To Dr Glenn Losack MD - Who Could Not Make It, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.
My friend , my family Dr Glenn Losack MD was expected in Mumbai to shoot the Moharam concluding segment of Chehlum , but due to unavoidable reasons he had to abort this trip after making all arrangements tickets hotel stay etc.
Dr Glenn Losack is an American born Jew from Brooklyn now lives in Manhattan New York.
Had he come as per schedule than he would have shot my kama matam and all this that you see through my lens.
Cutting your head and shooting pictures is a tough one as a photographer specially if you are a diabetic like me , the bleeding takes a very long time to stop and in my case the blood seeped into the view finder , I was totally wet , drenched with blood and water they threw on me to revive me after I had fainted..
My vision was blurred , and I moved around shooting pictures , I had no dry cloth to wipe the blood of my camera or my flash or my lens, my white winding sheet my dhoti my t shirt all wet..
And I was in a hurry to reach the cemetery , as itis a very tiny one close to the defunct Jewish cemetery and gets jam packed ...
I shot a few pictures of the Jewish cemetery the indignity of Death of a human being whatever his caste color or creed.. garbage on the graves of the Sophers Reubens Meyers Baghdadi Jews who were perhaps relatives of my friends when we stayed at Khatau Bhuvan Wodehouse Road now Jony Castle.
David Sasoons family mansion was two lanes away from the house where I lived , my family were tenants of late Nawab Kashmiri.
I had Jewish friends when I studied at Private European school opposite Usha Sadan in 1955 ..and remember them fondly.
When I reached the Shia cemetery it shares a single wall with the defunct Jewish cemetery, there was absolutely no place I squatted on the floor and once the bloodletting began , it was really tough, I made things worse by cutting my head all over again..
The bleeding continued , my friend Danny from Piru lane tied a hanky but it was no help..and mind you if you can shoot Rehmatabad in Chehlum there is no place in the world you cant shoot..and this is a fact only Habib and I shoot in this war zone atmosphere from ground level..
I of course sleep on my back and crawling reach the legs of the guy who does sword matam and shoot from this dangerous position.
You can get cut anytime whatever safety measures you take , a guy standing close to me cut his hand when a sword fell from the matamdars hand , he was rushed to the hospital. Sameer and Dannnys kids kama matam like adults..
I am now using the external Fickr uploader via Microsoft Explorer so I am not facing hurdles like I faced earlier but I can only upload a few files of 35 each in a batch and this is a 7 GB card..
But I am also using the Mozilla Firefox browser for my texting etc..
And I dedicate this picture to Dragon Fly Riri Theresa an awesome Flickr photographer,who is my friend and a friend of Dr Glenn Losack MD too.
