A Diminishing Line: Uzma Moshin
© Uzma Mohsin
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Artist Statement: Fellowship of The Ring
Fellowship of the Ring focuses on unusual women and an unusual sport. The women come from different backgrounds – rural, urban, middle class, lower middle class – and the sport they have chosen to pursue is boxing, forming a unique 'fellowship of the ring'. Storming a male bastion – particularly this bastion – isn't easy, and for many of the women featured in this series and many others who aren't here, the battle lines are very clearly drawn.
Since 2001 when boxing was introduced in India women boxers have given India many world champions and every year Indian women boxers win armful of medals at international events. There are an estimated thousand women boxers in India, a number as astonishing as what the sport has achieved in a short time.
The largest number of boxers come from the states of Manipur, Haryana and Kerala. Most of the girls start young. Boxing demands rigorous training and discipline besides fitness. Twenty-year old Priyanka lives in Shibpur, Kolkata’s Howrah area. Two houses down live Saboni and Sayoni Karar. They meet everyday on Priyanka’s terrace to practice under the watchful eyes of their couch Sanjib Banerjee who ebbs them on. Sometimes he makes them practice with his boy students. Only a few kilometres away, at the Howrah police barracks, a hundred boys train daily. This boxing club has bred many national champions but there is no space for girls.
© Uzma Mohsin
At the Asian championship selection camp girls from all over India arrive. Some of them have set up little households together. Three or four to a room, they cook, clean and help each other with the training. Kalpana Sharma is the daughter of a rice farmer from rural Assam. Her family’s poverty has ensured that she spent a large part of her living in Sports Authority of India hostels as a little girl. They hope that she can box her way into a paying job but for Kalpana winning is what counts.
Kavita is a powerful young Haryanvi welterweight. She has fought against both opposition and sexist attitudes to be here.
L Sarita Devi from Manipur is a world Champion trying to retain her title a third time.
Every sports story needs a heroine. Four-time World Champion Mary Kom is the natural choice. She is today the face of Indian women boxing. Her parents didn’t even know about her boxing till she won the State Championships. Skating past penury with her Manipur police job and small grants she made India proud by winning the bronze medal at the London Olympics 2012.
For most women, their greatest victories have gone unlauded in a country where mediocre performance in other sports bring fanatic following. Despite this, women boxers have fought and are fighting their way to the very top.
First published in Tehelka newsmagazine, Volume 5, Issue 38 in 2008.
>> Link to Exhibition: Uzma Mohsin
Captions for the exhibition images:
Image-1: Outside the house of Sanno Bibi.
Image-2: Priyanka Manjhi takes inspiration from her father. A 1970’s newspaper describes Priyanka’s father as “a plucky and clever boxer” almost the same words used by Priyanka’s coach to describe her.
Image-3: Priyanka along with Saboni practice on her terrace as there are no boxing clubs for women. Their coach Sanjib Banerjee often makes them box with boys to improve their skills.
Image-4: At a practice session. Amateur women boxers have to start very young. Taking hits, courting pain is part of the game.
Image-5: Saboni who loves stuff toys relaxes after a practice session
Image-6: Saboni with her parents in the house in Howrah.
Image -7: Kolkata-based twins Sanno and Shakeela Bibi. Their careers are monitored by their mother Bano Begum who keeps a watchful eye on them.
Image-8: Sanno Bibi
Image-9: Kavita Goyat is a powerful welterweight from Haryana. Boxers from elsewhere may complain of Haryana’s weather and sexist attitudes, but the women say the sport has given them recognition.
Image-10: L Sarita from Manipur is a World Champion. Even watching her rest is too strenuous for the sedentary. No boxer who isn’t in peak condition can survive the rigour of the boxing camps.
Image-11: Jyotsana binds her hands before going into a practice session. The boxers have to protect their bodies to sustain their all-too short career in boxing. Fitness and constant alertness is the first thing serious young boxers learn.
Image-12: L Sarita with her coach at a national camp.
Image-13: Mary Kom is one of the few boxers who’s story tells you the truth about poverty and struggle of being a boxer. She made India proud by winning the bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics and a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games of 2018.
Artist Biography:
Uzma Mohsin uses photography to unravel narratives of people, places and their histories. By looking at cross-cultural encounters and perceptions, her work tries to build a conversation around the idea of belonging. Her series of silver gelatin montages, ‘Songkeepers’, was featured in issue 243: ‘Looking Out/Looking in’ of Aperture magazine in 2021.
She has exhibited both in and outside of India—her recent exhibitions include Girl Gaze: Journeys Through the Punjab & the Black Country, UK; Blast Festival, West Bromwich UK (2019); Ellipsis: Between Word and Image, Jawahar Kala Kendra Jaipur (2019); Ephemeral: New Futures for Passing Images, Serendipity Arts Festival, Panjim (2018) and India/Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art, FotoFest Biennial, Houston (2018). She is also the recipient of the Alkazi Foundation Documentary Grant (2017).
She was born in Aligarh and has graduated from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India.
>> Link to Exhibition: Uzma Mohsin