Sunday, November 4, 2012

Nerjis Asif Shakir..Tryst With Photography..

When Nerjis Asif Shakir my second grand daughter was born , she was puny , ugly , and was not the prettiest sight , at all...She was furry , grouchy but she had rapt eyes and this I noticed when I took her first few shots..her after birth picture was shot by her dad on the mobile phone and sent to me that I posted on Facebook and GooglePlus,..

And the day she was born I gave her a cyber identity her Gmail her Facebook Google Plus and a Twitter handle ,,and I was sure she would be a street photographer like me and her sister Marziya Shakir.

I blogged for her , she got used to the camera began shooting , the camera in my hand held by me she took her first shots when she was 5 month old,.. and thus began her tryst with my passion shooting pictures.

Now 15 month old she has a formidable grasping power..more confidence and perception..and she is more observant than a normal child of her age, does the camera make you observant? I dont know,.. but you start seeing the world and you become a cosmic camera body yourself with lenses.

I gave her a football the normal one that young boys use , she started kicking it falling down in the process , but now she can shoot it seamlessly.

I put her on to writing, drawing and painting , awakening her artistic side and it keeps on blooming , the walls the bed covers all have have become her signature prints.

Her resting place is my laptop, she will click the desktop , for he birthday pictures , and she watches them.. sounds uncanny .. but because ours is a Shia house and the ladies do matam..she hears music her little hands go to her chest.

I recently took her to the Shiv Sena Ganesha pandal and I was shooting pictures the Om chant was going on and on one side Nerjis was doing matam..this is her faith, she takes a copy book, sits with a niqab on her head and will recite the few lines of a Noha of Bibi Sakina.

She is only 15 month old ,,,most of the beggars in Bandra are known to her , she will see the Cross we pass and tell me Dada .. Jesus.

She is like me with the temperament of a Malang .. does the Kaif going round and round and round and round..

She wants to come with me to the workshop, fabric sellers ,she will hold the measuring tape pretend to take my measurements ...

So Nerjis Asif Shakir brings back my children s lost childhood and makes me now relive it more positively make amends with their children.

And even if I die tonight I would have no regrets I saw my children s future in their children s eyes ..though I would miss seeing my daughters children.. they are playing hide and seek within their cosmic consciousnesses of to be or not to be .

I am a DADA..but not a NANA yet..

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