Photo: Kanu 887, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Har Ki Pauri, Haridwar, as the evening aarti lamps are lit and the steps fill row by row.
The aarti is free and daily. The skill is knowing where to stand before the bells begin.
Photo: Rangan Datta Wiki, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The sand flats at Prayagraj where the Ganga and Yamuna meet, on a quiet morning outside fair season.
At the tip of the land the rivers argue in colour, and the boat stops where the water turns.
Photo: Gowtham Sampath, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Sivakasi, Virudhunagar district, in the dry weeks before Deepavali.
Before the crackers leave for the rest of India, this town is a workshop street, not a fireworks show.
Photo: Unpetitprole, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Sukhna Lake, Chandigarh, at first light, mist still on the water.
The city wakes on the bund: walkers, birds and a rowing channel before the boats open.
Photo: Navneel neeraj, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Bundela chhatris along the Betwa at Orchha, Madhya Pradesh, in late afternoon.
Orchha lines its kings beside the river: a row of stone umbrellas watching the Betwa pass.
Photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Jahaz Mahal on the Mandu plateau, Madhya Pradesh, after the monsoon rains.
Mandu sits high and open: the monuments do not crowd each other; the sky does the rest.
Photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The Narmada ghats at Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh, on a clear winter morning.
Maheshwar faces the river first, and the fort and the looms follow from that bank.
Photo: Rainer Halama, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Kanadukathan and Karaikudi, in the Chettinad country of south Tamil Nadu, on a quiet weekday morning.
The merchants made their money across the Bay of Bengal and spent it at home, one courtyard after another.
Photo: Yamini vijay lawhate, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The Gateway of India and Mumbai harbour, early morning.
The stone arch is the ceremony; the harbour behind it is the work.
Photo: Kalyanmurthy_Hyd, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The Araku valley in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, on a late October morning.
Araku has no great peak, only fold after green fold of hill, and coffee growing in the shade.
Photo: Phadke09, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Chilika lagoon, on the Odisha coast, as the bird season begins.
Half sea, half river, and each winter more than a million birds call it home.
Photo: Charan Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Kodagu (Coorg), in the Western Ghats, on a late-October morning as the monsoon ends.
In Coorg the forest was not cleared for coffee; the coffee was planted underneath it.
Photo: Kingshuk Mondal, CC BY 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The Sundarbans, on a narrow creek at high tide.
There is no viewpoint. There is only the next bend.
Photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
A stepwell in Gujarat, late morning.
A building you enter by going down.
Photo: Basavaraj M, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Hampi, Karnataka, in the first hour of light.
A landscape that happens to contain a city.
Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The backwaters near Alappuzha, Kerala, mid-afternoon.
A boat here moves only as fast as the person guiding it.
Photo: juggadery, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The Ganges at Varanasi, before the mist lifts.
People do not come only to look. They come to meet the water.
Photo: Manojkhurana, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The road up from Panchkula to Morni on a clear winter morning, pine on the ridges and the plain going blue behind.
Haryana has one true hill station, and the honest way to enjoy it is as a day in the Shivaliks, not a week in the mountains.
Photo: JB Kalola (patel), CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
Cloud low over the lake at Saputara in the August rains, the forested Sahyadri ridges of the Dangs all round.
Gujarat has one hill station and a handful of sacred hills, and the best of them are about rain, forest and stone steps rather than cool air.
Photo: solarisgirl, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
The forest road east of Mollem in October, the monsoon just over and cloud still resting on the Sahyadri ridge.
Goa has no hill station, but its eastern border is a wall of forested hills, and a long day there feels a world away from the beach.
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