I was going for my walk.. it was raining it was first of Ramzan, she came out towards me and began shouting at me I looked at her straight in the face she was drenched very angry, I shot her..I knew she would not take it lightly.. but like little kids a few photographers have a Sulaimani keeda too..I moved away after the shot and she followed me ..her words were something like this ..you took my photo shithead ..I avoid confrontations ,, but I cant resist shooting mad people , the madness in me succumbs to the madness in others..and according to my dear departed mother there is a lot of madness in my family..madness can be a form of mundane melancholia or purely creative madness .
I still dont know why I began documenting mad people and I met a lot of them , they came with the rains left their footprints on the emulsion of my soul and they left leaving nothing behind save the pictures I bravely took..
In Hyderabad a madman during Moharam had caught me from the back and would have strangled me if my friends had not noticed , his hold on my throat was such I could not even raise my voice .. perhaps it is my tribute to this man ,..my second life I decided to shoot madman..Idiot was merely a book I read several time , but shooting idiocy was my first time .
The few I shot have disappeared ,..and when I pass those dark dinghy lanes I think of them..what happened , what triggered their vacuous mind to flee..and mind you as a madman in India you are pelted with stones , the more sane crazier than thou throw hot water on them .. there is a fear a deathly fear he will kidnap the kids and the irony even our cops stay away from madmen and drugaddicts ..they also stay away from those who give them hafta or protection money is just a passing thought .
This is a blank post at Flickr I will copy this text once I complete my evaluation of madpeople I have encountered but those days I did not have the courage to shoot them .perhaps I did not have a camera I lost out on a lot of wild memories.
Mental health ,,or loss of mental health here in Mumbai is tragic .. earlier it was electric shocks but I missed being locked up by a whisker during my heavily drinking days .
And those who can shoot lunatic asylums mental homes ,,it is sad.. .treatment without compassion , just misplaced clinical aid and till date hard as I tried I could never get over One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest .. In India watching mad movies the older ones was torture slapstick comedy and insult to madpeople .
What is madness and perhaps Indian madness cannot be isolated with the great minds of Freud Jung Adler ,, but Indian madness is unique in its own share of Godliness .When a poor man becomes mad even Gods forsake him..and there were stories of crooked people in order to usurp a persons property with the collusion of rogue mental doctors got a sane person locked up for the wrong reasons ,, Is there any minister that represents Madpeople ,,and this world is cruel heartless you could stage manage a sting , getting an old lonely man caught for molesting a child and than have someone eat up his property too with collusion of rogue cops ,, and I am not defending a genuine child molester .I have three granddaughters.
But than this blog is about madpeople in mad mad world ,, and in my case the world is my backyard ,,have you not seen mad people removing fleas from the under fold of his tattered dirty filthy trouser ..a mad woman hitting her head against a wall,,
But than the madness you see at Dargahs I have shot that extensively known as Hazri is very different from the mundane madness on the streets ..I have shot hardcore Hazri at Hussain Tekri Jaorah, Mira Datar, and other Sufi Shrines including the Holy Shrine of Makanpur.
I am not much learned on the subject of madness ,,,even we sane people go mad from time to time but to be totally completely mad living out your time in a dreamless world is absolutely crazy..
Perhaps I am going mad not having gone for my morning walks since 4 days ,,but seriously think about madpeople ,we are so vociferous about dogs being killed at Yulin but we are sadly so quiet and silent about madpeople ,, even the poor people drenched seeking alms in Ramzan.. we as Indians smash statues , go berserk.. at Azad Maidan.. during Ramzan .. and than those fucked kids rot in jails and those who engineer such street side riots with political patronage are laughing all the way to the bank.. they may have been Muslims but in the eyes of God and the Law they are still Indians misguided Indians rushing to Iraq to fight with the ISIS ,, will they go and fight for our country ..Fuck No.. they lost the right to be Indians these are the real madfucked people ,, led by madfucked Mullahs .. and they need to be locked and the keys thrown in the Arabian Sea .
Happy Morning I am now going for my walk.
