Shashwat Tyagi: Secret Worlds 

For as long as I can remember, the longing for ethereal, secret worlds hidden within worlds has been an immense personal desidaratum of mine. I have wished for a world away from the rush, where all is forgiven and bliss is eternal, but unfortunately, I have never been able to make this place come alive. The following collection of photographs represents this imagined land, and is a repository of my memories from the same. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, William Wordsworth had once written. It’s a line that has echoed in the valleys of my mind for all times, and made me wary of the visual and emotional landscapes I put on display for myself. As a result, in between the transitory states of being that Wordsworth says our lives eventually prove to be, I have chosen to discover secret worlds and keep them ensconced in clandestine photographs made elsewhere. These visuals are amulets of magic, far more powerful than nostalgia alone and take my heart where it aches to go. The following pages are an invitation to see a different world, and all are welcome to saunter through.