Every year, third years scramble to conjure up primary sources for their dissertations. But some take advantage of generous college grants and a long summer to conduct hands-on research.

Over the long vacation, I travelled to Delhi to conduct research for my final year history dissertation on Indian magazines from the 1970s and 1980s. My aim was to visit archives, libraries and markets in search of these periodicals. Excited about my first experience of independent research for a project I had designed, I looked forward to swapping my college library for the archives of Delhi for three weeks.

Identifying which archives had copies of the magazines was the first step. In the months prior to the trip, I had emailed many archives, but it had proved difficult to get responses from some. However, once I had actually arrived in Delhi, it was much easier than expected to access the material I needed. Over the three weeks, I visited seven archives and libraries: the National Archives of India, the Prime Minister’s Library, the Central Secretariat Library within Shastri Bhawan, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, the National School of Drama, Sangeet Natak Akademi and the American Library.

“I looked forward to swapping my college library for the archives of Delhi for three weeks”

I was able to locate some of the magazines in the Prime Minister’s Library in Teen Murti. After paying a small charge and supplying copies of my passport and a letter from my supervisor certifying that I was a student conducting research, I was granted temporary membership of the library. This was a historic building not far from the Prime Minister’s own residence; with its own gardens and museum, it was a green oasis in the centre of Delhi. As Cambridge students, we are spoilt with beautiful surroundings to work in, so a stroll and a spot of peacock-watching in the gardens of Teen Murti was the ideal break from perusing volumes of magazines.

My search for the primary sources also led me to bookshops and markets. For some of these vendors, my quest provoked hilarity: they told me that they considered magazines of the previous week ‘purani’ (old) so there was no question of them stocking magazines from fifty years ago! I also had the opportunity to meet a professor at a local university, a contact of my supervisor’s. During a discussion of my project over iced tea at a local country club, she gave me the details of a private collector. This was invaluable help that I was very grateful for, and I was able to purchase several magazines from the collector.

“[A] stroll and a spot of peacock-watching in the gardens of Teen Murti was the ideal break from perusing volumes of magazines”

When it came to the logistics of carrying out research, such as travelling around the city by local taxi and speaking to archive staff and local sellers, my basic knowledge of Hindi – acquired from my adolescent immersion in Bollywood films – came in handy! Non-academic highlights of the trip included Delhi street food (my favourites were pani puri and momos) and shopping in crowded bazaars for local handicrafts. The archive itself, while not a holiday destination, had its own sights, sounds and smells: the large rows of bookcases, the researchers hunched over their individual desks, the hushed voices and the earthy smell of wood.

Successful, I returned not only with the sources I needed but also with an amplified understanding of the process of independent archival research. Visiting archives across the globe involved acclimatising to another culture, and having to interact with staff in a language I am not fluent in was also a learning experience.

“The importance of trawling through documents in physical archives as opposed to online digitised collections can’t be underestimated. Some experiences are exclusive to the physical archive”

Whilst many archives did not have the sources I was looking for, the process of searching, which entailed speaking to several people in different departments, taught me a lot about how Indian archives work. I’m grateful for the collegiate and university funding I received that made the trip possible: my college, Caius, has an academic travel grant, and I also applied to the Mary Euphrasia Mosley and Worts Travelling Scholars university funds.

Research trips are not reserved for postgraduate study. Getting a taster of such research at the undergraduate level, where the limited scale of the project (a 10,000 word dissertation in my case) means that there is comparatively less pressure on the final result of the research, is very useful, particularly for those considering a Master’s.

The importance of trawling through documents in physical archives as opposed to online digitised collections can’t be underestimated. Some experiences are exclusive to the physical archive: the compulsorily hurried manner of note-taking, the fact that the sources cannot all be brought out at once, the realisation that the time remaining before the archive closes is not sufficient to order more from the catalogue and that you must make do with what you have in front of you.

As a history student, the magic of handling tangible documents from the past never fades: I still wondered how many people had touched them before, even though they were only from the 1970s! So did I return from Delhi having developed a taste for professional academia? The answer is definitely yes.