A purdah, the Hindustani word for curtain, is not just a material device for moderating heat. It is also a technology for maintaining female modesty. Behind the purdah, women live and labor, with the dupatta—another piece of veiling cloth—draped around their heads. They bend toward the stove, stirring dal and flipping rotis, the dupatta soaking up the sweat at the backs of their necks. The stove sits near the door so that the heat from its flame and the fumes from tempered spices can escape through the curtain. No one cooks outside. Because purity and pollution remain governing concerns in Hindu households, the sacred space of the hearth must be indoors, insulated from outsiders. So must women be inside, behind the purdah.

For people in working-class bastis (neighborhoods), where roofs made from thin sheets of tin and concrete catch and concentrate the sun’s rays, cool interiors and cold water are luxuries. Rackety ceiling fans that circulate hot air or tiny exhaust fans are about all they can afford, and a power cut can bring even these to a standstill. Water must be collected from communal taps. Yet despite their meager means, the people here manage to craft a kind of thermal comfort.

These vignettes have been penned by young women and girls from the Ankur Writers Collective. They have taken these pictures. In between their school hours and domestic chores, they observe, reflect, and write about their world. There is a matter-of-factness in their tone. There is also irony and humor. Some dream of different ways of being. Some scheme to make the most of what they have. Some grumble about the awfulness, while others exult in triumphing over the trials of everyday living.

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SHORTS by Yashoda

Chanchal lives with her bedridden husband and three children in a cramped room above her in-laws. Every available inch of space is taken up with the paraphernalia of daily life: mattresses and clothes, kitchen jars and utensils, a gas cylinder, a small wooden sofa, a giant drum to store water, a tiny cupboard with the children’s books. The place smells musty; the odor of rotting garbage wafts in from outside.

On Sunday, July 21, 2024, the hottest day in the history of the Earth, Delhi’s temperature crossed 48ºC/118ºF. In Chanchal’s house, it felt even hotter. Men and boys were out of the basti and on the street, trying to cool themselves by the breeze of passing cars. Elderly women sat out in the narrow lanes. But for women and girls like Chanchal and her daughters, there was no space on the street or in the lane. They had to remain in their claustrophobic room.

That afternoon, Chanchal’s sweat refused to dry. Her salwar-kameez (loose fitting pants and tunic) stuck to her body, no matter how she folded up the sleeves or lifted the bottoms to her knees. Her daughters kept washing their faces, but they couldn’t tell the sweat from the water. Then Neha said, “Mummy, chachu (father’s younger brother) downstairs discarded lots of old clothes. There were some shorts there, too. Can’t we take those?”

Chanchal said, “But those are all boys’ clothes. If you wear them, what will your dadi (paternal grandmother) say?”

Neha replied, “Dadi will only say something if we wear them downstairs on the street.” Chanchal sorted through the old clothes and gave Neha and Tassi a pair of shorts each. The sisters looked at each other and smiled. Feeling cooler, they fell asleep, eyes closing easily after their restless night.

The rest of the story describes what happens when Neha wakes up in the evening and rushes out to buy milk, forgetting that she is still wearing shorts. In a basti where many women wear the full-body burqa when stepping out of their home, the shorts are a scandal. What did the old women’s dress police say? We will leave you in suspense.

OLD TIMES by Zeba

Chandravati likes to talk. Once she starts talking, it’s hard to get her to stop. When I asked her about heat, she poured out a flood of memories. How it was in her village, where houses were set apart. Not squeezed next to one another on narrow alleys like here. Sure, they had no running water or power, but it felt open and breezy. There was a neem tree in their courtyard, and they would spread their charpais (string-cots) below it. Or they would sleep on the roof. It was airy there, but when the wind died, they would cool themselves with homemade beejna (fans) of woven grass. What fun it was to go with friends to collect the grass for making the fans! Then to jump into the canal to cool off! When a woman got married, they would send several beejna with her so that she could fan herself and remember her home.

When Chandravati got married at fifteen and came to Sundarnagri forty years ago, there were only a few shacks dotted about the land. They would climb on top of their tin roof and sleep outdoors. Now all the houses are stuck tight together. There’s no room to breathe. You stand in the lane and look up, but you can’t see the sky. In the village, they could put a charpai or two out in the lane to sleep on. Here, there is no space. But still, when there is a power cut and all is dark and still, Chandravati opens her door and lies down with her head on the threshold. She fans herself with her beejna until she falls asleep. Sometimes she sprinkles water on its frayed, braided-grass surface. As the moist droplets fall on her face, she thinks of her village home, its cool open spaces now fading into the recesses of her mind.

FRIDGE by Ruchi

Bimla works as a maid in a mansion. Her tasks there are the same as the ones she does at home, but she has to set out at five in the morning and travel by bus through thick traffic. When she arrives, she must work hard and long. When she comes home in the evening, she hides her weariness behind a smile as she greets her husband Ramesh, a photographer whose business has dwindled since mobile phones became common.

Bimla’s employer at the mansion trusts and likes her, so when she bought a new fridge, she gave the old one to Bimla. For two days, the fridge sat outside, gathering dust. There was no place for it in their 162-square-foot home. Then they somehow managed to maneuver it in, wiped it clean, and plugged it into the power board. A muted roar erupted from the old compressor. A yellow light glowed when they opened the fridge door. They put in a bowl of water and a plastic bag of chilis and tomatoes.

The fridge cooled things inside, but it threw heat out. Within a week, their room was suffocatingly warm. The bed on which Bimla and her daughter Surabhi slept was right next to the fridge. Now their sleep fled. Ramesh slept on the floor, covering himself with a damp scarf that would cool him as its moisture evaporated. In the middle of the night, Bimla, exasperated, and Surabhi left their bed and joined Ramesh on the floor. She began to switch off the fridge at night, but stopped when she heard that this was not good for the fridge. What can you do? You learn to live with heat.

HOSPITALITY by Rani

When Lajjavati’s jhuggi (small shack) was demolished, she was given a plot of land in Savda, on the outskirts of Delhi. Slowly, people settled there and built proper houses. But Lajjavati and her mentally disabled son still live in a tiny shack made from bamboo mats with a mud floor. The officials had not installed her electricity meter, so she had only a kerosene lamp to light her dark. But then Gupta-ji next door extended a wire, so she has a lightbulb to see by. No electricity, no electric fan. She fashioned a piece of cardboard into a fan, and it is always in her hand. To keep away mosquitoes, she shuts her door and burns dung-cakes made from the manure of wandering cows. After working in the vegetable fields all day, she lies down on the floor, fanning herself to sleep.

One day, acquaintances from her old neighborhood came to visit. They had not met for years. The demolition had scattered families to different places. Lajjavati went to Gupta-ji and said, “I have guests, but there’s no space inside to seat them. Please lend me your chairs.” Gupta-ji gave her his plastic chairs, and she arranged them outside her shack so that her guests could sit. Then arose the problem of feeding them. There were not enough provisions to fill everyone’s stomach, and smoke from her wood-burning mud stove would bother them.

Lajjavati had a brainwave. She called her son and told him to show their guests around Savda. Now she could cook in peace. She rushed to the shop and bought some provisions on credit. She plucked some tender sponge gourds from the creeper outside her shack and made a sabzi (vegetable dish). She made rotis. When the guests returned, she spread a mat on the floor for them to sit and lovingly served them the sabzi with hot rotis. They savored each bite.

After they left, Lajjavati returned the chairs to Gupta-ji. She sat down against the wall next to the stove, soaked in sweat. It was a challenge, she thought. But it is nice to have guests.