Amar Talwar

By the end of the 1980s Amar had spent ten years travelling India with a camera, mostly in villages and small towns, and was being paid well for it. By his own account he was a fairly happy man.

One assignment changed his life in a way he never planned. While photographing how a young family lived and raised their baby, he came to know the parents well. They were struggling, and they asked him to take care of their son. He did. That boy grew up to love photography too, and he is the reason this book exists.

Around the same time he felt something was missing, and remembered how much he had loved acting on stage at school and college. Within days a chance meeting with a theatre director got him a part in a comedy. Two years and more than a dozen plays later he moved to Bombay, and a long career in films followed.

The cameras went quiet after that. He still travels the country, these days on a motorcycle.