Azaan Shah

Hiraeth | This project is very personal and intimate to me , it started right after I moved to a new place which is quite far from the home where I was brought up. I have attachment to the old home and that area because I started as a photographer by walking the lanes of old city(downtown) so this project is about Homesickness and is very emotional for me.

Life is like earth moving on the axis. You keep moving yet you don’t dislocate. But some are not lucky enough to remain in their own nest forever. A home is a place; a space where longing rests and the soul gets peace. The more one is attached to this space of solace, the more painful is the feeling of being away from it.

The Welsh word ‘Hiraeth’ is an apt expression for such feelings of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness or desire for returning to places we have lost. Life keeps moving, like earth, and brings up new seasons. The rotation of life, from one nest to another, casts a flicker of dark and bright. A bird belongs to the nest yet flies high in the sky, a horse belongs to unending paths yet is tied to a cart, a seed has enough will to sprout even through rocks yet it is rooted deep down, a majestic tree aspires to kiss the heavens but is bound by earth, a man aspires infinitely yet is emotionally attached to his home. I too had my share of rotation. I am now somewhere else, not where I was brought up. 

This feeling of homesickness both traps me as well as evokes in me a deep sense of being lost and lonely. The losing of home exemplifies for me the loss of self to the strange ambience of the new place, which offers me nothing except isolation. While my physical being tries hard to reconcile with this new reality my heart still dwells with those familiar faces of downtown and its spiritually soothing ambiance.