Iconic Women Project

Almost a goddess in India’s collective memory, Rani Lakshmibai is that singular woman whose life has become a symbol of heroism and patriotism. Working through the deification, perhaps one can get a glimpse of the real woman. Manikarnika had an unusual childhood for a girl in her time. Losing her mother at 4, she frequented the court of Peshwa Bajirao II, taking easily to horse riding, fencing and the rules of battle. She was also literate, confident and opinionated. A teenage bride of the much older Gangadhar Rao, King of Jhansi, she would soon face her next great loss: the death of their infant son Damodar Rao, and soon, her husband. Tragedy was only starting to unfold in Rani Lakshmibai’s life. Although the rulers had adopted an heir, Jhansi was annexed by the British in 1854 using the infamous Doctrine of Lapse, thus usurping her right to her kingdom. With war raging across the plains, she set up and trained her own army in 1857 to defend Jhansi. When all seemed lost, she escape...

'India's Freedom Struggle' was that chapter from our history textbooks that's actually stuck with many of us into our adult lives. Those of us who did school (and history lessons) in the 80s and 90s will probably recall the bits about a handful of freedom fighters - mostly men - who bravely defied a cruel, oppressive and blatantly exploitative system, to win India her freedom in 1947. Looking back, i can't help feeling that the Freedom Struggle was taught - somehow - as a movement essentially led and won by men, with the rare great woman who got a paragraph-mention in our thin-paged, single-colour history textbooks. We live in a polarised place in polarised times. Maybe now more than ever, it helps to look back at our collective past, and see if there's any context we can derive from it. Here are my tributes to a few great women, those whose words, thoughts and actions contributed immensely to India's Freedom Struggle (and who sadly didn't get a dece...

A Mother’s Vengeance In the 6th century BCE, the Central Asian Steppe was a vast and hostile terrain, where the warlike Scythians, the original horselords of the ancient world, reigned supreme. Her husband dead, her son captured by Cyrus the Great, and her people under attack, Tomiris, queen of the Massagatae (associated with the Scythians), might have felt she had little to lose. Having refused Cyrus’ offer of marriage, Tomiris knew she would have to brace her people for open war with the most powerful man alive at the time. With the Achaemenid armies closing in on her lands, she sent out a defiant message: “King of Persia…Be content to rule in peace your own kingdom, and bear to see us reign over the countries that are ours to govern.” It was when her son Spargapises died in captivity under Cyrus’ armies (by some accounts killing himself), that an enraged Tomiris gathered every single force in her command and attacked, eventually defeating them. According to the ancient Greek h...

The Dragon Lady Few women in history have been as vilified as Cixi (“Tse-shee”, 1835-1905), the concubine who took absolute power in China, and held on to it, for almost 50 years. After a century of defamation as a Wicked Witch of the East, historians have decided it’s time to relook at her legacy. From a powerless teenager in the harem of Emperor Xianfeng, Cixi rose sharply in the ranks, becoming the Empress Dowager and effectively the person in command of China. She did this through a mix of fate (by giving birth to the emperor’s only son), and the clever move of befriending Empress Ci’an. They would be co-regents and remain close allies until Ci’an’s death. As Xianfeng sank into a stupor induced by opium and women with tiny feet, Cixi spent time studying Confucianism, while mastering court politics. After his death, she ruthlessly dismissed the men in power, putting her son Tongzhi on the throne aged 5. Cixi stood behind a scroll, taking every decision. (And so was born the ph...

"My pets are my hats." Fashion writer, influencer, icon, the Original Punk Grandmom. Anna Piaggi was also wildly experimental in her self expression. Her peculiar and insanely eclectic wardrobe spanned around 200 years, and what she walked out in was always a mix of vintage, theatrical, clownish, childlike dress-up. The beauty of it was it could never really be defined. An obsessive collector of vintage and historical wardrobe pieces, her styling was a collage of stories, eras and lives lived through time. She had a wild curiosity and appetite for clothing and accessories from auction houses, pavement stalls, vintage sellers and grand old ladies recently departed. Army fatigues and Manolo Blahniks, aprons, boas and walking sticks...each item had a life and a story. Thank you @ashdeenl my most fashion-educated friend for introducing me to her. Really hope I did even a tiny bit of justice to this incredible woman. .

The Ultimate Shape Shifter "We are all the product of what we want to project to the world." Cindy Sherman is that iconic artist whose work intrigues us because it starts to reveal itself, and then doesn't. The picture holds the promise of a story, drawing the viewer in to work through the layers. The projected and overt, the woman behind the dress-up, the play on identity, the invitation to gaze, and finally, the meaning of all of these, overlayed and coexisting. Perhaps my strongest influence and inspiration, somewhere in the raison d'etre of the @iconicwomenproject lies a deep if subterranean link to Cindy Sherman. A key figure of the 'Pictures Generation', a group of American artists whose work focused on social critique in an era of growing mass imagery in the early '80s, Cindy Sherman's work takes a profound look at identity, especially female, as something carefully fashioned for consumption and deception. Turning the camera on herself in...

"Wake up! We are losing Mali! We are losing our culture, our tradition, our origin, our roots!" . Fatoumata Diawara's smoky-sweet voice was one of those that rang out in protest at the fundamentalist takeover of Northern Mali in 2012. . Singer-songwriter, actor and multiple Grammy nominee, Fatoumata was born to Malian parents in Ivory Coast, and in her teens fled Bamako to eventually live in Paris. . With her use of the electric guitar with traditional West African beats and sounds, she is one of the artistes thanks to whom many of us are now familiar with Touareg music. . On her emotional connect to Mali and its music, she says "Every aunt in my village, they sing only for themselves, for weddings, for spiritual reasons. The melodies are different from jazz, but the roots are right there." . I decided to give this Malian look a playful Indian twist, with a Kanjivaram sari, Assamese scarf and my favourite Malnad beads. Thank you @sithara_kudige for introducing...