India is vast and diverse; no one could begin to understand her mysterious ways in the course of a month-long swing through a handful of randomly-selected sites.



Many common threads seem to weave the far corners of the country together. Ornate carvings, vividly-coloured saris, sprawling piles of bright green coconuts and long black braids carefully woven with jasmine are commonly seen throughout India. Aromas of fragrant sandalwood used for worship, pungent spices and smoldering garbage at dusk are experienced alongside the sounds of hundreds of horns honking, a million monkeys screeching and ancient rusted machinery groaning as it hauls India forward. There are endlessly serene faces that break into bright grins and newspapers that use colourful words like “bamboozled” entirely without irony. And there is the endless optimism.



The photographs in this book were captured hurriedly, often from moving vehicles – they are snippets of impressions; fleeting glimpses into life in a land of dizzying extremes.