This is a 189 picture set on Flickr that showcases mad people I saw and shot on the streets..and I have shot many but have not updated them on this set as they all are part of my Street Photography and Sufism set.
Madness is a mystical moment and one has to be careful shooting these people they can just charge at you and break your camera , and again there is some madness that I documented among the possessed .. but it is a state that is part of Hazri when the spirit enter the human body , and the body is no more control.. This I shot among Muslims at Dargahs or among Hindu women during Durga Visarjan or the Marriammen Fest of the Tamil and it is a very scary state .
I shot a guy at Hussain Tekri who under the state of Hazri starts behaving like a snake writhing on the floor banging his head on the iron doors invoking the Holy Saints and Imams .. and I shot him and it was hellfire when the flash hit him , he stopped my camera with his stare and charged after me I fled from the Shrine and next came back home with a dead Nikon camera D70 I paid Rs 9000 to get it working again and you may not believe this is fine with me ,,There are a lot of encounters all in my head but this one hit me the most my mind and my wallet.
So I have not incuded those people to my Mad People set , people I shot bathing in sewers at Hussain Tekri , buried under mud and and at Mira Datar Unjha a woman leaping in the air , acrobat like and this is my genre . possession exorcism and Dua Tawiz Black Magic ,, But its all in my Sufism set at Flickr .
This Madpeople set is of crazy people violent people mentally challenged volatile people and here again I have not included the Naga Babas I shot at the Maha Kumbh,,lifting a boulder with his penis , or doing strange acts ..this is a restricted set at Flickr for Flickr members only .
I met Tantrics and Aghoris too ,,, and here in their presence you meet a lot of madpeople too who go into trance and do rare acts that no human would do.
There were many madpeoplle I shot like the Mad Man Of Bandra Bazar who disappeared , he never used to bathe and he was a horrible sight ,, I used to get scared shooting him but I took my chances.
I know once at Hyderabad during Moharam while I was shooting a beggar family a madman I had angered without realizing it came from the back and began strangulating me and I had no voice as I was in a death grip there was no one around it happened suddenly and the beggar family just watched till some Shias came and rescued me from his grip , than the cops came and I did not file a complaint ,,I was at the wrong time at the wrong place I guess .
So please be careful when you shoot mad people ,, perhaps I am mad too to some extent that the God of Mad People Saves me too Lol
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
Isaac Newton
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
Miguel de Cervantes
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom.
J. G. Ballard
