Time is a river, it is irrelevant, what counts is the thought., originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.
176,148 items / 1,376,351 views
These are words of a dear friend from Japan I am immortalizing on the soul of this hijra poem...as mentioned earlier these images are not fresh from the oven , they were baked years back posted hurriedly at Flickr.com...posted forgotten .I dont know why I am musing over them after almost 5 years or more, I am bad with dates but all these ladies were shot in their glitzy glamor at the All India Hijda Sammmelan Park Site Vikhroli.
This was my earliest tryst with so many hijras at one given place one given time and I shot like a man possessed all this in 4 or 5 hours.
Most of these hijras I shot I never saw them again whether it was Haji Malang or Ajmer Sharif.. and I have yet not shot the Eunuch festival at Koovagam it eludes me fatalistically ..Lord Iravan is not ready for me as yet.
I am a simple photographer if you exclude my sartorial serendipity as part of my picture taking.. I hardly talked to the hijras those days , being selfishly monosyllabic , actually I was the cynosure of their curiosity all dressed in saffron , long hair bejeweled attitude and all.
And luckily there was no crowds or media at this hijra haven on earth...
The hijra poetry is accidental unswervingly trespassing on the drama of the hijras life of pain..rich or poor the hijras life is pain simply because he is or she is incomplete in the cosmic viciousness of gender ambiguity.
I have shot the hijra from the periphery of his pain , and as poet I was drawn into the consciousness of their androgynous soul.. I was not excited by their sexuality I shot them without desire as a painter shooting a nude model as visual poetry nothing more nothing less.
And I shot them with respect the hand revolving around hijra tits was to show you that even barren branches can bear fruits.. strangely the gay activist read me wrong ...and one has to love poetry to read poetry yet is easier being a fool than being a cosmic beggar poet like me.
I dont think poetry I write poetry the words come from a fountain that has yet not run dry...and this is for my dear friend Uwe Pascen of Japan.. the title of my poem are his words..
time is a river
mercilessly flows
catastrophic
unforgiving
unflinchingly
tide after tide
it hits the shores
to remind man
of his minuscule
importance
to nature
his friend his foe
when he hits
he hits
so hard and loud
frenetically
frantically
morbidly
all over
the soul of
humanity
a new pain
shows
ebb and flow
purple haze
acid rain
in deathly
throes
bleeding poetry
weeping prose
a hijra poem
my words froze
human remedy
nuclear dose
pain pathos
so far
so close
but the
holistically healing
power of man
each time
he rose
