For this project, I was focusing on empty places which were once full of life. It was in the context of understanding how places become unknown to the people who once lived there. The spaces seem to be drowned in an eerie silence, somewhat exacerbated by the shutters. I was trying to understand the situation of ‘disturbed’ places (places plagued by terrorism and civil war); places where people don’t live the way they wish to live. The sense of dislocation, marginality and even a kind of imprisonment seems to resonate.

When I was walking in these places with my camera, I felt like an intruder with a surveillance camera. Then again, this was part of the sentiment I wanted to communicate- one of discomfort and contrast. Being in apart of the world that is so heavily peopled, I wanted to show ‘absence’ in spaces that are familiar. Though these may not be ‘suburbs’,they are somehow defined by an experience that can also be seen as transitory, a sense of stillness and pause that may allow one to look again, yet feel a sense of abandonment.

 All images from the series Intruder/Surveillance Kaithal (Haryana) 2009-10 Digital.