Serampore

February was like bittersweet chocolate.

And I love that kind. I do. It took me, very briefly, to Serampore, and it made me realize, how much I want to spend months in Calcutta and its suburbs, not necessarily photographing its streets, people, food, and leftover colonial architecture, but absorbing the smells, sights, and sounds, the distinct rubber horn of the rickshaw, the smoky morning smell of shinghada and shondesh, mingling with dhup from the multitude of temples, the frequent clear tone of the conch-shell, the aalaap mixed with the harmonium wafting from homes in streets too narrow for bicycles, through which bicycles pass anyway.

These aren’t the best of pictures of that gorgeous place, but they mean the world to me. The contain within them, a beautiful day that I spent on the streets of Serampore feeling like Alice in Wonderland.

I hope to go there again someday, and wander some more.