Thursday, June 25, 2015

Its A Mad Mad World




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.

Shooting The Back lanes Of Rustic Bandra













Bandra has great back lanes Nagrana lane Somnath lane and the rainy ambiance the fresh fragrance of rainy soil add to nostalgia ,,the crosses crucifixes all add the East Indian Ethos , the love of their forefathers that believed in the holistic power of Jesus Christ , he helped them when they went to fish in stormy water , he gave them abundance of fish.. he gave them joy happiness he gave them loaves .
He saved them from cholera , plague and if the Lord heard their prayers the humble East Indian built a Cross and this was his simple life over 150 years back.. the paddy fields , the smiling faces , the chirpy kids , those lazy Sunday siestas ,, those gatherings during baptism , Holy Communion , the clinking of home made tangy wine , those drunken steps of new love ,,,there was no hate , no animosity , no ill will this was the East Indian Gaothan.. a house several houses that became Home ..
And as the century turned , times changed , the Gaothan was invaded by a stream of migrants , and change sudden change tore the heart soul of the Gaothan..
In the graves the forefathers of the East Indians wept ,, every landmark uprooted , and change was like a ferocious wind , you know the rest ,,, as a photographer I shot the soul of a slowly painfully dying Gaothan.. The Church did not realize that the heads were diminishing .. empty vacant spaces at Mass..pushed forcibly to Uttan Vasai Nalla Sopara .. their heritage gone and than that one day taking the Virar fast to visit their beloved Mount Mary , and here Aunty May on weak legs picked up a candle shaped like a house hoping against hope to come back and live at Ranwar again..and she thought of her friend Agnes her children Bosco Brian Basil than hiding her tears with her veil she began to move towards the Altar of Mother Mary...
Such is the will of God that we should have everything through Mary.”
~Saint Alphonsus Liguori~

People Ask Me What Inspired Me To Become A Photographer




I said dumbfaced
Garbage ..all over
my beloved Bandra
Garbage consensual
attachment poetically
aligned to Garbage ,
breathing in breathing
out fulsome fumes of
Bandra Garbage I
seamlessly Age
A Yogic experience
part of my Tantric
Kundalini me my love
for Garbage open
gutters bad drainage
God Bless The Bandra
Municipality as they
go on a rampage
like Don Quixote
with long brooms
a war they wage
The Perfumed Garden
Sweet Fragrance of
Irrepressible Garbage
Man is the only filthy
Animal on two legs
in an illusory cage
he generates mound
mounds of Garbage
his horrific soul
lost in Garbage
Even Lord God
Cant Salvage
Nature watches from afar
insidiously enraged ,,
robbed ruined destroyed
by gluttonous Man
at every stage ,..

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