The photo that changed me: reconnecting in Rajasthan

As a child, my father would write my name in Hindi on scraps of paper. Too young to comprehend much beyond cartoons and picture books, I imagined the Devanagari script was some magical language from a fantasyland like Narnia or Lilliput.

As I grew older, I’d sit with my parents in front of the television, listening to them exclaim over Michael Palin’s latest travels through the foothills of the Himalayas or the dusty roads of Rajasthan. “We have to go back,” my father would declare passionately, turning to my mother. “I miss the smells!” She’d add: “And the colours.” They’d agree in unison: “We must go back.”

Throughout my childhood, I listened intently to their tales of travelling through India. My father chasing a train out of Delhi while my mother sat alone onboard – she’d only been in the country a few hours and had already lost him. My mother exchanging rupees on the black market with men sporting Kalashnikovs in Kabul. My father bedbound with malaria in a hostel in Lahore. These stories lit a flame in me early on – a deep-rooted wanderlust.

My English father lived in India from 1969 to 1971. Having just graduated and unsure what to do next, he signed up to teach English and promptly headed to South Asia. He was assigned to the small town of Bhilwara, Rajasthan – little more than a collection of buildings in the desert, with a train station, a school and a post office. There were few cars, if any, and electricity was scarce and unreliable. He cooked food and chai on a single Primus stove in a tiny apartment.

As the only non-Indian in town, my father became something of a local curiosity – a celebrity of sorts – though the language barrier made forming close connections difficult. But during his stay, he forged friendships with two brothers, Satynarain and Radheshyam Joshi, who had gone out of their way to welcome the lost-looking Englishman. Their names cropped up often in his stories.

A year later, my mother – just as free-spirited – joined him as soon as she finished her studies. Her journey took three flights, including a stopover in Dubai, which she described back then as a “fishing village in the desert”. While my father completed his teaching contract, they took short trips around Rajasthan – from Jaisalmer, the Golden City, to Jaipur, the Pink City – and further afield to Amritsar and Dharamshala. When his contract ended, they returned to England. This was the early 1970s, so they joined the overlanders on the Silk Road, travelling through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, before reaching Greece and hitchhiking across Western Europe.

They arrived back in the UK without enough money in their kaftan pockets to catch the bus to my grandparents’ house in Bexley – and so they walked the final miles along the cold, wet streets of southeast London.

In 2008, during my first proper job in London, I was considering a big trip – my first – but had no idea where to go. I mentioned it casually to my mother during a phone call. Around that time, we’d meet now and then at a Brick Lane curry house. At our next dinner, my father brought along a flimsy folder containing a handful of photos from their time in India. I’d seen many of them before – my parents in various locations – but one stood out.

It was a black-and-white photo of my father with his school colleagues. A familiar setup: rows of teachers, senior staff in the centre and off to the right, my father. Clean-shaven, in short sleeves and sunglasses. No beard. No prescription glasses. No tie, even though he was teaching. With arms crossed, slightly slouched, and a playful smirk on his face, he struck a pose I didn’t recognise, full of youthful swagger, untouched by age or responsibility.

My mother and I were merciless. “Did you think you looked cool?” we teased.He had no defence, of course. He was young – younger than I was at the time – and in that photo, he radiated the easy confidence of someone still unshaped by life’s wear and tear.

We talked for hours about India, Bhilwara and old friends. And when we said our goodbyes, I left wanting to find that man. A man I didn’t know – young, cocksure, beardless. I knew then: I was going to India. To Rajasthan. To Bhilwara. To find the place and people behind the stories.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to find much. I thought that just reaching Bhilwara, taking some photos, asking a few questions and showing my parents how it had changed would be enough. I had the photo, and a few scraps of outdated information: a school name and the names of people who may or may not still be alive.

After three days of travel, I arrived. Bhilwara was no longer a sleepy desert town – now a sprawling industrial city, dubbed “The Textile City of India”, with hundreds of looms and dye houses. That first morning, I jumped into a tuk-tuk and asked the driver to take me to the school where my father had worked. It had since moved, but the driver asked around, made some calls, and eventually discovered its new location.

By midday, we reached Shree Mahesh School. I arrived just as a new intake of students were entering the gates. After explaining myself to numerous staff members, the headmaster appeared and invited me to stay for lunch with the students. More conversations, more phone calls, more tuk-tuk rides – and eventually I tracked down the former headteacher, who remembered two brothers who might have known my father.

On Christmas Day 2008, I called my father from Bhilwara at around 7am UK time. I greeted him, then handed the phone to my hosts: Radheshyam and Satynarain Joshi. “Hello Geoffrey,” they said warmly. “It’s been quite a while, my friend.” Indeed, almost 38 years.

That call rekindled their friendship, and paved the way for a proper reunion. Five years later, almost to the day, I crossed the threshold of that same house in Bhilwara – this time following my father through the door.

Sadly, my mother never made it back to India. We lost her before she had the chance. It was a painful time. The world had lost someone truly special far too soon. But my trip had brought my father and me closer, giving us the emotional resources to navigate the grief together. We spoke about her endlessly, over morning coffees, evening whiskies, and Brick Lane curries.

Now, I earn my living as an adventure travel writer. I’ve visited over 100 countries across all seven continents. I’ve trekked some of the world’s remotest trails, through Greenland, Pakistan, Ethiopia. I’ve climbed high peaks, taken polar plunges at both ends of the Earth, and next year I’ll be counting penguins for two months on a tiny island in Antarctica.