Sunday, July 12, 2015

The Blind Beggar of Ajmer



These are images I shot at Ajmer 2012.. once I shot uploaded my pictures I hardly revisited them but I use the Aviary tool to transform the soul of my colored pictures , I desaturate them.. making them more  starker than I shot them I do not have a gifted vision , I just shoot impulsively and without composition but I shoot , from within.. I dont photo shop my images never .

I shoot alone lurking scrounging scavenging for beggar souls I capture them add them to my beggar documentary here at Flickr .I rarely talk to beggars , and here this blind beggar called me closer to him offered me tea,,did he know I had shot his picture ,,I dont know but I am certain most blind beggars are mystics ,,they know the here and the hereafter ,,and all this depth I could only find in Ajmer ,,

As I blog about beggars I have to keep reminding new readers I shoot beggars because a part of me submerged in the nether region of my despair wants to surface come out as a beggar ,,in short I dont sell beggar pictures , I only pimp my beggar pictures adding a handful of words to my imagery..words are merely to add texture ,,a lot of people I connect with dont know about the rich tapestry of the poor of India..

Sometimes I tell myself stop shooting pictures I have over
342,184 Photos at my Flickr archive... if I work on a few of  them I could re blog them as a new post ,, like this one and the one before this.

I have never visited Ajmer in Ramzan or Moharam .. The Holy Saint calls me during his Urus , he helps me in every possible way to com to his kingdom , he makes sure I shoot his lost tribe of Beggars ,,they may be professional beggars or they might just be posing as beggars but the Holy Saint considers them his children , he sees they are fed and there is nothing called Hunger in Ajmer .

Food and dargahs are interconnected .. I will tell you an incident  I had come to the Dargah of Nizamuddin Aulia , during Moharam Chehlum first time, I did not know anyone I was wearing a long black robe ,, I had not been initiated as a Malang ,, I called up my mentor Peersab Fakhru Miya in Ajmer Hujra no 6 from Nizamudin Aulia and told him I had come here ,and did not know anyone ,,soon after the phone call ended a young boy came to me he said  are you Firoze Shakir , I nodded my head , he took my camera bag and I met the Khadim they offered me Niyaz..this is the kind of connection from one dargah to the other ,,,I was really very hungry,,,

;Last year too at the Nizamuddin Aulia Dargah I had come to spend some time , a guy asked me to take Niyaz ..I did I bought it on a paper plate and was about to eat and this young kid more hungry than me sat next to me .. I placed my Niyaz and asked him to eat it all I left the dargah but I felt I had eaten a lot ,,actually I had eaten nothing.. so beggars are connected to food through other beggars too.


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