Holy Holi - 2011

During Holi, one of India's main Hindu festivals, an explosion of pigments and coloured water that people throw at each other floods the streets, celebrating fertility through the coming of spring. Social and caste boundaries are abolished for a seemingly festive day, which nevertheless sees a spike in violence against women. Paradoxically, many women do not take part for fear of the excesses of some drunken men. In 2010, for the second part of the Holy Daughters project, Prune Nourry invited a dozen little girls – dressed in white, according to tradition – to appropriate this ritual in their local gaushala, a sanctuary for sick or abandoned sacred cows whose milk has nourished them.