Two Albino sisters in India live in near total isolation. A photo collection peers inside their daily lives.
In Kolkata’s Hatibagan area is a two-story house that is a hundred and sixty-three years old. It sits far back from the road, on a piece of land so well insulated that none of the sounds of the city—not the honking of cars nor the cries of the peanut vendors, not even the barking of stray dogs—may enter. It is the ancestral home of Gayatri and Swati Goswami, two elderly sisters who rarely step outside.
The sisters were among the millions of people in India who learned that the country would go into lockdown on March 24, 2020. They were shocked and devastated by the announcement, recalled their nephew, the photographer Debsuddha, who documented the sisters’ experience living underrestrictions in a series called “Belonging.” The sisters’ small outings had been their only way of breaking the monotony of their life; now their world became smaller still.
All of the children were educated—even the girls—but, despite their parents’ best efforts, life was painful for the albino sisters. During Durga Puja, the most important festival of the Bengali Hindu calendar, when families dress up in new clothes, visit temples, and socialize, some relatives avoided the Goswami house, believing that the sisters’ appearance would negatively impact their social status.
The photographer, who is thirty-one, has become closer with his aunts in recent years. His curiosity about their story is shaped by his own experiences of alienation—he speaks with a stutter, and was bullied by his peers for it. Debsuddha’s first language is Bengali, but even in English he talks forcefully about the indignities his aunts have suffered. “When they fell in love, they had to keep it to themselves,” he said. “They have lived a life of restraint in every way.
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