While I was growing up in Mumbai in the late 1990s and the 2000s, Smita Patil, my stepmother, would often work with at-risk women who faced the prospect of homelessness. The threat of not having a roof over their heads went hand in hand with the pattern of abuse in their homes. During the summers, I would be exposed to a utopian alternative: I would visit my paternal grandparents who lived in Indira Mahila Jeevan Vikas Grihnirman Shan, a housing colony in the small town of Solapur. Indira Nagar, as it is colloquially called, is feminist at its core—all houses in the colony are owned by women and can only be inherited by women.
The philosophy around which the Indira Nagar community is built was not lost on me as a young girl, but it grew deeper as I grappled with the notions of independence and my sense of self in society. During a visit to Solapur in February 2024, I photographed the society in an attempt to grow closer to the defiance its community embodies. The exercise resulted in this series, called Zhoka, the Marathi word for swing, which is found in almost all the houses in the colony. As a child, I would often sit on the zhoka in my grandparents’ home and sing popular songs of the time with my friends.