mumbai Blog and Journals

Appu is a friend,we met a few years back, he begged on the street corner of the flea market called Chor Bazar .I had just started photography, the first time I took his picture his relatives abused me harshly saying I would sell his pictures to the foregn press. I hate main stream media anyway.. I said nothing totally saddened I walked away, Appu saw the sadness read my moist eyes of a street poet. The next time I went and gave him the copies of his picture. Yes photography binds people much faster than a priests sermon.I began photo playing with Appus pictures, new to adobe photo shop, I would remove Appu from his languid horrid surroundings cut paste him magically seamlessly at the up end Bandra Carter Road , this made him my friend for life.I paid him, but it was not what he wanted from me, I cannot or will not call him a beggar.He is destinys Child. I know if Princess Diana was alive she would have endeared herself to Appu... During the cloudburst when Mumbai was bought to a standstill 15 feet water , buildings submerged, I barefeet was carrying a human live corpse on my shoulder from Thana to Bandra, an old man who had accompanied me to Thana traffic office when we were caught in the onslaught, no cars, no trains no help, the old man told me leave me here near a bus stop, the mobile phones dead, I requested him , pleaded him, we hitched , till we reached Chunnabhatti, I saw a Best bus , I put him in the bus, dragged my bare feet drenched to Bandra, perhaps you think I am digressing, actually I kept myself alive praying for my son Asif who was stranded at Mira Road, and the thunderbolt of a thought of Appu.. Yes in retrospection I learnt to walk like a man because of Appu, I cried a lot thinking of him. I knew how the goats loved butting him on the streets , yes it was a territorial war between him and them. I have not met Appu since two years , I dont know where he his, but I hope he lives . But it is tough living Appu.. This is a series not to beg sympathy for Appu but to show you his defiance to fight misery at all costs...this is the magic of survival , magic of a magical moment called India.