The tinkle of bicycles and honks of the auto-rickshaws, the sound of wet cloth on a cold stone, the pressure cooker giving off a faint hiss, filling the air with a familiar aroma – I was home.

Scenes from Laad Bazaar. Laad, which means “lacquer,” is used to make colorful bangles which this bazaar is extremely famous for. The bazaar is also famous for selling typical street trinkets and Hyderabadi saris.
[media-credit id=4681 align=”alignright” width=”300″] Scenes from Laad Bazaar. Laad, which means “lacquer,” is used to make colorful bangles which this bazaar is extremely famous for. The bazaar is also famous for selling typical street trinkets and Hyderabadi saris.
After a journey of 24 hours and more than 10,000 miles, I had finally arrived in India for winter break after an entire year away as an international student at UCLA.

Los Angeles was now across an ocean, but in my head, I was still juxtaposing its wide multi-lane streets and fr

A view of the Laad Bazaar from atop the Charminar (four minarets, built 1591). The streets are lined with the ubiquitous black and yellow auto-rickshaws while pedestrians walk to and fro on the roads, absolutely carefree. This part of Hyderabad, also referred to as “Old Hyderabad” was at the time of the British Raj and even before it, territory of the Muslim royalty (Nawabs) that ruled the state of Hyderabad.
[media-credit id=”4188″ align=”alignright” width=”300″] A view of the Laad Bazaar from atop the Charminar (four minarets, built 1591). The streets are lined with the ubiquitous black and yellow auto-rickshaws while pedestrians walk to and fro on the roads, absolutely carefree. This part of Hyderabad, also referred to as “Old Hyderabad” was at the time of the British Raj and even before it, territory of the Muslim royalty (Nawabs) that ruled the state of Hyderabad.
eeways with the narrow and unkempt streets of India.

Wandering around these streets, the ones I had grown up in, I realized that I still knew so little about them.

For I was a stranger in my own country, that little alcove of the Asian south. We hear of it in myth and legend, in folklore and storybooks. But I grew up in a very different India: the post British-Raj India, the India that was getting consumed by the West, the new India that was trying on the outfit of globalization, the young India that was the new kid in school, trying to fit in and be cool.

 

We have come a long way from being a colony. I knew of the India from the history books, the ancient India that was full of gold palaces and lush green gardens that matched Eden. I even knew about the revolutionary India, united, struggling, fighting for freedom for almost a century. But I still did not know my India, the India that I had grown up in for 18 years.

I’m a photographer for the Daily Bruin. So, with a camera strapped around my neck, I set out into the streets of Hyderabad in an attempt to rediscover my birthplace, to break out of the small bubble I had grown up in.

A traditional Gujarati thali (my family is from the western state of Gujarat) with a bowl of dal (lentil soup), a bowl of cooked greens, some mango pickle, salad and bread.
[media-credit id=4188 align=”alignright” width=”300″] A traditional Gujarati thali (my family is from the western state of Gujarat) with a bowl of dal (lentil soup), a bowl of cooked greens, some mango pickle, salad and bread.
From behind a lens, seeing becomes different. The eye captures what would otherwise have been invisible without the lens in front of it.

I was looking for the India that had been invisible to my eyes all this time. I did realize one thing on my excursions around the streets of India, though: The country can never be fully discovered.

A single gaze will never be enough to take in her ethereal beauty.

For all the sights in the world – and I have seen many – this one will always leave me in awe and make me lust to wander even more.

Maybe some of these photos I took will help shed light on what I did discover and uncover about India this past break.

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