The women nobody was watching, until everyone was
Smita Patil wore no contouring. Her skin was dark, her features were strong, and she stood in front of the camera in the 1970s and 1980s as if the camera owed her nothing. She did not soften herself for a close-up. She did not lighten her skin for a poster. She simply existed, fully, without apology, and an entire generation of women recognised something in that existence they had been told was not beautiful.
