Maya Angelou's feminist poem gets immortalized in Indian photo project

Maya Angelou’s epiphanic words in her awe-inspiring poem, “Still I Rise”, still resonate within our souls. Almost 40 years after the poem was written, Angelou’s words still find context in the modern day where women are constantly having to rise from their pains and predicaments, shattering boundaries and breaking free from shackles enchained to their necks by the patriarchal regimen.

Saptadeep Mondal, a 27-year-old filmographer based out of Delhi, takes on a new venture for women to raise their suppressed voices in a photographic exploration. Saptadeep, inspired by Maya Aneglou’s long struggle in the feminist movement, has depicted her poem “Still I Rise” in a photo story named The Devi Project, with model Dipabali Nath, make-up artist Ethina Biswas, and colourist Tanmay Nandy.

The Devi Project aims to project that women, who are worshipped in our culture and deemed as 'devi' (the goddess), are the ones that are silenced, suppressed, beaten up, and shackled. This dichotomy in the society illustrates how even in 2017, men view women as objects to be cherished, or to be put on a pedestal, and not as a human being. Saptadeep Mondal seeks to be a ripple in the ocean in his endeavour to oust misogyny. Mondal said, "We humans are mere three-dimensional beings moving through length, breadth, and heights until we invented photography to capture time".
(Image credit: Google)

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
(Image credit: Saptadeep Mandal)

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
(Image credit: Saptadeep Mondal)

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
(Image credit: Saptadeep Mondal)

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
(Image credit: Saptadeep Mondal)

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
(Image credit: Saptadeep Mondal)

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
(Image credit: Saptadeep Mondal)

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
(Image credit: Saptadeep Mondal)