Badami Town

Badami

By kevinstandagehotography on April 13, 2015 • ( 8 Comments )

Having done the obligatory tour of the monuments of Badami, I decided to break away from all of that and immerse myself into the daily life of the small town.

So off I headed into the back streets of Badami, armed with my camera (of course) and a bottle of water. It was after all nearly 40 degrees…

Granted I was a little conspicuous, and I was certainly being noticed, but everyone I met greeted me with huge amounts of friendliness and kindness in equal measure, plus a fair amount of curiosity as well. I imagine not many western tourists venture into the town itself, and it was far more enjoyable because of that.

Children are always the first to run up and engage in conversation. My Hindi is non-existent (I’m working on it) but their English was surprisingly good. Questions ranged from the usual – my name, my father’s name, where I’m from, do I have a school pen, do I have any country coins, why am I here, where is my family. But often we’d get beyond just this basic dialog, and start exchanging Hindi/English names for everything around us, the clouds, the sun, a house, a cow…it was immense fun. One group of children who were helping their mothers wash clothes in the lake even gave me a rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, it was so unexpected to be sung to like that, and in perfect English.

It was such a humbling experience, and one that I’ve never forgotten. What follows are some shots I took along the way, mostly at the insistence of the subjects, and who am I to refuse ?

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Categories: Badami, Badami Town, India, Karnataka

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