If You Fall Please Dont Blame The Bandra Municipality

Road work is going on Boran Road Bandra since a month and the paver tiles were removed , the road is not fit for vehicles coming in from Bandra Hill Road To Bandra Bazar Road via this lane and the covers are destroyed by the weight of the car wheels but there is no security guard or a Road closed board.And no Municipal personnel to check on this.

Recently I was told two ladies had fallen in the earlier ones ,, these are two new ones ..

gaping to give you a shock
beware you might just fall in
while you blindly walk.or while
the mobile in your hand you
trip and in you go..plonk
with headphones as you
jaywalk you might enter the
unknown zone of bandra
bazar road ..if you trip on a
rock  on your moonwalk
our bandra municipality
home of the laziest flock
the soul of bandra they mock
one thing is sure they wont pay
your hospital bills if you do get
knocked ..dear ms poonam mahajan
advocate mr ashish shelar please
do take stock..boran road is suffering
from small pox.. minus the paver blocks
all the illegal hawkers hiding in this lane
from the municipal van adding to congestion
of roadblocks ,,,garments overstocked ,,


ps

 as a photographer poet living in this area the path used by my grandkids and family i could only come up with this poem.. to awaken the soul of our local representatives ,,, we voted for progress and development ..

The North Indian Migrant Bandra Reclamation

He is the North Indian Muslim ,, I shot cleaning the flour , today I met him on my walk and talked to him..

He clarified a few things the white powder that he was cleaning is not flour but dry  bread crushed by him to make batter for the slumdog caterers ,.. he works from 2.30 am till 5,30 am and is paid Rs 4 a kg,,, the batter is used by the caterers for their tanduri chicken lolipops etc,,

And such is their life ,, he will always be working even dreams are expensive in Mumbai.

And if Mayawatiji had not build gardens parks her statues and those hideous elephants in Lucknow and spent the money on creating infrastructure jobs he would have never come to Mumbai to get kicked around and exploited by the caterers who are from Uttar Pradesh to and our lakhpatis with homes and shops ,, some crorepatis too.

If Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and his scion  Wake Up Akhilesh Yadav had done something for the poor and not wasted millions at Saifai I dont think any Bhaiyya in his right mind would come to Mumbai unless to be a big star in Bollywood .

And if the royal Yadas of Uttar Pradesh see the misery the poor conditions of the Bhaiyyas they would know what it means to live in Mumbai as a Bhaiyya..And the Bihar satraps would never think of the Bihari migrant in Mumbai they have their own political struggle of Kaun Banega CM..

When A Lady Takes To Drinking

I see her with the drunkards of Bandra Bazar Road .. as our area has a single hooch shop.. opposite the Bandra Bazar Garbage dump, and most of my pictures shot of people lying sprawled at the Bazar are of these drunks ,,

And this lady is only a part of the drinking problem I have shot a mother dead drunk with her 3 month old child lying on the road , Many years back there was another lady ragpicker with two kids  who lived on the Bandra Reclamation garbage bin .. she too would be sprawled ,and slept with the other drunks to keep up her habit  than she disappeared with the kids , the kids were fed by the local residents .

And having been an alcoholic myself I know the pain the fear the guilt and the desperate nature of not getting the morning dose .. and I shot her while on my walk this morning I just shoot pictures there is no germ of a back story it just comes spills over .

There was a cripple drunk at Bandra Bazar Road they robbed his artificial foot , and with a skull cap on his head he would beg dirty disgusting he died unsung.I shot him a lot ,,

Than there is a full fledged Muslim with long beard , looks like a religious guy lives at JJ Colony but a boozard .. I have not seen him for a long time ,,

And on the Mound where the most garbage is thrown , they boozards are openly drinking making ruckus but no action has been taken,, be it Congress or BJP..nothing will ever change ,,school kids watch the boozers , and sadly our local representative stays two minute from this dump,..dump of hardcore dangerous alcoholics .. must I shoot pictures to prove my point ,, but than our representatives will never see all this with heavy blinkers ,, we got rid of the Congress because they did nothing and the Bandra Bazar is the worst place in dirtiness and filth starting and ending with the dump and the drunkards ,, and you cant blame the drunkards they will come to drinking to the only drinking hole at the Bazar .. country booze is what they drink .. and it is easily available.

An Ode To Sharukh Khans Ramp.. RIP

The words of this poem kept hitting my head with a bludgeon.. no pun intended and I dont have a picture of the now demolished ramp near Mannat .

I can take a rick take a picture and come back .but I would be unnecessarily wasting 40 bucks or more keeping the rickhsa waiting as I would  take  a single shot  on my mobile phone.

And I am not a Sharukh Khan fan at all though if he has a good memory much before he became a star while he was living at Syed Mirzas house at Devi.. many years back he had come to get his pet dog treated with his driver Kabir at the Municipal  Dog Clinic at Khar SV Road and did not have money he must have left his purse at home I loaned Kabir Rs 250 for the dogs shot ,, and yes Kabir returned it to me when I was working at Badasab .

