I knew only one piece of India. After college graduation and a three-month stint in the real world, it was time to explore the rest of the colossal country I embrace as my own, to go in search of my roots. So I started in Assam. Over four days, my family and I joined Hindus in visiting and praying to religious displays of the conquest. On the last day of Durga Puja, the ornamented icons in the displays are carried through the streets and thrown into the river.
Some pieces sink, others float away.
That day, I embarked on my discovery of India. My family had determined that flying, as a woman traveling alone, was safer than train, the preferred mode of transportation for Indian tourists. I started out in Hyderabad, the capital of the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh. I spent an entire afternoon poring over the 35,000 items in the Salar Jung Museum. The heart of Hyderabad is Charminar, an impressive granite structure constructed in 1591 to ward off plague and epidemic, surrounded by open-air Indian markets.