THE RIGHT TO REST

Through a project that captures women in various states of fun and frolic, SURABHI YADAV makes a case for why female leisure lies at the heart of feminist liberation. Five image-makers peruse their photographic oeuvres for Vogue India to present these portraits of quiet pleasure

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My mother laughed out loud once every year. I am not talking about smiles, giggles and chuckles—those were common. I mean a full-fledged, lose-control-of-your body guffaw.

It would be on Holi, after the chaos of colour would settle down. All the aunties and some of us children in Sainath Colony in Khargone in Madhya Pradesh would congregate in one of the residents’ verandahs to partake in a modest feast of homemade sweets and snacks. It was during this specific period of merrymaking that my mother would get up, unprompted, and launch into a series of raucous role-plays. She would enact multiple characters far removed from her own: a drunk husband, a thief, stereotypical in-laws, a lover. She would tease her friends about their sexual fantasies. She would rustle their saris, tickle them, razz them; she would police anyone acting too ladylike. Others would join her, making up whole scenes as if we had our own local annual auntie improv troupe. At its zenith, this drama would make the audience roll on the floor, holding their tummies in helpless fits of laughter. A shameless hilarity that defied reason.

The gathering would last a couple of hours before everyone would return to their homes. My mother would clean up the aftermath of these Holi celebrations in our house and take a bath, almost as if she were physically washing off her alternate personality that loved to be spontaneous, goofy, creative and childlike. The woman who had helmed such a lively gathering would then transform back into my mother—a serious, driven, busy homemaker who handled four kids and a husband and never had time for fun and frolic.

Where did this person, who was capable of so much pleasure and play, hide the rest of the year? I did not ask this question until my mother died when I was 23.