Episode 9: From Benaras to Banda, Women Are Working Out 

Kiran Dua wears sparkly red bangles over her workout gloves, and a bindi and earrings over her polyester sports-shirt. Her arms bulge as she easily chest presses two dumbbells. “Give me heavier weights,” she says, “I’ll lift those too.” The 41-year-old housewife is a regular at Neo Gym, which claims to have trained over 700 women and girls since it opened in the small town of Banda, Uttar Pradesh.    Later, Dua hangs out in a nearby park with Usma Verma—a teacher who tosses a set of dumbbells above her head as if they were feathers and is proud of her fitness at age 55; and Priyanka Singh, a 26-year-old English MA in a tomato-red shirt. WIth them is a