Living on the Streets of Despair

Living on the Streets of Despair, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

This is the Matriarch of a family that has been living on the pavement of Bhendi Bazar in Mumbai for four generations, marriages, death , births all on the pavement that is their home..
The Matrirch sells gemstones on the pavement, turqoise, agates moonstones and other such trinkets for the common man on the street..
She is a widow with grown up sons daughters, grandchildren, great grandchildren..and she lives here with pride and dignity.They sleep here , they cook food here and use the common public toilet for their worldly needs and requirement.
I have been shooting this liitle girl her grand daughter and seen her doing her homework on the pavement..and Bhendi Bazar is a cut throat living , drug addicts, drunkards petty criminala pick pocketeers , pimps , dregs of a stubbornly unchanging world is Bhendi Bazar.. a few walks away is Null Bazar and if you take the road straight ahead you will be in the laps of the Mumbai Cages or Peela House, the bylanes behind Bhendi Bazar is Chor Bazar the Market of Thieves, Bohri Mohalla the Foodland of the Bohra community.. hustle and bustle..
This is a family that I shoot and I shoot their grit determination and survival inspite of their poverty and squalor..I pay tribute to their resillience , their fight against all odds.They have no fans , no doors no windows no rooms, just the public path that people pass by in a hurry.In the monsoons its tough, but they have managed bravely, the cloud bursts the floods and the havoc generated by the unstoppable rains..The lady has educated her kids, some of her daughters have homes but the matriarch prefers to sleep on the streets..
This is Mee Mumbaikar..her kids, daughters and sons are absolutely good looking, and you can see that her own beauty lives on within the face of her grand daugher..whom I called my favorite girl child..
I often pray that she gets a better deal in life and a better home a good husband, but I know she will never forget this pavement where she grew up under the protective shade of her grand mothes love..
They know I take their pictures but they dont know I write about them.. they wont even know that beyond the life they live is another exhillerating world of the Internet.
This old Lady was the first one to seduce me into my love for gemstones, she was the one who sold me my first turqoise from Iran- Nishapur.
Whenever I am in the vicinity I pay my respect to her and her family..
Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan..
This is Mumbai my Life..

ps
Because of an annoying tool called Word Verification that hampers creativity of thought even as I cross blog from Flickr to Blogspot, I have decided no more posting at Blogspot for me..
I think Word Press is the best bloggng site their whizz kids always creating short cuts to success, and a single Matt is more than all the old fogies at Blogspot and most of these snoring Blogspot dudes should be retired witha golden handshake or sent away into the high seas on a yacht like Biz Stone in cybernetic exile..