I was 19 when my grandmother had a brain stroke. For the past five years, I have been trying to make sense of the slow fade of her memory as she slips into dementia. Honestly, this began not as a formal project but as a way to hold onto the fragments of our shared life that were slipping away. Photographing the years passing wasn’t something I set out to do intentionally. As a photographer, taking photographs comes instinctively to me, so I found myself making images as a natural response to what was happening. This story is born from an intimate space—a conversation between family and time that seeks to translate this internal experience of watching a loved one slip away. The images are less about capturing illness and more about preserving the traces of love, care, and loss.

Nestled in the Kumaon hills of India's Himalayas, Jilling is accessible only by a 2-km trek through a forest of Oaks, Pines, Chestnuts, and Rhododendrons. Home to Steve Lall, a former Indian Air Force fighter pilot who served in the 1965 and 1972 India-Pakistan war. After retiring, Steve left urban life to protect the 145 acres of forest in Jilling. Upon returning to Kumaon in the early '70s, Steve found the forest in decline, with builders and locals exploiting the land. With limited savings, he and his wife Parvati initially struggled, attempting farming and selling produce. To sustain themselves, they started hosting guests, focusing on a low-key, low-density approach to prevent tourism-related destruction. The Lall’s life involves battling threats to the forest, such as fires, poachers, and wood thieves. Over the years, Steve’s cultivation of fruits and crops has protected the native flora, leading to a flourishing ecosystem. The family's efforts have inspired local villagers, who now engage in conservation and eco-friendly practices. This shift in perspective extends to local farmers using natural fertilizers and embracing eco-tourism. Despite the encroachment of modern development nearby, Steve and the community remain dedicated to preserving the natural beauty and balance of Jilling's environment.

The farmer’s protest in India was a peaceful protest movement where farmers largely from the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand marched towards the nation's capital. This was preceded by over 200 days of agitation by farmers’ unions, who have called the Bills “anti-farmer laws" and believe it will leave them at the “mercy of the corporate”. On 30 November 2020, an estimated crowd of 300,000 farmers converged at the Capital’s borders. The authorities used tear gas and water cannons, dug up roads, and erected barricades to stop the protesters from entering New Delhi. Since then, following Gandhi's way of peaceful and non-violent protest, the farmers, including women, the elderly, and children, camped at the four borders leading to the Capital. They braved the extreme cold, rainfall, and now severe heat, while some made temporary shelters, others lived in their tractor trolleys.

On a fourth floor rooftop in Old Delhi, restaurant manager Mohammad Sajid can often be found tending to his pigeons. Offering a glimpse into the world of kabutarbazi—a pastime practiced since the inception of the Mughal empire in the sixteenth century—Sajid and his pigeons are linked in an age-old companionship. The pigeons respond to Sajid’s calls and gestures, swaying in undulating flight as he directs their movement through the air. When it’s time for their return, Sajid signals, and they fly swiftly back to him. He feeds his pigeons as deliberately and affectionately as he feeds his restaurant customers—millet and water in the summer months, and dry fruits and buttered rotis in the winter. As the rest of Delhi rapidly modernizes and globalizes, the city’s core continues to move with a different rhythm. Here, time moves slowly, longing has a home, and the presence of birds is celebrated. Sitting together on rooftops, local communities watch not just for the bird that soars the farthest, but for the one that dances through the skies with singular grace