Daughters of the Eid.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
It was a sea of men.
One insufferably humid morning The Delhi Walla attended the prayer ceremony of Eid ul-Fitr at the Faiz Ilahi Masjid, a white-marble mosque tucked in one corner of the Ramlila Maidan. The crowd was so great that a large part of the congregation had to settle outside the mosque. The people spread out their prayer mats on the road itself; in front of the Mughal-era Turkman Gate; outside the building of the Delhi Stock Exchange. The traffic booth at the center of the square seemed like a lighthouse.
The street dogs looked puzzled. A barely-conscious beggar looked on with indifference.
I tried to look for women. But there were none. Then I spotted a little girl in a pink lehenga. She was sitting next to a grave-looking man; he was probably her father. Then I spotted another little girl. She was holding her little golden bag just the way the London walli Her Majesty holds her hand bag. And then I spotted yet another little girl and then another little girl.
After the prayers ended, all the little girls returned home with their respective fathers.
The women in Islam
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