The Long Winding Road of Pain

The Long Winding Road of Pain, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

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I am a street poet who shoots pain as it shoots my insides too.

And mind you I am crazy I could go stand next to them look like them to make you feel what they feel.. yes this is what it means to shoot the children of a lesser god.


I have begged along with the rafaees from shop to shop I have begged along with the Naga Sadhus with my Naga Guru Shri Vijay Giri Maharaj of Junagdh Akhada at the Kumbh.. eaten left overs and felt like a beggar so I know the humiliation at being a beggar..

Begging is not about humility it is about humiliation being human in an inhuman world.


And I began shooting beggars recently after I met Dr Glenn Losack MD my menor and now my extended family a white man and an American Jew.

I have shot beggars before instilled the photography of beggars as poetry, I shot beggars at Hussain Tekri Jaorah Ajmer and Lucknow but those pictures were pictures my new pictures of the beggars are poem evolving the poetry of my own soul in flight meaninglessly wingless perhaps.


And shooting beggars is shooting your own beggarly soul.

This lane in Bandra is very depressing and I dont come here to shoot pictures I come on work and pass this way , and some of those who beg here live on the roads near Bandra Reclamation or Lal Matti as it is called.

One place I meet hordes of beggars is at Pitru Pakaksh Hindu feast at Banganga Walkeshwar but I avoid shooting them as I am busy shooting the street barbers there.

The soul of India has the shadow of the beggars ingrained on it there is no escape whatsoever..I dont go out of my way to shoot beggars the come my way I shoot them as they light my poetic soul..

The only person who seeks alms and I dare not call him a beggar is Appu the limbless guy..he sits like a tree stump of despair you give him money he takes you dont give him money no big deal.
He is a good friend of Dr Glenn Losack MD too.

And honestly my heart is not into blogging poetry or photography I am going through the worst phase of my life but I blog so that the pain does not kill me eventually.

I normally post my pictures as I shot them I try not to show of my borrowed creativity but sometimes a picture demands it , and so I have desaturated the soul of my picture adding more pain to my own monochromatic morbidity

Its not easy being a blogger you cant be a blogger if you have nothing to say photo blogging is not micro blogging or farting a tweet it is narrating with or without words the story of the man on the street and through him your own too.

Now you know why you wont read this at all in Hindustan Times .