Moharam Ashura in Chennai 2017 ..

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I had shot Moharam  Ashura in Chennai 2010...met the humble Shias of Chennai created a bond with Mir Ashfaque and Mis Meesaq and others ..this was my first visit to Chennai during Moharam I had come earlier years back for styling costumes of mega star Chiranjeevi in a Sridevi starrer.

Then in 2017 I decided to document Ashura Moharam in Chennai again and Mir Ashfaque and Mir Meesaq who have a palatial building Imambara at Royapetttah invited me to stay at their Imambara .
Highly hospitable and caring the just the Shias but also our Sunni brethren and the Hindus of Chennai .

The Sunnis Shias live in peace and  this is what is important despite our ideological differences .

I shot the 7 Moharam Juloos and than the main procession Ashura Shahadat that  ends finally at 1000 Light Mosque .

I did my kama matam on the streets of Chennai..this is my personal protest against Yazidiyat ..it is my act ..and it is my head that bleeds ,.. good or bad in your perception does not bother me .


I have been doing it in every city I have shot Ashura and Chehlum....

I returned back to Mumbai but I have beautiful thoughts of the kind people of Chennai ,,, and I have a large number of Tamil friends in Mumbai I shoot their Marriammen Feast ..and am treated like a brother by all of them.

This is the beauty of India .. it touches us all this feeling is applicable to those who were born here and live here .


Mahatma Gandhi: (Father of the Nation - India)
“I learnt from Hussain how to achieve victory while being oppressed.”
"My faith is that the progress of Islam does not depend on the use of sword by its believers, but the result of the supreme sacrifice of Hussain.”
“If India wants to be a successful country, it must follow in the footsteps of Imam Hussain.
“If I had an army like the 72 soldiers of Hussain, I would have won freedom for India in 24 hours.”


Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru: India’s 1st Prime Minister
"Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of righteousness."


Josh Malihabadi (Shaayar-e-Inqilaab or The Revolutionary Poet)
“Insaan ko bedaar to ho lene do,
har qaum pukaraygi hamare hain Hussain”
(Let humanity awakens and every tribe will claim Hussain as their own.)


Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar (Pioneer of the Khilafat Movement and a dauntless fighter in the struggle of independence)
“Qatl-e-Hussain asl main marg-e-Yazid hai,
Islam zindaa hota hai har Karbala ke baad”
(In the murder of Hussain, lies the death of Yazid, for Islam resurrects after every Karbala).


Charles Dickens (English novelist)
“If Husain had fought to quench his worldly desires…then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam.”


Swami Shankaracharya (Hindu Religious Priest)
"It is Hussain's sacrifice that has kept Islam alive or else in this world there would be no one left to take Islam's name."

Dr. Rajendra Prasad (1st President of India)
"The sacrifice of Imam Hussain is not limited to one country, or nation, but it is the hereditary state of the brotherhood of all mankind."


Sarojini Naidu (Great India Poetess titled Nightingale of India)
"I congratulate Muslims that from among them, Hussain, a great human being was born, who is reverted and honored totally by all communities."

Ashura 

The Grinder Wheel Man Do Tanki

Much before I graduated to cutting my head with a dagger for a Moharam Shia ritual known as Kamazani or Kama Matam I used to scourge my back with flagellating blades known as Zanjeer .. sharp 15 inches blades on steel chains.

I mostly scourged my back and the blade and chains I had were light weight and cut my back fiercely .

Than I god frozen shoulder on both arms it became utterly impossible to use the blades as my shoulder joints hurt at slightest movement .

So I began cutting my head with a dagger it was much easier and less cumbersome than the blades .

I used a sword once in Mumbai but it was a heavy blade Irani sword and here too I could not move my arms ,,so I stuck to doing Kama Matam.

The dagger I used was given to me by my Hindu friend from Pushkar , he comes from a family of iron smiths ,,I used this kama that he gave me twice in  Hyderabad and Delhi and Lucknow.

But this year I took several kamas from him to give to a few friends , for Chehlum in Lucknow I used two  new daggers one long the other a hunting knife in black steel, but my relatives took away the daggers after I had cut myself , I told Guddu I needed one , so he got it back and I cut my head three times at different places in the Chehlum procession.. my mother in law took away the dagger ,,

And now I have three , the older one has a loose handle I have to get it repaired , I told Raj Tilak my friend in Pushkar I wanted a mean fierce one so I shall use what he sends me for Ashura in 2015 hopefully .. where I will be I dont know but it wont be Hyderabad and not Mumbai.. I dont do Moharam in Mumbai..

And this guy at Do Tanki Mohomed bhai does a great job.. with the sharpening on this giant wheel and again on a smaller wheel too.

He is the best ,, I have never seen anyone who does his job as passionately like him and he loves the feel of my daggers .