Muslim Beggar 65 Years After Independence Day, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.
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When I generally talk of Muslims I dont mean rich or well off Muslims.
The Muslims I talk of live on the fringe a precipice and on the edge of humiliation and despair.
This is a Muslim beggar and Muslim beggars will always be beggar even after 65 years of our Independence..
Islam came into the being to accommodate all people as ONE ,no caste no division no sub division all praying to
ONE GOD , ONE HOLY BOOK AND ONE PATH OF HUMANITY AS ITS GOAL HERE AND HERE AFTER..
yet we are divided by our bias , our shortcomings our Ignorance and hate for one sect for the other and what destroyed the sanity sanctity of Islam is not the American or the Jew , is the rogue Mullah who began taking swipes at the Shias and other sects condoning his followers for attacking them , burning their mosques and making their women and children homeless destitute.
Its perhaps easy for me to sit here next to the computer and say all this but I was born without blinkers of hate I am an Indian a little more human and sensitive than the next man.
If you ask my two year old grand daughter she recites the kalma , the simple verses of the Koran , she knows other gods too she knows Jesus she knows Lord Ganesha.. and being a Shia child she does all that comes with her territory , but most important she feels and recognizes pain.
So tell me what is Islam for this little child?
Should I tell her look that is a Hindu be hateful to him, or that is Christian despise him ,that is a Sunnie dont talk to him , I dont need to tell her about all this she knows what is right and need I discuss this more would be futile..
Our children are what we make of them.. this little child knows the difference that perhaps I may have never known when I was her age,she kisses peoples hands and she knows they are her elders ..
So it hurts me to shoot what I shoot but I shall shoot nevertheless.
So back to the Muslim beggar this is a community , a race a ethnicity and there are beggars in every community but because I shoot the Muslim beggar I talk of the Muslim beggar..
Can you imagine for a single second somebody else taking picture of Muslim beggar unless he or she has an agenda.
I dont sell my pictures I am perpetually broke my back like a camel with the hump of my worldly shortcomings..
Ramzan is the time you really see beggars in hundred and more all outside mosques during Iftar..outside food joints and in spite of the heavy rains I shot a lot of them in town..
i talk through pictures and hate text you better believe it but I must empty my pot to take in fresh water too this is my karma and my dharma my religiosity Muslim but embedded as Indian metaphors of my cultural inheritance..
I as a photographer who documents pain show you the malaise , the government our leaders shroud bring in change the healing touch on the soul of Man.
No Holy Saint sat at home and gave a speech while a city burnt , he went mixed with them touched them humanly .. we are now in a world through the television touch we expect our empty words to heal the pain of a mother whose son died in a protest or a husband shot because of his bravado or for whatever reason..
I believe only God has the right to take lives.
Killing pregnant women with unborn children is not my kind of Islam at all, perhaps I am more Indian and cant shut my eyes to flaws that destroy Humanity.
So now you know why I blog via pictures ,my words may not have the content my pictures have ..I shoot Truth as I saw it on the viewfinder of my Soul.
