A Sincere Message To Our MLA Advocate Ashish Shelar from Bandra Bazar Road

Searching For God On Fridays

Every Friday they sit down below my house in a lane begging .
I have been shooting them with their children for several years now .
I mean Friday for others is the Namaz but for these unfortunate women Friday is a day of Hope ..means to earn money ..an act sanctified as charity .
The Children were toddlers when I first shot them huddled in the folds of their mothers hijabs now they have grown older ..yet their lives remain unchanged the cycle of begging on Friday ...The day the miyas sanctimoniously proclaim on Facebook with GIFS as Juma Mubarak is a day of hard work for these Muslim mothers and their children .
I shoot Muslim Beggars I can never cosmically ever escape them and I shoot them with a divine passion penetrating the inner angst of their miserable souls ..I know them deeply and in a way they know me too...I try in my humble way to poeticize their pain of living ..their poetry of Life ...
And once a beggar thinking I was a monk asked me curiously whether he would have to beg once he died and he was not sure if there was a heaven of beggars ...he was living here in perpetual he'll he told me .
I had an urge to shoot their videos ..but I let it go ...some other place some other time .
These are stories etched...pencil sketches and all my stories are original content .
As long as I have a mobile phone or a camera they will be coming alive touching me and through me touching you all.

The Curve of Life ..

Both these women are known to me simply as mothers of children who beg ..and perhaps I have been shooting them since the time I came to live here at Bandra reclamation .
My grandchildren Marziya and Nerjis have shot them too....and shooting pictures is shooting pain emotions feelings even for a child .
My grandkids learnt to read the textbook of Life through the camera in a way I forced the camera on the innocence of my grandchildren to save them from future shocks .
They hardly shoot now but yes if I give them my camera they shoot with sheer passion and even Zinnia is very good without being trained like Marziya or Nerjis ..she is the youngest one .
I don't search for pictures at all but yes pictures do find me here in Bandra .
I shot all this while returning from my visit to Dr Shaskank R Joshi at Lilavati Hospital ..I was visiting him after almost 3 months to show him my new blood sugar report which his assistant told me was a good sign from 250 I had bought my blood sugar to fasting 92 and 122 PP.
By playing tennis strenous walking and control over my diet and blessings of all you friends and most of all blessings of these beggars too .
I miss my beggars bowl ..I ate food on it I begged with it but I gave it to a physically challenged beggar at Dhai Djinn Ka Jhopda Ajmer .
Yes I too am a beggar in more ways than one

I am Mad he said

Eyes burning orbs deep red
A crown of silver was his head
The hard pillow of the pavement
Fuck who needs a bed ..she who was the cause of his insanity the
Birch with his best friend had fled
It's true he drank brutally but she
Bit the hand that fed ..she tricked him used him abused him leaving him for dead he walks the streets of Dadar searching her in every nook and corner ..his thoughts his anger I cosmically read I had walked the same path of morbid drunkenness hallucinations that my mind and body had spread ..
Though I loved her my warrior queen of the mountains it was another man she wed ...leaving behind sad memories instead .
Crooked shadows haunt me follow me on her footprints I tread ..

I can only shoot what I was cosmically destined to shoot

The third eye of Shiva eloquently mute to the Ardh Nari Nareshwar pays humble tribute ..neither man nor complete woman held in ancestral gender dispute
Misplaced womanhood dancing bells on the feet ..
The power of Krishnas flute oh Lord Iravan wise and astute ...widowed the night after the nuptials broken bangles tears streaming down the cheeks one day at Koothandavar I shall go and shoot ...moments will give testimony androgynous souls I will rob and loot ...
Withered branches dying roots ..unable to bear fruits ...

In the eyes of the beholder I am a Hindu too

my cultural inheritance
on the soul of my poetry
grew ..my religion is my
personal fiefdom from
your congregational
collusion's i withdrew
but hey i am what i am
i d be fucked crazy to
be like you ,, no my
feet wont fit into your
shoes ..

how i pray
why i pray
i dont need
your excuse
i am a malang
on the loose ,
held to eternity
by a noose
lost illusions
lost memories
no more drugs
 'no booze
no more substance
abuse ..innocent
guilty yet accused