Under the Winter Sun

The sounds of the newspaper flipping are outside my window. Later joined by a slow thrush of grains being sorted. The sunlight is peering through a crack in the curtains, providing the much needed warmth in the marble floored house in the middle of winter. It is already afternoon and I’ve managed to sleep late again, I wake up to my grandparents basking in the sun. Surprised no one has come to awaken me yet, I ask our help for tea and head outside to join them. I sit on the porch swing as I say good morning to my grandparents who are sitting together, a rare occurrence. The warmth of the winter sun behaves as joining factor, two bring these two bodies in one space for a fleeting few hours. Any winter I spend in the Northern Indian region, I notice a commonality, a joining factor of the chairs in the winter sun. Of chai, combing hair, reading the newspaper, silence, chatter. A connecting factor, so consistently present in plain site not minding between the rich or poor, the issues between two people, the differences - the beauty of the plastic chair left in a spot for the sun to meet it the next day is almost too mundane to notice, but also an unsaid connection. || Photos shot in New Delhi & Meerut, India, in January 2023.