Town Boy is a collection of ordinary moments plucked from the flow of time, sensitive to the rhythm of everyday life in South India. From my teens to this day, I have been recording the essence of every new experience – roaming around the neighborhood, meeting old friends and making new ones. At some point, like many others, I had to leave my hometown to move to a large city in search of new opportunities. As my life in a large city got suffocating, I began to seek relief by going back to photograph my home town or by going on treks, to take a deep breath. Recording this movement of life – connecting back with nature and my roots – has been a way to reconcile with the sudden shift of environment in my life. I believe this world is a series of chain reactions and every piece of life affects another, like the butterfly effect. Town Boy is about boyhood – an observation of the gradual transformation of my life from a small town to a cosmopolitan city.

SERENDIPITY ARLES GRANT
Serendipity Arts and the Rencontres d’Arles have relied on the vitality of Franco-Indian cultural ties to spur regional cooperation and launch a grant for photography, video and new media in South Asia, an initiative backed by the Institut Français in India. The jury received hundreds of applications for the first Serendipity Arles Grant in 2020, which is being renewed in 2022. The winner will receive a INR1,200,000 (about €15,000) grant to develop a project and present it at the Rencontres d'Arles in 2023.