Tarak is born in the middle of the 19th century, at the height of the Raj, to a poor family of textile workers. His passion and spirituality in the art of painting put him in the path of David Douglas, and adventurer and landscape photographer, who is on his way to Simla, in the north, where he hopes to set up a studio. Douglas shows Tarak the basics of photography. Once settled, he wants Tarak to act as his guide on his first great photography expedition in Kashmir and the Himalayas. Through the portraits he takes, Tarak sees the poverty of his own people, caused by the social and economic situations of colonial oppression. At this moment, he becomes a real photographer, committed to his time and country, a photographer who will take the art of portraiture to a point far beyond the norms of the strict Victorian era.