You Shoot Our Pictures Will Our Lives Ever Change - Beggar Hijras, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.
Every week on Thursdays they cruise Bandra slums and the Bandra Bazar , they beg and eke out a living of despair.
I have been shooting them for quite some time , and they dont object that I trespass on their lives with my camera, I have no agenda but to show you their hardship their pain in a racist society that we inhabit in Mumbai, I use the word racist as the Hijras are shunned abused ill treated by almost everyone including the cops and pseudo religious people.
This segment of the hijras is the worst one in the hierarchy of transgender , there is no escape , they dont fill the criteria , they have lost it literally , the younger ones are street savvy nubile and know all the tricks of the trade.
The hijra bar dancers earn mind boggling sums from dons hoodlums con men and rich patrons but have never done anything for the poor hijra community ..and all this I have seen observed noticed as I shoot them when they come my way.
Call it Hijra Vardan the Gift of meeting hijras wherever I go, and my Hijra documentary is not to titillate , but to show you the bare facts of their fucked lives .. no pun intended.
Most of the beggar hjras know me in Bandra but now a new variety has come up at the Pamposh Linking Road Signal, that clap their hands demand money just like hijras but are actually women I shot one yesterday and told her she was not a Hijra , but she did not care as a Hijra impostor she gets more money than as a woman beggar ..
Such is life on a slow track in Mumbai.
