These photographs are from homes of domestic workers in Jaipur. There is network of migrant community from Kooch Bihar, West Bengal, who settle in Jaipur for better employment opportunities. They settle in the rental spaces in the city. Usually the rooms in this rentable setup are as small as 12sqm, and family of four or five lives in it.
The women in the house are predominantly domestic workers. Starting her day at 5 in the morning finishing morning chores at home, arranging and rearranging things in the house, cleaning it and cooking for the family, she then sets out to work. Working simultaneously on average in seven to eight houses, she returns back home in the evening, does the same chores for her own house and again cooks for the family. The 12sqm house then becomes her living room, kitchen, dining room, private space, bedroom and kids’ room. As her occupation is domestic work, she everyday consumes the spaces of houses she works in and the manner in which they have to be maintained, this reflects back in the way she lives and makes her own home.
She exactly knows how and when will each object be used and therefore there is logic and rationale behind arranging and using the space the way she does. These spaces are extremely intimate and emotional, they have past memories of the place they have migrated from and future aspirations that the city will give them. As the women of the house is in constant relation with this transition and it is the woman who is dominantly making the decisions in the house, the genuine and feminine nature of these spaces that makes the environment of 3m x 3m habitable.
