125,797 items / 903,431 views
I was on my way home when I met a Parsi acquaintance near the Tata Agiary Fire temple I inquired about my friend Mr Vazifdars health , as Mr Vazifdar was in Chennai for a liver transplant.
He looked at me sadly ad said Mr Vaizifdar had died at Chennai yesterday 16 May 2010.
I went and paid my condolence to the Parsi priests there , my friend Freddy was not there.
I took a shot of the notice board .
And Marziya my grand daughter was Mr Vazifdars good friend too, she loved this kindly man jovial man.
The cobbler outside the Agiary who sells second hand shoes was shattered , he told me in 40 years he met a lot of Parsis but none like Mr Vazifdar , he further said that Mr Vazifdar was a savior of the poor on the street.
So I offer my condolence to his family his friends at the Tata Agiary.. may God give them the strength to bear this irreparable loss .
May His Soul Rest In Everlasting Peace.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Mr Vazifdar Has Left For His Heavenly Home
Documenting The Angst of The Mumbai Shias
115,526 items / 753,505 views
I document the angst of the Shias of Mumbai so that the non Shia knows our culture our traditions and the surviving spirit of an indomitable race..
The Shia already know all this and more , but the non Shia is hardly aware of the history of our pain we call Ghame Hussain.
So I blog their life styles during Moharam a period of mourning that continues for tw month eight days.
Austerity is the essence of Moharam followed by the humility of the Shia soul..
Moharam is a protest over 1400 years old against opression , tyranny barbarism that in contemporary times we call Terrorism.
We glorify Truth Humanity via the sufferings of Imam Hussain , he did not bend, he did not give his hand to Evil,he fought like a warrior with his band of 72...sacrificing his family his children and all so that Islam would not be hijacked like it is today by vested interests..
I learned from Hussain how to be wronged and be a winner, I learnt from Hussain how to attain victory while being oppressed— Mahatma Gandhi
Charles Dickens (English novelist): “If Husain had fought to quench his
worldly desires…then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children
accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for
Islam.”
Mahatma Gandhi
“My faith is that the progress of Islam does not depend on the use of sword by its believers, but the result of the supreme sacrifice of Hussain (A.S.), the great saint.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
“Imam Hussain’s (A.S.) sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.”
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu
“I congratulate Muslims that from among them, Hussain (A.S.), a great human being was born, who is reverted and honored totally by all communities.
Dr. Rajendra Prasad
“The sacrifice of Imam Hussain (A.S.) is not limited to one country, or nation, but it is the hereditary state of the brotherhood of all mankind.”
Phir Nasl Pe Yazid Ki Lanat Kare Ga Kaun
Sent to me by my friend Furkan Ghazi..
Misle Hussain Din ki Hifazat Kare ga Kaun
Teeron ki chhaon mein Ibadat Kare ga Kaun
Hum bhi agar Chirage Tabbara ko chorr de
fir nasl pe Yazid ki lanat karega kaun
Street Photography And Shooting Pain
125,797 items / 902,943 views
Pain on the streets comes in different forms , some you feel some you see and some you imagine and relive on the emulsion of your human soul.
What I see through the viewfinder of my mind would be quite different from your own, there is no two ways about it.
As the bulk of my photography and 125797 images posted at Flickr from 2007 will show that I have shot the street , the greatest text book of lifes hidden and unhidden emotions.
With a camera in your hands you can shoot anything but it is the camera in your mind that makes you shoot what you want others to see.
I have honed my skill as a poet, photographing pain..shooting pain in its collective effervescence.. as blood splurting out from the skull the back or the chest when I shot Shia rituals ..but something was missing I took the dagger in my hand to understand this pain, I knew the ethnicity of my ancestral pain embedded in the Martyrdom of Imam Hussain..but I wanted to feel overcome moments of pain ,and I found what I was searching for..
So street photography is a very deep holistic subject not merely clicking fast moving cars on the road..street photography according to my humble view is shooting the soul of humanity as it moves from one plain to another as a street emotion..
A I have not learnt my photography in a classroom my views would be radically different from what they teach out there.
As here my street photography revolves around Shia pain , I shall not discuss other religiosity ..The Shia mother is the foundation of the Shia faith ..and it is not the Mullah at all , its the mother who imparts the essence of pain..from the amniotic fluid to the childs world beyond.
The Shia mother is a very rare breed , she is the one responsible for keeping the traditions alive , she molds the destiny of the Shia child through Ghame Hussain ,the mantra of Shia survival.
And being bought up by a Shia mother , and mind you I lived far away from the Shia ethos in my childhood , she nurtured it along with her mother Nazmi Begum widow of Daroga Nabban Saab of Pata Nala Lucknow my maternal grand father related to the poet Mir Anees saab.
My wife bought up our kids in the way she was bought up, and than almost 33 years later my 2 year old grand daughter Marziya Shakir bought up by her Lucknowi mother and my wife , strips to her waist to beat her chest..and as I come home from work she will be waiting for me before I reach Flickr or Facebook , she will do matam on the Noha of Ali Rizvi Sacchey and she does it like me leaping in the air..and it is a sheer photogenic moment but I dont shoot it..it is not for public view.
Mind you as I have been documenting her life since the second day of her birth , she showed all these signs of her religiosity and Faith without having gone to a Shia procession.
So the Shia mother is the beacon of light that lights up her childs soul towards the path of Hussainiyat.
I shot this picture during Chehlum..and today I embed it with text from my heart and it could have been titled Street Photography and Shiasm but pain suffices the need of this Shia blogger who shoots other religiosity as passionately as he shoots his own.
Street Photography is unveiling a world , beneath each tissue lies bleeding pain , provided you read pain as I read it when I cut open my scalp twice a year on the streets of Mumbai....Pain hurts when you inflict a dagger into your head as much as when you shoot it through the camera of your soul...at a Shia Mohram street procession.
The Fate Of A Poor Muslim Woman
no she cant take it anymore
back bent bad luck
bad future in store
a poor muslim woman's pain
wont go till she
hits the floor
dead from the weight
of fatwas life
is not what it was before
her self respect
thrown out of doors
her life a pebble
on the sandy seashore
wave after wave
attacks her
dignity
to male
dominated miya society
she is an eye sore
take me away soon
to the almighty
she implores
but her destiny
stands outside
shut doors
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Shah-e-Mardan Sher-e-Yazdan Quwat-e-Parwardigar Lafata Ila Ali La Saif Ila Zulfiqar , originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1 ....
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Dargah of Hazrat Syed Ali Mira Datar Unava Gujrat , a photo by firoze shakir photographerno1 on Flickr. HAZRAT SYED ALI MIRA DATAR'S G...
