When I come back from my walks I say Hi to Catherine , chat with her for sometime and take her pictures on my mobile phone .
There is something about her face , her loneliness and her love for her cats that touches me as a photographer and as a poet .
And I used to see her earlier too but I hardly talked to her , but the walks have changed me I talk to people find out what makes them tick..
Once when Catherine was in good health she fed the stray cats at Bandra Bazar Road ,now bed ridden unable to walk she sits on this chair and watches the world from afar .
She sleeps outside her house on the chair instead of the comforts of her bed in her house , she does not get sleep in the house she tells me.
And do people in Mumbai care for the aged , I dont think so Mumbaikars are far too selfish by nature , they hate complications stay away from people ..I can imagine her joy if someone bought her a hot soup,,,someone from her building but her closest neighbor is a washing woman dhobis.
I give her food for her cats that I used to pick up from the beef market as the fish market opens pretty late ...now the beef market has shutdown completely because of the Beef Ban and it is tragic to see the doomed faces of the jobless day workers that sit here hoping against hope.
And than I wonder what would happen to the more bustling chicken market or the mutton market or even the Kolis at the Fish market if there was a total ban on eating non vegetarian,
Perhaps than only would the mutton market and chicken market fish market understand the pain of the beef butcher .
He has lost his only means of survival, most of the daily wage workers are uneducated , unskilled and the beef market was their enduring strength.
The food stall guy near the Sunni Mosque at Bazar Road one made kheema with puris now he uses gravy some peas and potatoes to make his dish bereft of beef , this was the daily breakfast of the ricksha drivers mostly migrants from North India who dont have a house but make do living out of their riicksha.
