Did you get to choose where you grew up?
I didn't, and for a long time it did not occur to me to mind. Six places sit on this road: three I lived in and chose none of, three I went to and came back from. Nearly every photograph here was made on the second kind — I bought the camera for the first trip I took without my parents, and every trip since has had fewer people in it.
Walk it if you have a few minutes; it is the long way round and the honest one. If you came to find out whether I can do a job, that door is here too and I will not be offended.
The route starts in Hyderabad, but only technically. I was born there and left before I could keep any of it. Walked west to east, not first to last; the years are on every stop.
A country I returned to and never lived in
Two different sets of trips wearing one country's name. First the school summers at my grandparents', none of which are photographed because there was nothing to photograph them with. Then May 2022 and May 2023, when I came back to the same valleys carrying equipment and a reason.
first trip planned entirely alone — Wayanad, Munnar, Bangalore, Hampi, Feb 2024
The move that was only an hour down the coast
We moved so I could go to university. Same coast, same heat, a different city. Twenty frames of it survive and almost every one is the skyline — the Burj, the Expo, an Emirates tail. The parts a visitor photographs.
B.Sc. Computer Science, AI · Heriot-Watt · Sep 2020 – Jul 2023
Apptmyz LLC · Hyderabad, remote · Jun – Sep 2021
The First Group · Nov 2022 – May 2023
Etihad Credit Insurance · Aug 2023 – Aug 2024
the whole of it →
Where the archive actually starts
The first trip without our parents: my brother, me, a week of national parks, and a Nikon D5600 I had bought just before leaving and could not yet use. I taught myself manual photography on those animals, in a park that covid had emptied of people. Everything else here is downstream of that week.
first trip without our parents, and the first camera
The first one I chose
Every move before this was decided for me. This one I argued for, and it is the only chapter where the road stops being something I was carried along. Two frames of the city itself in two years, which is the honest count.
M.Sc. Data Science & AI · TU/e · Sep 2024 – now
IDC ABA Employment Services · where · Jul – Aug 2025
Amana Global Partners · where · Aug 2025
Prosus · Amsterdam · Apr 2026 – now
the whole of it →
The road stops being a line
Belgium, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the country I actually live in. Most of it with family or friends. Two of them were not: above Grindelwald in May 2026 I did my first solo hike and spent a night wild-camping beside a frozen lake, and Berlin came after that, also alone. Berlin is the newest thing here, and the last two are the two I did by myself.
first solo hike, and the first night spent outside alone — Grindelwald, May 2026
Grindelwald and Berlin are both still missing — the two trips I took alone are the two with no frames here. Drop them in photo-inbox/ and this becomes the strongest chapter on the route.
The road continues past the last frame.