Orchha - Windows on the Women's World

March 2007

I’ve had a long-standing love affair with doors and doorways, and hundreds of photos of them to show for it. 

In Orchha that I fell in love with windows – first with the arched and delicately carved window openings that framed the views outside so prettily.  

 

And then with the zenana ‘windows’ – the windows of the palace women’s quarters, filled with stonework lattices, to shield these royal women – wives, concubines, daughters, aunts, grandmothers and their assorted maids and servants – from the eyes, especially the eyes of men, in the world outside. 

Looking up these outsiders might see an outline, or a patch of colour, or a glint of jewelry, but who that might be would remain a mystery.  

Or would it?

 

At once protected and imprisoned, the women gathered here in the rooms behind these windows, well above the lower levels of the palace where business was conducted, where visitors were received, and where servants went about their duties.

 

I imagined looking out from behind these stone lattices, my view of the world fragmented into diamonds, squares, intricate geometric designs.  

I would bring my face closer to the window, to get an unobstructed view.  

Or would I?  

What if I were seen?  

 

Then again perhaps playing peek-a-boo with a would be suitor – someone I would never come to know except in games of peek-a-boo – was a favourite entertainment.  

Perhaps those wily royal women developed intricate systems of secret messages: ‘look for me behind the window with the birds at 7; I’ll flash my bracelet to you three times’.   That means I love you....

How hopelessly romantic (me and them).

 

 

Still I loved the patterns of light, and, just as with my door fetish, took too many photos of windows and lattices, trying to catch – what?  

The play of light and dark?  

The interesting shapes and patterns?  

An appreciation of the artistry of the carvings?  

Or a window into a time long ago?  

A symbol of a reality still lived by so many women, in so many places?  

And a reminder of how fortunate I am?  

Lest I forget...