I shot this a long time back, most beggar children irrespective of their caste color or creed are fascinated by the camera , it is as though they give you access to enter their souls and if possible steal it too.
Her mother must have been around and I have myself come a long way since I shot this picture , the milk was given to her by the Nagori Muslim milkshop next to my old workplace ..a workplace that was a stopping place for beggars , naga sadhus , hijras and urchins from Turner Road.
I was generous too , gave them money , took their pictures and they would enter my workplace too see my old camera collection , all displayed instead of textiles and later sold for a measly sum when bad times came ..
The Naga Sadhus strangely came to see me before going on a pilgrimage and to bum me for beads and bangles ..some cheap stuff that I kept to use in film work.
I shot a lot including the serial train blast at Bandra Mahim Matunga .. and came and posted the same from my workplace in the wee hours before the news could hit the newspapers.
There was much adventure , zest and I was hooked to my camera my visits every Friday to Chor Bazar and Kamatipura flea markets .
I shifted from here to two other places and as I was hit by more badtimes misfortunes , I began shooting less .
And now it is negligible in a way I made my wife happy she would always sat what do you get by shooting all this and shooting the same thing every time ..I had no answer but photography soon metamorphosed into blogs ..personal rant if you may need to call it ,,
From Buzznet to Fotothing Blogspot Webshots Xanga Wordpress I moved my blogs till I finally settled for Flickr 10 June 2007 ..and the gift of pro kept my membership alive thanks to my good foreigner friends like Glenn and Jack Crawford .
The discontinuation of the Gift of Pro was a sad thing I sent a message to Ms Marissa Mayer I got no response ,,, and I have taken the New Flickr in my stride.
I have in the past tried out Ipernity and other blogging sites I prefer Flickr all my blogs originate at Flickr and I would cross blog it to Blogspt but that too was deprecated as Flickr puts it , so I have to manually post my stuff from Flickr to Blogspot.
I deleted all my Word Press blogs .. Word Press is not what it was when it started out..
So now I cross blog in 140 words to Twitter or Tumblr and pimp my blogs on Google+
I dont use Facebook.
So back to beggars , shooting them is a catharsis for the soul getting depleted of pain and the poetry of Life .
