Appu My Best Friend

Appu My Best Friend, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

Updated 10 July 2010

These are my oldest images when I visited Chor Bazar on Fridays to scrounge for old stuff old cameras I had over 300 of them and I gave them away a few years back for peanuts, and I shot this limbless phenomenon Appu My Best Friend.


And he always had a smile on his face and mind you as a street poet it was not his bodys deformity I showed you , but his resilience of human spirit , though battered bruised he was happy uncomplaining.

This was a blank post here at Flickr I am adding text for those who dont know Appu..

Appu stopped sitting at Chor Bazar , I dont know the reason why , than he would disappear for months and resurface at Mahim church.

It was here in 2008 I introduced him to my mentor Dr Glenn Losack.

Last I shot Appu was when I took my grand daughter Marziya Shakir without informing anyone at home.


I gave Marziya Rs 20 and without showing her Appu who was not visible let her walk in the crowd till she herself spotted Appu and handed over the money to him.

This was her street lesson in Charity..and I will take Marziya there once again this time to shoot Appu with my Nikon D 80 .

Marziya has been trained as a street photographer and crowds dont intimidate her at all.

And this street photography set on Flickr has 10599 pictures but if I were to include all that I shot on the streets the rituals processions it would reach the 80000 mark..so I have not included all my Moharam pictures and other street pictures in this set.

Street photography is poetizing street pain..documenting the soul of humanity living on the roads of despair and remorse.

Due to various confusing emotions I have stopped carrying my camera to work, just dont feel like shooting , and it is the first time my Flickr overflowing photo stream is at a complete stand still.

I have no dearth of situations to shoot pictures...but I think after coming back from Ajmer I am saturated of all feelings , I am nothing but a Void..

New Update

17 April 011


Its tough being myself now imagine trying to be Appu for a few minutes, without someone taking care of his daily needs he cant live.. this is the ultimate in the depravity of mans karmic destiny, it scares me completely of my wit, and I know him since many years never once asked him how it happened..just could not ask him ...never will.

I have not met him for a very long time he hails from Assam and is a Muslim but he could be a Hindu too does it matter he carries the burden of his existence on a stump sitting on the middle of the road..

Will the UID help him I dont know..