i take this camera along with me. with a huge lens. and i keep clicking. every trip means atleast 300 pictures a day. min! so i have a computer loaded with pictures and find it tough at times to go through and find my favourites…

but then i chance upon a face. that chai shop guy. the little boy who sold me a necklace. the english, french, russian, japanese speaking waiter at a goan shack. the woman filling water. the woman who tells me about female infanticide and killing her three daughters – indirectly. my driver to tezpur. the house owner at cherapunji who dreams of bringing the world to meghalaya. the woman and child who sat beside me on that bus ride to jhadpoli village. the woman who runs the first restaurant in her tiny village. the cute sandwich guy from chamonix. and the bangle seller’s big kajal-lined eyes. her huge silver anklet. her shy smile.

and it all comes flooding back…

better than monuments, roads, infrastructure… anything… i see the city in people. in their eyes, their cheek bones, the tan on their skin, their clothes, accessories, generosity with smiles, their waists, the roughness of their hands, the wrinkles on their face, the smile touching their eyes… that is my true architecture of that city.

my dream is that one day i will have a huge mosaic of all these faces i have come across, and all those stories hidden in them… i may or may not remember them as time passes… but i know that it touched me in some way…

so i click away. on each and every journey. sometimes in the open, sometimes hiding behind the pretext of another frame… there are people i travel with who tell me i am being horribly intrusive! maybe i am…

but whats a city traveled without ten faces unraveled?