as people with food worth eating and hands worth touching.

But her neighbors say she’s already changed the village. “[Manisha] is a reason for the whole community to be proud,” neighbor Phooli said.

And that has made all the difference.

Manisha remembers when she became an equal. Her Pedagogy for Education professor at JNU, Dr. Avijeet Pathak, called her name as she sat quiet in the back row of an 80-person lecture hall. She had never spoken in his class. But he motioned her toward the podium.

He instructed her to explain the previous day’s lesson to the rest of the class. Then he told her to tell the story of her journey to JNU. She began speaking in Hindi.

She told of growing up in Titram. Of attending government school. Of joining JNV and Dev Samaj College for Women and finally, JNU. Twice after that, her professor called her back to the podium. He, a man from an upper caste, wanted to keep listening to her.

Then he assigned “The Road Not Taken,” the same poem that looped in her 10th-grade mind until she could recite it without peeking at the text.

But this time, she studied it.

“To start a journey, we need to decide our path,” Manisha said. “We are not following anyone else.”

————— Finally, she knew what the words meant.

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“Unity is good, but uniformity is not good.

Differences are always with us.

Our differences make us unique.”

– Manisha

Manisha’s family’s home is surrounded by other brick and cement houses that shelter people from the same caste. A few children keep pigeons for entertainment after dropping out of school before 10th grade. Two young siblings scurry through the alleyways and often cross the gate into Manisha’s house to say hello and give hugs. “We are really happy about Manisha,” Shakuntala said. “We hope other girls are inspired by her.”

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Faces of India

WILL JACOTT

All 20 Bethel students lugged camera kits in addition to their carry-on bags, so they captured thousands of photos. Many of the close-up portraits and environmental portraits piled up with unnamed faces. We encountered these people on the street for a moment, and they left before we could locate a translator. But we will never forget them.

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JAKE VAN LOH

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WILL JACOTT

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BRAEDEN PETERSON

JAKE VAN LOH

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Meet the Textura The Springfield Hotel dining room transformed into a newsroom every evening after soup and dinner.

Students from Bethel University and India worked alongside each other to produce a magazine and documentary.

Whether translating interviews or piecing together editorial spreads, hosting spontaneous dance parties or making another run to Galaxy Bakery, the two groups from two cultures merged in their two-week stay in Kaithal.

“Before the project began, I was really afraid that the India partners and the students would not be able to gel together,” India host Kumar Mukesh said. “To my surprise, everybody worked well together and complemented each other’s work as well. The best parts were the emotional connections and the memories that were made during this trip.”

