Returning home after eight years, you see the people around you a lot differently.
by Abhinav Jain
(click on thumbnails for full-size images)
How does the land you were born in and lived in for most of your childhood turn into a foreign place? The faces that were 
once commonplace to you now seem exotic, fascinating, and incredible. You see them everywhere and yet you struggle to peer into the depth of the lines etched into them. Sometimes the lines tell the story of a lifetime of hard work, hearty laughter, and sincere warmth. Other times, it is the eyes that better tell the story – a bright glimmer of hope, fatigue that has seemingly set in permanently, bubbling excitement, great sadness, pure joy, indifference, perseverance. You witness the entire spectrum of human emotions within minutes, on any given street at any given time.
I left India as a child, and was about ten years old when I moved to New York. There are many changes you notice with a move like that. Climate, food, culture, customs… they all shock you. But there’s nothing that changes more drastically than the faces. The new sea of faces around you is decidedly different, and you think back frequently to the faces you used to see everyday. But over time, you start to forget the stoic features of the women, young and old, who tirelessly haul heavy building materials on their head. The young men, whose distinctive looks could help you pin them to a specific region of India, start to fade from memory. Even the bright vermilion and yellow on the foreheads of the swamis starts to pale in your recollection. The images in your mind are ghosts – mere shadows of your memories as a child.
I visited India a couple of times after moving to New York. But those trips consisted mostly of shuttling from one relative’s house 
to another. We drove all over the cities, and we flew all over the country. The faces along the way were just blurs, and were largely ignored by my eyes. I was still young and had not been able to appreciate the enormity of what was before me. In a strange sort of irony, these faces had actually now become foreign and shocking. Back then, I remember I had wanted to return to New York, to “normalcy”.
It was about eight years after my last such trip that I finally returned again, this time with a more open mind and eye. I was finally in India for the first time as an adult, and it changed 
everything. The purpose of this most recent trip to India was to marry my fiancée in a traditional wedding ceremony, surrounded by relatives. It was a wonderful affair, celebrated with much pomp and circumstance. I greatly enjoyed that aspect of my trip, but I also feel that I found much more while I was there.
I had only very recently developed an interest in photography, and I was starting to look at the world constantly as if through a viewfinder. I initially started to notice the faces again because I thought they would make for interesting photos. Being new to making portraits, I initially snapped away at the telephoto end of my lens. I wanted to get as “natural” a look as possible and wanted my subjects to avoid seeing my camera. This approach did net me a few shots that I liked very much, because they captured moments that I felt were truly “real”. But it soon became apparent that many of these faces commanded more attention and that I should try to understand the people behind them.
The first thing you notice when making portraits in India is how easy it is to find willing subjects. Rather than turn away in disgust, most people happily pose and 
smile for you. In many cases, it makes their day to have the attention of a camera focused on them. Women may sometimes hide their faces in their saris out of modesty, but will rarely forbid you or try to stop you from capturing their image. Young men are generally the most eager subjects, and it’s common for them to ask you to point your lens in their direction. They might joke with you about winning themselves an American bride with the photo you just took. I had one young man ask me to send him back a copy of his photo, along with a “beautiful blonde girl”.
Of course, there are those who are eager to have their photo taken for reasons other than international matchmaking. Stop, for example, at a temple 
and try to get a shot of a swami (a priest, of sorts). He will most likely not allow you to get a clear shot of him until you have made a “small donation” in his favor. As with almost any other purchase in the Indian marketplace, you can freely haggle over the exact sum. But after both parties reach consensus, he will patiently allow you to trip the shutter until you have the lighting and composition in your shot just right.
The rules are not always as clear-cut, however. While touring a small village near Udaipur, an elderly lady approached me to ask for her photo to be taken. She had been engaged in some construction work and there was a small spot of concrete caked in the lines of her face. Her bright pink sari offered incredible contrast to the light blue dwelling behind her, and it also accentuated the liveliness about her. I raised my camera and the woman behind her immediately covered her face (but did not move out of the way). This was an incredibly exciting composition to me, and I was thrilled with the way it had come together. I opened up my aperture a bit, compensated exposure, and made a photo that I was very happy with. As I thanked her and started to walk on, she followed me and asked for compensation. Her request seemed fair to me, and I started to pull out my wallet. But the
young village guide who was with me quickly shooed her away, assuming that I did not want to be bothered with such a request.
I hadn’t set out to make portraits in India, but the faces just pulled me in and I was hooked. It was an incredible experience, and one that I feel helped me grow closer to my own native land. I greatly look forward to the next time I can come face-to-face with some deeply etched skin lines and bright eyes, eagerly awaiting the sound of the shutter and perhaps also the sound of a “small donation”.
