Muslim Beggar Woman

Knock, And He'll open the door
Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun
Fall, And He'll raise you to the heavens
Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.”
― Rumi

I am not a face reader , nor do I read books I once did voraciously deliriously , chimeric-ally maybe reading all those books helped ..my pictures in introspection are Dickensian , they tell you the garrulous nature of life and the struggle to remain afloat.

I hardly talk to the Muslim lady beggars I shoot , I shoot and than the poetry of Life fills in the blanks.

Perhaps if I was a woman I would have sat with her asked her about her pain her tribulations ..why was she begging what went wrong how did the wires snap.

While shooting Men Muslim beggars I keep my distance never try to get curious I just shoot and offer them help if necessary .

I a good at reading body language so I know a professional beggar from a mile and having shot so many beggars I know the vocabulary of their angst and pain.

Beggars are human that is the basic premise ..they hurt and they try not to cause hurt ..the impoverished ones are incapable of hurting a fly .

Now what is her story..I leave it to your imagination ,,her child narrates it better than her in stolid silence .

The Muslim Beggar Girl

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi

The season of beggars is not spring or autumn , it is Ramzan our very holiest month , a month of piety , introspection and much more .

I used to fast , shoot the street scenes the Iftar , Sairi at my house but than my gallbladder stones put stop to my rozas its been two years now.

Ramzan is a very soul satisfying month and it is a lucrative month for beggars , finally God answers their prayers through the kindness shown to them by the people at large ,Ramzan touches the non Muslim too in more ways than one .

And Ramzan in the Bandra slums is a month of happiness despite sufferings and their impoverished lives , the poor serve the much poorer ..

I shot all this as sets , than clustered them together for easy access at Flickr ..the aroma of food , dates , the awakeners who wake up people to begin their fasts .


And Ramzan is Hope beggars from far flung areas , even Uttar Pradesh come to Mumbai for charity , and as I live in Bandra , the area gets beggars from Mumbra and other places .

But than there are those who come with big fat receipt books and con the naive I call them the white collar beggars.

Crimes are less during Ramzan negligible as it keeps the Muslim crooks gangsters in check..this is a fact..

And the Muslim beggar kids are like buds in a garden of hope waiting to be touched by Gods Mercy..

And read her face penetrate her eyes hr soul as my camera did and here was the story of struggle suffering maintaining  the nobility of Gods Grace .

Rest can be volubly read in silence ..

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

The Muslim Beggar Girl ..

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 .

Tomorrow Does Not Exist For The Muslim Beggar Child ..

I was perhaps influenced some bit by my dear friend Glenn to shoot beggars , when  
I began my tryst with photography I was more keen on shooting rituals my own faith Shiasm Moharam etc ..Mumbai streets and my rustic background of Bandra Bazar Road.,,a gaothan or a old fishing village .

Than I began shooting Hindu feasts more fascinated by the Kumbh and the Naga Sadhus , than I got entrenched deep into the Rifai Silsila and once I began documenting this body piercing Sufi mendicants I accidentally went to Haji Malang met the Hijras Transgender , and thus began my intense documentary
on this group now no more Public ..I only shoot for myself over 20000 images .

Once I came to Ajmer the circle of shooting beggars became complete , and every successive years I shot the beggars the rifais and the transgender .And I could not miss not shooting Pushkar .

Than came the Maha Kumbh at Allahabad I shot the Naga Sadhus took a dip with them on Basant Panchami my guru is a Naga Sadhu from Junagadh Akhada.

And in 2010 I became a Malang and began earnestly documenting their lifestyle ..till I went to Makanpur shot the 596 Urus of Zinda Shah Madar .

This picture of the beggar girl shot many years back , haunts me even today , her cherubic face , she had got a plastic bag of milk from the Muslim milkshop but she came stood by the door of my old workplace fascinated by my dreads my colorful attire and I still cant read the mystery of her eyes ..the glimmer of hope and a unpredictable tomorrow ..

I shot a lot of Muslim beggar women and when I say lot I mean really a great lot as they are everywhere in my area specially during Ramzan and Bakra Eid .

I got both my grand daughter Marziya now 6 and Nerjis now 2 to shoot them too , and this was important , they both respect the beggars and will force my wife to stop pay them when they encounter the beggars on the street while going to school.

And a lot of beggars have disappeared I wanted to shoot Appu he has no limbs and I wanted him to meet Nerjis but I was not able to find him he is from Assam,,

Than the Umbrella Lady of Bandra Reclamation died recently unsung both my granddaughters were fond of her .

The other beggar lady to make an impact on my grandkids was Maria the Leper Lady she too has disappeared from Boran Road..she still remembers my friend Glenn who shot her here in Bandra a few years back.

I must reiterate I dont sell my pictures , but I shoot my pictures as blogs not as images full fledged stories that are not dependent on prose or text , the poems are gods gift to this beggar poet.

I only shoot pictures sparingly I have lost it , that great surge of shooting pictures , I shoot pictures cosmically , what I shoot is what I am destined to shoot.

Now both my cameras belong to my granddaughters , both on  summer holidays.

The blind beggar boy of Bandra never got back his sight , his guardian begs without him a lone figure stranded in Mumbai , and most of the beggars here in Bandra are from Murshidabad W Bengal..so much for Poriborton..


Did I meet this girl again never ..

I also shot during the time I shot this girl the Turner Road Traffic Signal urchins .. a very brave lot and now children of those kids are begging at Bandra Linking Road Pamposh Signal.

Most of the Turner Road  traffic signal kids , the girls now women dress up as Hijras and make good money clapping their hands and overtly decked up in seductive make up, and daringly low cleavage , they run when they see me as I know their true gender .

So I will bring back some  nostalgic pictures from my archive , give them an Aviary treatment and showcase them newly attired as my blogs of pain hope and remorse ..

The World Of Muslim Beggars

its true as a mystic poet
i shoot beggars on the street
muslim mothers misplaced irony
of their fate and their defeat
sitting hoping against hope
forgotten by god on his beat
i try to conjure through my
cosmic lens within her veil
her anger her helplessness
her inner angst overflowing
her black winding sheet

her little child bewildered
in wonderment tries
to plead will i
or will i not offer him
some sweets his soul
helplessly touching
his mothers feet

was it gods will
that it is beggars
on my journey
i holistically  meet
like them my fate
too i cannot cheat

i think of the hungry
in this world before
i sit at the table
open my mouth
to eat..my poetic
pathos incomplete
to a god omnipresent
i seek mercy i entreat

Uttar Pradesh

too much bhashan
to much sandesh
sanskar minus aadesh
dreamless dilemma
of neta ji sir akhilesh
a computer with a
new interface hope
hiding in the woods
hobbling on the surface
the curse of
 muzzafarnagar
people displaced
pain poverty
sorrow embrace
divisive politics
dividing caste
country and race
the muslim vote
does an about face

22 Rajjab

"Loving ‘Ali is the sign of belief, and hating ‘Ali is the sign of hypocrisy."
"We recognized the hypocrites by their hatred of ‘Ali."

#22Rajjab 
#Mauwiyah Maloon