Firoze Shakir Poet - Frozen Time: 01/29/13

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The belongings of those unknown Indians living on the roads , eking a living either begging or doing manual labor .. they have no bank account , no gold jewelry , no appliances just simple chula or sigdi , a stove .. a few utensils and on the road they produce their brood.

Kids beg at traffic signals and supplement their parents earnings ..and the streets are full of danger , but the kids get hardened soon enough and at an early age start their own family too,, the newborn child is a source of joy in terms of bringing more money, it is let out on rent to a child , and mostly the newborn is given a cough mixture to keep him drowsy asleep , the kids beg dressed scantily , and the clothes they get are sold off.

There are pockets of this begging family communes , and mostly migrants from our own state Maharashtra or Karnataka or Andhra.

The new modus operandi is the women or girls dress up as hijras and pretentiously overtly made up, clap their hands and make a killing .

Festive periods get them good earnings , Mount Mary Fair , and the Urus at Mahim.. and I have mostly documented beggar communes of Bandra Mahim.

My genre of photography is people living on the edge all Indians , begging as this is the only easiest way out.

People from better station of life too beg , I have seen well dressed mother child begging, some are forced into begging as there is a beggar mafia working in collusion with higher ups and a corrupt system

The system of hafta or protection money keeps begging alive, little kids are employed by crooks , house burglars too, if caught a reformatory school that makes them more wily crooks and they are back on the streets after 3 years...

I met a lot of kids while a film shoot was going on in a Reformatory childs home .. and they could teach you a thing or too.

So I shoot the streets beggars , the homeless the houseless all waiting it to strike it big one day ..