The Beggar Poet on the Hijras Trail -The Cloth Slippers of Pain..., a photo by firoze shakir photographerno1 on Flickr.
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some consider me a holy man, some touch me .. seek my blessings and thereby heal my own wounds and some give me money thinking i am a beggar fakir, i accept it in humility .. i give this money to a more deserving beggar than me ..
they dont know i am a small time stylist they dont know me at all.. and for the first time in many years i dont know if i will once again go to ajmer , i write this as i update this blank post of my taragadh adventures on the hijras trail.
i seek nothng i ask nothing from the holy saints i am devoid of anger , envy i am happy with the water i drink from a beggar bowl that has a hole in it, it quenches the thirst of mother earth who sustains me..i am a follower of ali lover of hussain...
i am a shiva bhakt i shoot ganesh durga i walk in the shadow of christ...
i live with naga sadhus i have lived with aghoris i am very close to the hijra ascetic monks , and the spiritual cross dressers called sada suhagins..
now at the age of 59 i am learning photography from two gifted kids related to me by blood , one 4 years old the other 6 month old .. they teach me that the cosmic eye is what shoots the unseen...they have complete control over my destiny and the karmic soul of my camera .
my 4 year old grand daughter marziya is not a malang this she emphasizes time and again , after i leave for work.. she will take the imaginary dagger in her hands and start slashing her head than she will tell my wife to tie her head ..and to hold it with both hands to stop the bleeding .. than she will tell my wife to untie the bandage and giving her an imaginary camera ask her to take a picture .. she mimics my life style .. and this is the child i taught to unlearn photography with her eyes in a blindfold and shoot the light at the end of the tunnel..
6 month old nerjis asif shakir is the malang in my family she me and the camera we grow on each others soul.. she knows the nikon d80.. she knows its power and her power over it and i have forced the camera on her child's cosmic consciousness ..i know she will be a great photographer because photography is not just a science of the inner soul it is the life breath of our cosmic inheritance... we dont merely shoot pictures we miraculously recreate gods beauty in the ugliness of our surroundings .. yes we are both malangs street photographers ..nerjis and me .. marziya is only a photographer but she is a gifted artist too..
i am missing both of them..
