It was her little son I shot first staring at me in my saffron attire barefeet , he was curious he was scared but when I handed him some money , his young mother smiled and I shot her ,,I shot the humility of her beggars life on our feast day , I shot her lifes failure , was her husband bedridden too,, why was she begging and in the chaos there was no time to ask her this simple power packed question,, I shoot pictures and let pictures talk emote and sensitize my soul.. if she was in my backyard I would have shot her video.. we must know why we have failed the lesser privileged ones of our community ..
Being a photographer and a beggar poet sometimes it is the poet in me the beggar too that overpowers the soul of my street photography .. down the line every street picture is a story , in words if you decode it or in silence if you become one with it ,,
I get along well with two main communities .. the beggars and the transgender hijras that I shot ,, and beggars among them I poeticized their pain as it passionately grasped me in a vice and a hold..
This mother and her child were waiting near the bus stop , the photo journalists were dramatically shooting the posing Eid Hugging kids and I was shooting her and her kid ,, and hugging the pain of their doomed destiny with my own ..
This time I shot less I did not hang around I just cut across the slums I had to meet a beggar suffering from encephalitis last time I had begged with him..earned him some money . this time he sat there desolate at Bandra Slaughter house compound I gave him some money and hoped that he gets more alms ,,for me Bakra Eid namaz is just the beginning not the end I search for stories and transform them into pictures such is the power of the camera and its cosmic lens that penetrates the soul of human poetry.
And I skipped the poem here it would rob her of the tribute I was paying her after clandestinely stealthily removing her soul from her body.. I only left her with the spectral light and its disillusionment in her veiled eyes ,,