Many years later I did meet Sharukh at Mehboob I was working with Mr Nitin Manmohan he saw me in my fancy dress and he was shooting for Karan Arjun .. he said my face looked familiar I said no only his dog would recognize me ,, I did not tell him about the Rs 250.. Thankfully .


my poem in humility

When the ramp was being built near Mannat
the Municipality and everyone kept quiet ..
perhaps a few hands might have been greased
but than the Christian activists woke up very late
they were angry mightily displeased ..and went
after his Bollywood posterior like a disease
every Mount Marys fair the pilgrims grumbling
ill at ease .they all thundered King Khan had to
be bought down on his knees ..someone sneezed
when the push the pull the shove became a squeeze
enter our brand new Bandra ambassadress from
Worli defender of our civil rights our hope a letter
to the head of Municipality was unleashed ..
down came the ramp clapping hands of the Christians
a battle was won all pleased ..and than I wonder why no
such action against illegal hawkers at Bandra Hill Road
the slums besides the Muslim slums of Nargis Duut Nagar
illegal shop house extensions dirty filthy Bazar Road ..
why only certain vote banks were appeased ..
as a photographer i shoot the truth dying fishes at the
Bandra Talao , so many other issues of Bandra ..only
Sharukh Khans illegal ramp has gone with the breeze ..

Meet Mohomed Saddam Hussain Ragpicker Bandra Reclamation

I was on my walk this morning and I time myself but I spotted him and requested him to stop I told him to tell me something about himself as I want to write about ragpickers .
And he told me his name is Mohomed Saddam Hussain.
I asked him how many hours he spends on ragpicking .. he said 8 hours and he does it in the night .I asked him how much does he earn per day ,, he said Rs 250 to Rs 300 .
I did not want to break the rhythm of my walk and I dod not have have the astute questioning power of a journalist ..and neither were my questioned posed to him rapidly ..

My last question was do the cops hassle him or take money from him ,he said no , but he added if he has not had a bath or is in a bedraggled appearance they lock him up as a suspect .. in the night .

And I moved away thanking him , sadly there were many questions I  did not ask him , like how long has he been doing this work, where does he live , does he have a family to support and of course he would refuse to answer me if I said are you a drug addict , as most of them with this plastic bag on their shoulders are into brown sugar and are colloquially known as gardalus . And these were after thoughts as I passed him and moved for the next part of my walk to MET Gardens .


I left my house in the morning at 5.30 am from Bandra Reclamation Lal Mitti , today was my 9 day of strenuous brisk walking,,I reach the end of Bandra Reclamation beyond ONGC quarters beyond the Bus Depot till the last building called Agasti I was there at 5.45 am I take a U turn pass the Leelavati Hospital and reach the MET gardens at 5.59 a minute before the Mount Carmel Church bells began to chime , but before that just outside the Met Gardens I congratulated a Marathi lady senior citizen , educated she distributes milk and she is here by 5 am I think and she is the only woman among all the men helping her unload the milk for the sellers from a refrigerated truck..I told she was doing a great job and I was impressed with her and thus reached the MET Garden gates .

At 6.07 the sonorous sounds of azan from a nearby  Muslim Mosque

I normally take ten rounds a round is about 280 mtrs and this time I pushed my self an extra 5 rounds I finished 15 rounds at 6.59 and I could see the Marathi lady busy with her work from the MET Garden fencing.. and this is Woman Empowerment and a woman's humility and hard work.


I reached home wife gives me a cold glass of milk and tired I hit the sack again not before watching my grand daughter Nerjis 3 year old making her own sweet  Paratha  she kneads the flour and with deft artists hands she will make a perfect round and hand it over to my wife to do the rest .. this is her breakfast with milk .. she has been kneading shaping the chapattis since the age of 2 ..

Marziya was getting ready to go to school the third grand daughter Zinnia is with her maternal grandmother in town who has undergone angioplasty..

The Ear Cleaners of Bandra Talao

I Get My Ears Cleaned Before The Ear Cleaners Of Bandra Talao Disappear

And he kept asking me Sir when is your American friend Alex coming to Mumbai to get his ears cleaned ,..I told him my friends bucket list is spilling over ..he has started running on the streets of LA at 5 am to become lithe and lean.. when he comes to Bandra Talao he will look like a lad of seventeen...with a glittering face and sheen..to come and have his ears cleaned he is very keen..he will take your pictures too ,,,you know what i mean .he asked me one last question will he have a turban  big rings like you or will he be wearing jeans ,, i looked stumped bewildered ..i wish i could more explicitly describe this scene ,,and than i remembered to text my american friend to take anti dengue anti swine flu anti humor vaccine ..

Welcome To Mumbai The City Of Nameless Migrants

I shot this in the evening near the taxi stand Bandra Talao..

Why has he come to Mumbai..
What are his dream he is an
nomadic wanderer it seems
he was faceless nameless
with a click i pulled him into
my photo stream will his
quest be redeemed he is
one in a million living in
Mumbai a city bursting
at the seams ..she shouts
she cries she screams
as they defecate on her face
urinate on her hopes letting
off stream.. she curses the
people in power for her
sanctity being blasphemed
overburdened to the extreme
as the politicians extort
scheme rob her of self esteem