I shot beggars in Ajmer as an holistic exercise trying to understand the pain of living and slow dying on the streets ,, I actually did not go out to shoot beggars , but they were there part of my measured steps that were taking me to meet the Malangs at Jalali Chowk or the Hijras at Moti Katla..
And this series I am re posting as BW ..was the last lag of my trip heading towards the station to catch my train for Mumbai.. beggar husband with his crippled wife , mother with a sickly child , so many painful scenes ,,I was leaving all that behind back to Mumbai Bandra and my backyard.
I shot what others would never shoot in Ajmer I shot human degradation , impoverished state of health , diseased children wandering on the streets like maggots in the rancid flesh of a rabid dog.
I saw Ajmer ..away from the Dargah .. I shot the miserable bylanes of Ajmer , beggars groveling at your feet , whining , crying pleading ,,and some of these were drugaddicts facing withdrawal system..I shot darkness of despair as a silhouette on withered human faces ,,there was a moment I wanted to cover my face sit next to a beggar and beg..understand his proximity to pain as a reality and as an illusion.. this was hardcore begging .. but the coward in me held me back..I decided to shoot beggars as a photographer as a poet and as a mystic.
I now wonder and am ashamed the number of times someone in the crowd in Mumbai insulted me for shooting beggars to sell their pictures and bringing the country a bad name ,, and in the words of Warren Hastings I am astonished at my moderation ,,I am only shooting beggars , not killing innocent people by selling spurious drugs and booze ,I am not cheating robbing the exchequer I dont rape molest kids , I dont throw acid on faces of hapless women.. Fuck I only shoot beggars as is where is , I dont photoshop their pain , but I do try to show beggars in a more arty way ,, for those connoisseurs of photography living in ivory towers ,,
I dont shoot mountains running streams , birds , sunsets I shoot the life of man and his consort as beggars ..and their children semi naked running after the Muslim man to give them a coin or two..I could take a sabbatical from shooting beggars , but than my poetically aligned beggars soul wont let me take such a step.
I dont try to prejudge beggars ,whether they are really beggars or merely posing as beggars to make money , whether the lady behind the hijab is really a Muslim or a Hindu.. does not matter ,, a beggar is a beggar .. there is no escape from this vicious cycle ,,, I have yet to find a man who married a beggar on the streets and changed her life and his own.
So in short Ajmer is my cosmic tryst with Muslim beggars .. yes my documentation is restricted to Muslim beggars ,,I shoot other beggars too without blinkers but I shoot Muslim beggars as a slap on the soul of Muslim society , they talk ridiculously about Yoga , convert subvert any subject under the sun to give it a ugly definition , they will spend ostentatious amounts of money buying goats camels dumbas as charity they will give the skin of the animal to the mosque , but will never give a goat to an orphanage or a widows home.
I have seen the stingy miserly attitude for the so called sanctimonious rich Muslims ....Muslims begging from Muslims this end of the spectrum and further beyond our shores Muslims killing Muslims even in Ramadan.. and the Salafi minarets deaf and mute so called custodians of our Faith ,, that is why the disillusioned are joining the ISIS.. to create a Caliphate in blood rape and enslavement of innocent women..decapitations crucifixions and mass ethnic cleansing .. this is the New Holocaust in Islam.
