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It begins with the color red. Not the soft blush of a fading sunset or the pop of a birthday balloon. But a deep, unapologetic crimson — sindoor smeared across a parting, blood pooling under fingernails, the thorn of a rose piercing skin. 'Fakhta' begins here, on a stage set by Mahira Vohra, where the red of sacrifice meets the red of rebellion.
The series is a quiet letter written by young Indian women to the world they have been asked to make sense of. The rules of this world were hammered in. Don’t laugh too loud. Don’t take up too much space. Don’t — whatever you do — forget your place. Against this weight of expectation, Mahira asks: What happens if we do?
The photographs smolder in their rebellion. A woman holds a framed wedding portrait, her grip steady and firm, her gaze between resignation and defiance. Another, scribbles onto torn scraps of paper, as though writing is the only way she can exhale. All of it rests under a red backdrop, oppressive and liberating at once.
Fakhta is not just about the women in the frame. It’s about the women who came before them. Her mother’s wedding photograph, her Nanu’s ghazal, her father’s camera — all of them linger at the edges of the frame. Mahira speaks of them not as relics but as roots, tethering her work to something deeper. She says the project is about Indian women, but it’s also about her, and that is what makes it honest.
The images are heavy. They sag under the weight of generations, each one asking for something small, something impossible: space, safety, breath. And yet, there is beauty in the heaviness. It’s in the gentle tug of fingers braiding hair. The way a head tilts slightly in comfort against another shoulder.
The poem accompanying the series, also titled Fakhta, translates roughly to “dove”. It speaks of fragility and rebuilding, of nests made from broken twigs and hope. The photographs, too, are about rebuilding identities. Indian women, Mahira seems to say, are taught to shrink themselves to fit the world. Here, in this red-lit space, they take up the room they deserve. They sit and sprawl, write and hold, cry and resist.
What does it mean to capture someone? To hold their image still when everything else is moving? What does it mean to do so as a woman? To place yourself between the lens and the weight of history?
The series could have stopped as a study of women in their quiet moments. But Mahira wanted more. She wanted to celebrate. These women are alive in ways society often refuses to let them be. And yet, there is no triumph here. Women are still carrying their histories, still making sense of the shards they’ve been handed. They remind me of something Joan Didion once wrote: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Here, in the bold red of Fakhta, Mahira tells a story.
What is left after viewing Fakhta is not an image but a feeling. A weight, maybe, or a warmth. It's a reminder of what women have endured, what they continue to endure, and what they make from the ruins they are left with. Mahira’s women may be whispering, but the world, finally, is listening.
Follow Mahira here.
