India is overwhelming, beautiful, epic, so so epic, rich with so much life, so much harmony and so much chaos. As we reach the end of our time here (we’ll be moving on to Thailand tomorrow!), I just can’t comprehend how slowly and how quickly the days go by. We have embarked upon our travels with a guide book that begins it’s revelations about India with the sentence, “India is a land of contrasts.” No statement could be more true about the land of my forebearers.
As a photographer, there is no greater asset than being inconspicuous. You would think, me being a brown person of Indian descent, that I would be able to blend in with all the other brown people. But people stared at me like I was an alien everywhere I went. Me, with my western clothes, my short hair, my weird adventure sneakers, and my white “friend” (which is what everyone though Husbone was!). All these things, and my familiar Bengali face was a paradox most people could only just stare in wonder at. So it was hard to get photos of people not in wonder at my odd appearance. But with the encouragement of Husbone, we persevered and got some amazing photos. I’ll do a film post in the weeks after we get back and can finally get everything developed (around which time I’ll also, and finally be posting images from Madhu and Devaraj’s amazing Kerala wedding!)
Varanasi is a magical place. It’s also a holy place. Husbone and I embarked upon a small boat in the Ganges at sunrise, and it was one of the most magical mornings of our trip.
The light was so amazing, I didn’t edit these (aside from a little cropping here and there) at all. Yum.
If I don’t have wifi in the coming days, then also, Merry Christimas! Happy Hanukkah! Joyous Kwanzaa! I hope you all have wonderful holidays!
Also a Husbone original (and the one below!)
My favorite shot of the whole morning, by none other than Husbone!!
by Punam
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