“Incredible India!” couldn’t be a more apt tag line. I’ve recently returned from my third trip to India, and I love it more with each visit.
India assaults the senses with its contradictions – its beauty and ugliness.
One moment, you’ll be smelling raw sewage, the next, you’ll catch a whiff of incense. You’ll drive past a squatter camp stamped green and grey with poverty, then see a woman in a searing pink sari walking through it. You’ll want to rub your hands regularly with antiseptic wipes, then will touch the unimaginable softness of a pashmina woven in the Himalayas. You’ll want to escape the continuous horn of a 24-hour Delhi traffic jam, then strain your ears to capture the melody of a reed flute player on a street corner. You’ll taste the acrid smoke of a funereal pyre on the great Ganga River, then smack your lips over paneer and atchar and a tantalising assortment of dishes altogether new to your palate. And then that sixth sense – you’ll want to touch brass bells in praise of Buddha, you’ll want to dance in the presence of the Hindi gods Ganesh and Lakshmi, and you’ll want to sink to your knees in a mosque.
Incredible India. There is no country that is more alive on earth. I can’t wait to go back!
For more photographs of India, visit the India set on the Flowcomms Flickr account.