The Aftertaste of Loneliness

There is a deep chasm of memories to navigate before reaching the stage of acceptance. Fleeting visions of the past search for the answer to the question of belonging. I am never the same in these two places, so how could they be two sides of me?

The Aftertaste of Loneliness started as a mixed media project to understand my relationship with my family and to decode the grief I felt moving back to my hometown at the start of the pandemic. I interpret this by illustrating the five stages of grief on a photo-negative of the first studio photograph I have with my parents. 

Shot between my hometown, Patna and Mumbai, the selected photographs are a glimpse into the state of mind that exists before you reach the stage of acceptance. A fleeting vision of past memories that peak in the graph of your mind as you try to search for the answer to the question of belonging. What will bridge the gap, what connects the identities I float between. These photographs reflect on home, family, queerness, and loss in context to two very different cities I’m tied to. 

I felt untethered, incongruent, lost with no ground to hold. I am never the same in these two places, so how could they be two sides of me? Choosing one should not mean losing the other.

This project is a reflection of my time at home since the first wave of the pandemic and every visit since. I unearth each emotion – dissecting, analyzing every interaction, every moment of silence, loneliness and disagreement to find exactly how much of the distance is repairable. In the process I also discover moments of glimmer and hope, where my connection to my family seems infallible, my relationship with my hometown, pure; and my queerness, the bridge connecting my identities.