My Last Will and Testament
Originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1
We are pathetic creatures , we humans, we are bothered about our religion, our rituals our customs, we want all this to be shown in the best of pictorial light, I remember a man a devotee of Shri Nagrajputra Jimmyji , who sent me an email, quite disturbed , that I had shown his gurus picture that was at sale at the Kamatipura flea market, this Man requested me to delete the picture I could not as it was not within my control my site was hacked, account frozen, the developer was investigating so what could I do, it had taken more than 10 months , so I decided to shift all my religious posts to Word Press, I was doing it gradually , 6000 posts, I had shifted 2000 , here ,there was a good response in terms of viewership and readership, but here too there was a hitch, no photo galleries where I could keep each section in different cubicles of thought
I was to go shoot the Shai Snan at Allahabad Kumbh , the final one on 23 rd Jan 2007 , than finish this ,catch up with my wife in Lucknow. My tickets were booked my Naga Sadhu friend , mentor Guru Shri Vijay Giri Maharaj was waiting for me , I aborted this trip,, for reasons unknown to me ..
I came to Lucknbow instead.. to revisit my past as a child and the graves of my forefathers scattered at Gufra Map, Rani Malka Jahan graveyard and at Talkatora.
I shot the Lucknow Ashura for the first time ..in my 53 years.
I also gave my visiting cards that had the web address of my tainted sites , I had nothing to hide , than hell broke lose, they saw the dirty pictures that were hacked into my site, but I don’t understand one thing my stuff were in separate galleries so why poke nose into the other galleries , I never proclaimed I was a Shia site , I am a photo journalist , I shot pictures of my faith to show the pain of my community..
Yes I do Tandav , when I scourge ,Tandav is the Dance of Death and Revenge , this was my metaphoric way of coping with Shimr it should not bother others, it should perhaps only bother those who love Shimr and Yazidiyat.,.
So I am really upset, I have not deliberately disgraced my faith or religion, no one has a right to tell me what to shoot.. I am funded by no one.
I will continue shooting all religions , with camera eye proclaiming Truth..
Yes I will never shoot Moharam.. let them shoot who are the torch bearers of my faith.
I will write what is my inherent love for the Ahle Bait..
This site is not catering for any one community, but the ones that I am passionate about..
I reiterate if there was a hint of Karbala in Hinduism I would embrace Hinduism willingly, this is me, I am not scared to air my personal views on the Internet.
I am not and will ever be a congregational man.
My wife, my children. ,my Lucknowi daughter in law , her husband , my elder son have no problem , with my thoughts, so I think others my detractors should stop bothering me …
I never celebrated Moharam for 17 years , the guys who work for me are all Sunnis my main point guy is a Hindu.. , I don’t have any bigoted problem.
With any community per se.
It was camera and photography five years back that bought me to a Ashura Julosos proceeding towards Rehmatabad, I met Baqar Nasser , Habib Nasser who bought me and fine tuned me as a Believer and a Reborn Shia.
Maulana Abbas Irshad proclaimed my love for the Ahle Bait by calling me Moulaiee.,.
I think Allah knows better my credentials as a believer as Truth or as my pretentiousness
My elder son is developing an exclusive Shia site that will house my Shia Images and my Shia poetry….including places where Janabe Sayyada sent me with a hanky to record the love of a race that was exclusively made for Maksade Hussain…through my pictures , including the ones I shot in Lucknow and have not seen as yet..…more than 2000 or so.
These will be last recordings of Moharam..
I believe in live and let live.. mutually.
If I have erred I have not gone defiant but corrected myself with honor without disrespecting the views of my elders.. my parents are dead , in their place I have chosen my father in law Abbas Bhai Qazilbash as my father, my mother in law who I call Mother..
On my home site my poetry , my thoughts are of an adult mature nature, those who think otherwise should keep away from my site…I don’t go to sites that don’t concern me.,.
For the first time in my life I don’t have to be seen or heard from the shoulders of western minarets of Buzznet Bloggererspot or Word Press….
I can stand on my own.
I have taken a lot of bashing as a Blogger , for being a vociferously proud Indian, on western blog sites, I have hit back too, I have been bashed by fundamental elements by Shia Haters and Baiters .for my tirade against Yazidiyat and the genocide in Karbala, that has been deliberately ignored all these years.
I remember one of the last living, members of the Moghul Empire telling that she would go to the Golden Temple to seek forgiveness for the atrocities committed on the Sikhs by her forefathers, I felt like throwing up, as the first people she should ask for forgiveness are the Shias ..
Muslims are Muslims by any other name.
This is the myopic mindlessness of Misplaced Religious priorities.
I have been bashed as a Muslim on Indian Blog sites, my Moharam pictures were deleted at Fotothing and Webshots , but it is the first time I have been bashed for being a Shia by the Shia community..
I cannot stop being a Shia …from within or without.
Let him caste the first stone who is a better Shia than me..
I have also decided not to be buried in a Shia cemetery have pledged my body with all its mental hallucinations, megalomania of my Indianess to Medical research..
Firoze Shakir
Photographerno1
15 th Feb 2007
Mumbai
to be buried in a shia muslim cemetery
i resent no mausoleun no tombstone no
cornerstone made of cement
i pledge my body to science my brain my heart
my flesh my organs
my last will and testament
yes i give back all of me
to mankind the 54 years or more that i
have on this planet spent seeing muslims
killing muslims as a natural event
sectarian violence fragmented Islam in so
many segment
born as man lived as man
die as man nothing else to repent
no fools paradise for me to invent
he came he saw he went
lived peacefully died content
please on my passing do not cry or lament
dont make it into a melodramatic event
instead let it be a happy event
my dying soul please do not torment
i have my dear wifes tacit consent
my memories , my dark thoughts
she need not represent
my best regards to my unborn grandchild
in my line of descent
