Francesca Manolino

Ghaziabad, on the periphery of Delhi suffers from a severe concrete fever. The Bhuapur Village stands beside other identical high-rises not far from the Delhi flower market. A hard to define beauty envelops this labyrinth of stairs, repetition of floors in a discontinuous and raw harmony. Women who live there wander through the same old corridors like fish swimming in a fish bowl. They close the curtains and become curtains. They hide behind pillars and slowly they too turn to stone.The iron grates on the windows shelter them from other grey cylinders nearby. Some of them decide to accept this prison imposed by a jealous husband or an excessively possessive father and turn grey like their surroundings or merge with them until they are practically invisible. Others search and learn little by little to recognise who and what, in the middle of the concrete, is not completely dead and try to nurture this. They search for beauty in details or in the sun which, sometimes, courageously floods these spaces. They seek change through education and at school – it is the only moment when a girl can leave this place without feeling guilty.