Motherhood Under The Bodhi Tree

Motherhood Under The Bodhi Tree, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

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She sits just across the Bandra Police station and her face tells her story of pain.

Later in the evening there is another young Muslim beggar mother of two who sits outside the Tata Fire Temple.

I have stopped cutting thorough the slums so I dont see the few that sat at Bandra Bazar Road.

Mother and child sometimes one sometimes two kids.

They wear the complete hijab so I hardly know who they are , but they are all part of my street documentation of pain.

And their pain is the only essence of their lives that generously flourishes , there is no escape , they are bound and gagged to their impoverished fate for life.

We as Muslims hardly have time for all this , its part of a wild landscape of life, what matters is upholding our spirituality, at any cost, block this page block that page but we are unable to block pain from a Muslim beggar woman's life.

Luckily we are in India so they are not that badly mauled and mangled by regressive fatwas that is the only offering without any positive hope of rehabilitating their lives.

So I shall continue to shoot pain covered in a veil , justifiably so that your left hand does not know that your right hand begs.

Muslim society watches all this with eyes open shut.

And wonder why I bring this on their face on the internet.

And now you know why I dont make prints and hand it to the people I shoot , pain as a print hurts more than it would as stark reality of the street.

Honestly why should Media or the hotshot photographer shoot all this , makes no sense.