Dine for a cause at cafe run by acid attack survivors in Agra, India

A new café like no other, Sheroes Hangout, in Agra, India, home of the Taj Mahal, is run by five women who have all survived acid attacks (she-heroes, geddit?). With the help of NGO Stop Acid Attacks, they decided to deny their assailants the satisfaction of their victimhood. Instead of staying hidden away at home, they wanted to live normal lives, and a normal life means getting up in the morning and going to work. That is what the café allows them to do - not to mention the fact that, coming from poor families, they need the income; whatever savings their parents had have been spent on their daughters' reconstructive surgeries.

Plenty, sadly. The Taj Mahal was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a monument to his beloved wife, Mumtaz. The Sheroes women have each suffered from a love that has gone toxic - that of a boyfriend who could not take rejection and instead took diabolical revenge or, as in Gita Mahau's case, of a husband who became enraged when his wife gave birth to a second daughter instead of the son he wanted. Mahau, 50, was sleeping at her parents' home, with her daughters snuggled beside her, when her husband walked in and flung acid on them. Her infant daughter died of her injuries. The elder girl, Neetu, was maimed and, now 23, also works at the café.

What a question! Have you not been paying attention? Furthermore, Sheroes Hangout is a whole lot better than the many dives in dirty and crowded Agra. Moreover, the money you spend on a coffee and a sandwich will not only give these women an income, it will also help turn the café into a training centre for acid-attack survivors from other parts of the country. The idea is that, once trained, they can return to their home towns to open similar ventures.

Fairly standard vegetarian fare: sandwiches, pakoras (deep-fried vegetable fritters), pasta and burgers.

Traditional Indian wicker furniture gives the café a pleasant ambience. One corner houses a collection of books with a feminist theme - understandable given the injustice these women have suffered at the hands of men. Works by Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer serve to remind the reader just how far large parts of the world have progressed in the past half century in giving women equality and dignity. One survivor, Rupa, has trained in fashion design, and her outfits are on sale in the café, along with handicrafts made by women in the hill state of Uttarakhand.