In The Divine Light of Friendship

In The Divine Light of Friendship, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

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photo courtesy jean marc gargantiel el gekko

His message to me

Hello Firoze,

Hope everything is ok for you and your family, as it is for me!
Since my return here, I still have Mumbai in my head, everyday, and the fact I'm working on the numerous photos I took isn't helping me getting it out... as if I wanted to anyway! ;)

So, here is one picture I had fun to work for you, as a starter for the ones you'll get tomorrow.

I called it: "in the light of God", and even if he's not "yours", he's "the" one for every one on this Earth, anyway, I'm sure you'll agree about this.


jmgargantiel.zenfolio.com/p132891686


I hope you'll like it.

Also, I've started to post some of my photos on my site, here is the direct link for you!
But if you go through my standard home page (the link at the bottom of this message) you'll have a fine slideshow of the Mumbaï photos, with some music I've put on them.

Anyway you chose to visit them, I wish you a fine "trip" into my Bombay visions, then!

I'll send you more of you tomorrow, and I'll continue to post, regurarly, some of Mumbai as soon as I worked them allright, so keep posted my friend! :)

Have a nice night and give my regards to your wife and charming small grand daughter.

Jean-Marc



This was sent to me just now by my dear French friend Jean Marc Gargantiel whom we fondly call El Gekko .For those who have tuned in late Jeam Marc had recently visited Mumbai for the first time , he is a brilliant photographer , shoots any subject but shoots them poetically.His pictures are poems of light shade and temperament.

Photography is about temperament , either you have it or you dont, in Urdu you may conveniently call it Mijaz, you can buy anything in this world but you cant buy Mijaz you have to inherit it.Camera lenses technique are redundant without mijaz..

I met El Gekko at Buzznet early 2005 , he came to my photo stream after Yorrik or Richard Higgins discovered me, I was already 5 years old into photography but new to blogging , and our friendship continued , blossomed as we migrated to Flickr..

So the Woolongong Mafia a group of Australian photographers Yorrik Friar Tuck a cosmic karmic poet better than me and Dread Heading , are old mates El Gekko was our favorite photographer friend and contact.

I will now talk for myself I was mesmerized by Jean Marc's nudes he shot aesthetically all at Reunion where he is based, I must confess I tuned my own aesthetic senses seeing Jean Marcs pictures.I grew with them .Mind you I did not emulate or copy his style I read his pictures like poems as I would have read Blake or Keats..and you dont become a poet by just reading a poem..honestly poems are not read they are felt by your soul.

When Jean Marc came to Mumbai, he stayed at Sea Green Hotel on Marine Drive , I visited him ,took him to Brijwasi and to my parents house at Strand Cinema Colaba.

We had dinner at a Goan restaurant Martins.

I gave Jean Marc space , never over imposed myself on him , and this set is my tribute to him and his wife Muriel.

I took him to Worli Koliwada to shoot the burning of the Holi.I was more keen to take him to Alibagh for the bullock cart race, but they were canceled.

He came to Bandra and St Peters Church was where I took him , a place I believe God lives , this is one Church in Bandra that proves to me the existence of a Divinity beyond caste color or creed.Yes God exists for a Shia born even in a Roman Catholic Church.. Spirituality for a poet is a poem of life and death too.


I am not a bigot and I have just one thread of divine thought Aisi Jagah batade Jahan Par Khuda Na Ho.. Show me one place where there is no God..and I always felt the same when I visited Moghul Masjid at Bhendi Bazar.

Well Jean Marc met my spiritual mentor Fr Jaun a Jesuit priest ,my old friend who is Spanish speaks fluent Marathi and is a pucca Mumbaikar.

I took Jean Marc to a few churches in Bandra , he visited my house had lunch with us and could not get over Marziya, so a grain of salt that you consume at a mans house binds you forever , you become family this is what my dad taught me.

Jean Marc like Glenn Losack is family..of course Glenn is Marziyas god father and I consider him my elder brother he has more experience he has fallen out of love more times than me.. falling out of love is more important than falling in love..falling out of love keeps the poet-in you alive and photography is nothing but the poetry of life.

Well this is a blog, it has no format, what you are reading is human emotions, they dont travel in a straight line..Jean Marc visited Bandra twice , the last final trip he shot Behrampada.

I could not meet him on the day he was leaving for Reunion, I was meeting my dear friend Dilip Ghosh who is seriously unwell...

So my new poem is titled
In the Divine Light of Friendship and is my first poetry blog of the day..




greater
than the
divine light
of godliness
is the divine
light of friendship
i feel
friendship
that connects
you as a man
with another man
even a woman
or divinity
a relationship
that heals
a bond of everlasting
love as it seals
cosmic moments from
life it steals
moments that read
as poems
wheels within wheels
nothing
but the serenity
of human souls
reveal
like an onion each
layer you peel
in friendship
what you really are
you done conceal

this poem a tribute
Muriel and Jean Marc
Gargantiel