Out of the shadows

Over the course of three months, Delhi-based photographer Aditi Jain captured the joys, travails and lives of four trans women, mapping their experiences and emotions in the capital city.

- ANMOL ARORA

BETTER TOGETHER Gender non-conforming queer artists dressed up for the Delhi Queer Pride march; November 2019, New Delhi

Multiple pairs of gloved hands huddle together, holding forceps, scissors, needle holders, sutures, and a suction tube over an inert body with barely visible skin. The scene presents itself through a clean and crisp photograph, divulging little more than a surgical procedure that could be about anything or anyone. In another, a man and a woman are seen dancing together. She is the point of focus, her face streaked with sweat and joy, her sari clinging to her body. In the background, other less visible people appear relaxed and in tune with each other.

These starkly contrasting images are part of the wide range of queer experiences documented by Delhi-based photographer Aditi Jain in a gripping series aptly christened Maze Of Binaries. A maze, after all, provides mystifying journeys as you find your way through a network of diverging and merging paths. In her series, Jain, who is a trained photojournalist and documentary photographer, similarly highlights the expressions and movements of her subjects as they navigate and transcend the rigid binaries of gender, emotions, lifetimes, and dreams.

SELF-REFLECTION Bonita Singh Rajpurohit gets ready in the morning to leave for office; November 2019, Gurugram