Four Lakes is a series of photographs for which over the course of three years I returned many times to a handful of small man made lakes; a kind of mini-ecology, an inner-city ecological imaginary in the heart of Kolkata, West Bengal.

Each day I would walk eighteen+ + km, around and around and around. I learned the faces of strangers, the patterns of ducks, and the travel of clouds above. I learned the way the light fell at 4 in November, the young lovers’ favourite spots, and the smell of Gulmohar Trees in the heat. Every weekend early morning, an orchestra would stand and play. I met a cat that was more like a tiger and a carp the size of a whale; birds would drop flowers from trees like mirages. Twenty steps that way, the Arjun Tree stood in her injury. There were sounds of balls hitting the pavement in play. Hands held the news on every bit of grass and rustled through them; chant and chatter travelled upwards into air. In all the hours, crows moaned their mutter in the quiet and in chaos, perhaps unfazed by the theatre of life.