He sells coriander leaves , hara dhaniya at the Bandra Bazar and hardly talks to anyone , he is a disheartened man a very lonely man..when it rains heavily he covers himself with his umbrella.
I have been observing him for several years without stalking him ,once he has sold all his stuff , he comes to De Monte Street and has his frugal meal and goes to sleep outside a shop with downed shutters ,, I have shot him in this position too.
I feel sad for him , thousands of miles away from his hometown in Uttar Pradesh he came to Bandra to chase his dreams ..he is not very friendly , hates making conversation so I have only few words relationship with him I buy the coriander from him for my Java sparrows ...
Does he miss his family or have the abandoned him ..and when I saw him sitting like this I could not resist taking this pensive shot ,, a shot that tells so much of his lifes struggle , his penury , he is not doing well in life but I think he has firmly decided he will not beg..
When Hon Akhilesh Yadav invites all the Bollywood Bigwigs for his glamour and glitzy show in Saifai .. will he ever have time to think of the people of his State enslaved in Mumbai.. doing menial jobs ,,jobs that the Marathi Manoos will never do.. the Marathi Manoos with due respect wants to be in the Police Income Tax Sale Tax ..so the void is being filled by the North Indian migrant , he is the wheels that moves Mumbai.
His contribution to the growth progress of Mumbai as a commercial hub cannot be ignored .. his services in every domestic field a necessity ..
Many of these Migrants colloquially sometimes even derogatorily are called Bhaiyyas ,, they are spread out as laudry men , washing clothes , ironing clothes , vegetable sellers , bhangarwalas ,you will find a lot of them in MTNL once they were linesmen now they dabble with Internet wires ..at street corners ..
They sell fish that they buy from Bhaucha Dhakka , operate on a mobile phone , they sell newspapers , once Parsi Dairy farm had Bhaiyyas in their blue shirts working out from their office at Marine Lines ,,
Tailors , embroidery workers , carpenters , fruitsellers , are mostly from UP and the hordes of beggars that come from North India trying their luck out in the streets of Mumbai.
The Government of Uttar Pradesh has never done anything for the people of their State working as migrants in a heartless city like Mumbai ,, happy to have got rid of them..
Than I say a silent prayer for my Dad Mohomed Shakir who ran away from Lucknow at the age of 15 .. living in the slums of Kurla he gave us a Hope .. he made sure we would never have to return to Lucknow ,, He made us Pucca Mumbaikars and he so loved Mumbai that he is buried besides my mother in the beloved soil of Mumbai ..at Rehmatabad Shia cemetery Mazgaon.
''गर्व आहे मला, मी मराठी असल्याचा''.. yes this soil this air we breathe made us Mee Marathi too.
