In contemporary India, Instagram has evolved into a powerful site of visual storytelling where images, reels, and aesthetic choices continually reshape how narratives are created, shared, and consumed. This paper explores how Indian creators—from rural artisans and independent journalists to lifestyle influencers and grassroots activists—use Instagram to express identity, culture, and socio-political consciousness. Moving beyond the platform’s commercialised image culture, the study highlights how Indian users adapt Instagram’s global features into localised storytelling traditions such as “darshana,” “kahani,” “dastangoi,” and “lok-drishti.” Through qualitative digital ethnography, content analysis of 200 Instagram accounts, and semi-structured interviews with 25 creators, this paper argues that Instagram in India is not merely a social media platform but a transformative narrative ecosystem. It enables micro-communities, democratizes content creation, and crafts new hybrid forms of cultural expression that blend imagery, captions, hashtags, and audio-visual cues. Findings reveal that Indian Instagram storytelling is shaped by regional languages, socio-economic aspirations, caste-class markers, digital literacy gaps, and platform algorithms that reward emotion-driven, relatable, and visually immersive content. The paper concludes with implications for digital culture, media literacy, and storytelling futures in India.