Nostalgia for Eternity: Journeys in Religion, History, and Myth on the Indian Subcontinent

The culmination of five years’ travel with Indian pilgrims, Nostalgia for Eternity takes the reader into the depths of millennia-old spiritual and mystic traditions. It is a stunning visual poem about the timeless human search for transcendence and ultimate truth. Translated literally from the Greek, ‘nostalgia’ means homesickness; spiritually, it is the universal longing for existential peace and completeness for a final resolution of all life’s conflicts and contradictions. ‘The truth is one, ’ taught India’s ancient gurus, ‘the sages call it by many names.’ With breadth and insight unmatched by any other publication, Nostalgia for Eternity illustrates the worlds of pilgrims seeking that transcendent truth and illuminates the different paths that they travel. Through evocative, complex images we enter the secretive realm of Tantric worshippers of the Mother Goddess and we walk with Sufi pilgrims across the deserts of Rajasthan. Meditative, richly layered photographs reveal the inner world of Bengali Bauls mystics who worship the human being and of Sidis descendants of African saints whose religion merges African ancestor worship with Sufism. Richly annotated text reveals to the reader the deeper symbolic and mythological significance of the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and syncretic practices explored in the book. Nostalgia for Eternity is an extended visual meditation on the highest human aspirations: To know the nature of one’s true self and to understand one’s place in the cosmos.

Leonid Plotkin

Born in 1972 in the USSR, Leonid Plotkin grew up in America, studied law in Boston and Oxford, and then practised law in New York City. He has worked as a freelance documentary photogragher since 2007, and his work has appeared in various international publications including National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, the Guardians, and the Economist. Leonid spends most of his time out in the world but calls New York City Home.