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Brandon Barnaal

Jhenna Becker

Caroline Blackford

GRAP H IC DESIGNER

JOURNALIST / P H OT OGRAP H ER

GRAP H IC DE SI GNE R / AR T DIRECT O R

Maddie Christy

Paige Cornwell

Emma Eidsvoog

JOURNALIST / VIDEOGRAP H ER

INST RUCT OR

JOURNALIST

Josh Eller

Aastha Gill

Emma Gottschalk

GRAP H IC DESIGNER/ AR T DIRECT OR

JOURNALIST

DESIGNER/ P H OT OGRA PH E R

Neha Goyal

Neelam Gujjar

Emma Harville

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Jessica Henderson

Will Jacott

Jasmine Johnson

Molly Korzenowski

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF D E S I G N

GRA PHIC DES IGNER/ V IDEO GRA PHER

J OURNALIST

JOURNALIST / EDIT OR

Rafi Mukesh

Sonia Mukesh

Thanh Nguyen

Ally O’Neil

Braeden Peterson

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INS TRU CTO R/HO S T

GR AP H IC DESIGNER

VIDEOGRAP H ER

GRAP H IC DESIGN E R

Manisha Shakuntala

Hersh Singh

Jenny Singh

Vada Stoddard

JOUR N AL I S T

J O U RNA LIS T

J OURNALIST

GRAP H IC DESIGNER

VIDEOGRAP H ER

Jake Van Loh

Katie Viesselman

Toan Vo

Zach Walker

Scott Winter

G R AP H I C D E S I G N E R / P HO T O G R AP H E R

GRA PHIC DES IGNER/ PHO TO GRA PHER

GR AP H IC DESIGNER

JOURNALIST / EDIT OR

ASSOCIAT E P RO FE SSO R OF JOURNALISM

Kumar Mukesh INST RUCT OR/ H O ST

Josh Towner

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Thank You! The Textura team could not have shared these stories without the help of so many devoted supporters of our work and the communities in Haryana. So, thank you to‌ Kumar and Sonia Mukesh, for believing in our stories, making us feel like family and fighting for justice in Haryana every day.

allowed us to focus on the stories.

The SAMBHAV volunteers, who kept us safe, kept us moving, kept us fed and kept us smiling.

Bethel University, from administrative assistants to the president’s office to Geetha in the DC, for trusting this team despite fear of the unknown.

Kashmir, Vikas and Sunil, for smiling no matter the traffic.

The Springfield Resort staff, for providing a comfortable and safe temporary home, newsroom and design lab. And the roti. And the chicken fried rice.

Vincent Peters, for supporting Textura ever since it was just an idea.

The Johnson Center, and the Johnson family, for believing in student journalism and putting resources behind those beliefs.

Eliza Jensen, for the pre-trip logistics that

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Julie Thoreen, for holding our hands through visa applications

The 2017 Textura Guatemala team, which helped clarify the vision for this ongoing project.

Dr. Yu-Li Chang Zacher, for holding down the journalism fort at Bethel while we were gone.

Santokh Majra CNI Church parishioners for letting us worship with them.

Deena Winter for her edits.

Nirmala Banjaran, for providing invaluable expertise on the cultural history of Haryana.

Muhar Singh, for inviting us to your school to interact with students and faculty, allowing yourselves to get beat in volleyball, and to art teacher Vajid Ali Shah for his lettering.

The Seattle Times newsroom, for allowing reporter Paige Cornwell the flexibility to join us for three weeks. Student storytellers like learning from Pulitzer Prizewinners, and watching them dance.

Parents, for allowing your children to fly across the world to tell stories that matter even though you worried they would get bitten by an insect.

And most importantly, thank you to the beautiful people of Haryana, who trusted us with their complex and compelling stories.

Your courage, eloquence and strength continues to inspire us. Know your voices are heard.

Titram community volunteers, drivers, and security:

Vikas Panchal

Sunil Kundu

Kashmir Sirohi

Dharm Veer

Ramphal Malik

Bhim Singh

Jagbir Singh

Amit Kumar

Vikram Singh

Amar Jeet

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Check out seektextura.com to see more online, including video. Find depth stories, cultural pieces, student reflections and the collective documentary.

Study what you love.

Practice what you learn.

Live what you believe at BETHEL UNIVERSITY.

www.bethel.edu www.bethel.edu

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It’s all about the story.

BETHEL.EDU/ENGLISH

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The Bethel Foundation provides key benefits for both Bethel University and donors.

By enhancing the institution’s long-term financial health and giving donors exceptional care, we serve as a crucial partner in helping Bethel fulfill its mission to train and equip adventurous Christ-followers to change the world.

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BETHEL UNIVERSITY ART & DESIGN

Let’s Make Stuff.

Use your art & design skills to express yourself—and discover @betheluart

a greater purpose.

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bethel.edu/undergrad/academics/art/

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The Johnson Center FOR JOURNALISM & C O M M U N I C AT I O N

Pursuing truth and telling stories that matter 133

Textura is an ongoing international storytelling project initiated by Bethel journalism and graphic design majors with support from Off-Campus Programs.

This isn’t everyday journalism. This is a passion project. It took years of planning, weeks of reporting, and a constant desire to amplify the voices we believe need to be heard. Thank you for hearing them.

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FRONT & BACK COVER PHOTOS BY KATIE VIESSELMAN

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