This is a close-up of a larger photograph of the teacher and students at a government normal school.  Training ladies, some quite young, to become teachers was still a new concept in 1872 or 1873.  The fashion details revealed are lovely and varied.  White blouses with long sleeves are worn with sarees that have prominent borders by four students.  Another two in such blouses are different:  one saree is an amazing print on a dark ground, long blouse over the saree, while the other girl has a borderless dotted saree (and a cute shoe just visible), with a striped blouse, effectively combining patterns.  Standing on the left is a girl whose white saree has a faint pattern, but over-exposed so the details are impossible to determine.  It is probable that they are all Parsi girls.

Two more students wear traditional woven cotton sarees in neat checks or simple striped borders with the choli not visible, and the older woman has a decorated silk choli.  These three, with heads uncovered, wear fancy nose rings in the usual Indian fashion.  And last we come to their English teacher!  She is in the latest Western style dress, tight corset visible, with a watch on a chain tucked into her wide belt.  The rows of bias-cut ruffles are headed with dark braid or ribbon and she has a white collar/jabot pinned below the throat.  Yes, even calmly sitting on the pretty bench with her students in the garden, the British lady would have been less comfortable than those wrapped in sarees.