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Hijdas at Carter Road – 1591 viewsEarlier my daughter Samiya Shakir would get upset with my eunuch poetry hijda pictures but once she met Laxmi Narayan Tripathi all changed , she is more positive about transgenders,understands their pain , their struggle to live as others live without gender bias, heads held high.
update
My daughter Samiya has beeen going crazy because she had her examinations her paper was on Photography , her professor my humble Photo guru Shreekanth Malushte , what hurts me that we Indians who became brilliant thinkers sitting at the lotus feet of the Master, are now gone bersek , sold our soul to foreign education…our children hunch backed before they reach adulthood carrying uselesss books.
We are a race that is pathetically lacking vision, we dont have guts to bring in change thanks to myopic educational Babugiri.
Coming back to my my daughters photography syllabi, old trash color temperature, color wheel , I dont say it should not be taught but more emphasis on todays changing format of digital photography…photography is not learnt by memorizing tables, sickens me, photography books should all be burnt , photography is a skill an extension of a poetic mind, knowldege of basics is important but it is a a single roll that you shoot in the field , spread the contact sheet before your guru, who tells you where you went wrong…
This I call Unlearning Photography.
In my country we have living legends of Masters , but our system sucks.
Everbody wants big bucks, everybody wants to be a Atul Kasbekar, but very few want to be photographers.
I have already thrown up…
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Hijdas at Carter Road Stray Thoughts – 1614 viewsupdate.
18 march 2007
I am completely grounded, at home, my hand wound is as raw as ever, I have to manage life with a left hand drive, I type with one finger ,my sugar level is fluctuating at 400 or so , my Doc Dr Parmar , is trying his best to heal, I take pain killers, as in all my life this has never happened to me, I missed losing my eye last year when someones scourging blades slashed my eye lid…
I will have to be much careful from now onwards,hopefully.
Luckily I did not cut my forehead at Shahe Marda Delhi , I was offered the dagger, but the heavy rains and the safety of my camera bag, made me give it a miss.
I am touched my a lady photographer at Buzznet who sent me an Invite to rejoin Buzznet, thank you Leirdasim, I am off all social networking, I have stopped posting at the new Bloggerspot,the Beta was refreshing, but they scrapped it and it is back to ground zero.
I am a cybernetic celibate, happy at Word Press, no talking no smoking zone, no comments, just sweet solitude, I hate building new relationships as cybernetic structures come down like a pack of cards,I hope the French photographer Laurent Salesse who I met at Ashura in Lucknow connects with me before I decide to go to Koovagam for the Koondathar Hijda festival in April.
Company of like minded people is important in shooots like this…
After my cut I am incapable of shooting with my right hand…
I am copying my old pics from my site , to Word Press, though I have yet to see the bullock cart pictures I shot recently on Holi at Alibagh with my friend Jayant Dhulap.
Tomorrow is Gudi Padva , there will be a bullock cart race at Murud Beach, which is a three hour drive by rick from Alibagh.. I will give this a miss or end of losing my right hand…
my post
Of late I had stopped going to the Carter Road Promenade, but my Diabetes gives me trouble, my wounds don’t heal, the boil on my posterior has troubled me endlessly in spite of taking antibiotics suggested by Dr Rohit Suchak, , after that I was plagued by a boil on my cheek, this went on an enlarging trip, till my dear friend Dr Rajesh Kumar a skin specialist who just came and prescribed a dose of some more antibiotics Ciplox500.
Wife however has a very simple remedy for all my bodily woes she says walk walk (don’t delete repeated word)
I don’t heed her advise , as the Internet connection at home also when I get up pushes me to the brink, so whether you like it or not this a heady addiction., if you are in love on the Internet you can say all your health walks good bye.
When I was on Buzznet it was as my wife said Net Net Net… you bet.
Now that my wings have been clipped my eunuched soul is on a singular sabbatical , this home site , is a singular self talk , I talk to myself , out of the blues someone clicks my ass and listens to my rants. This is Blogging..Sometimes the wrong person listens to me.
For a Mullah my web site must be a graveyard of an adult film with more head and less tail, no pun intended.
I write for my unborn grandson.. this blogging is my last will and testament , unfortunately the best part of my characterization has been lost to posterity, comments that people passed on my Buzznet sites, comments too are like stoning the Devil I am one by default but a human devil who believes in God and his Godliness.
I don’t need to search myself on Shia sites to know what I am..
I am pretty happy with my self assessment.
My family has no problem, I hope so..
There are times I think I should have remained a bachelor, but than my salvation was written at the hand of my wife and children that appeared before I could turn a new leaf.
I remember I once ran away to join the Army, those days they took anyone provided he had height and a good chest. I lost on both counts, this recruitment took place at a plot where the Taj Intercontinental stands..
I NEVER WANTED TO BE A PHOTOGRAPHER, A WRITER OR A POET.,
This happened because my kid sister Farzana Suri , cajoled me to become a Blogger, 15 months back exactly, she said people will reach out to you…,they did in America almost getting my foot shot and a second American wife in Alaska.
I tell you I love the Internet, love and lovemaking is amazing, you have to use only your imagination and a bit of your unprotected typing finger, they say one finger typing is an aphrodisiac as a cybernetic sexual stimulant.. Keeps the population from bursting at the seams.
I got fucked, I was doing research on my Dichotomy of Love..
My one hand held by my Shia Wife and my second hand hand (don’t delete repeated word) my once to be American wife , with a black chaddar on her head comfortably converted to my faith , we both shooting Moharam together.,. but than happiness is a singular moment, never worked out, Indian women don’t even share their Jhuta plates..
Jhuta is untranslatable emotion, means your Indian wife wont share you with your shadow either.
So I gave up all such second marriage unprotected unpoetic thoughts.
My second marriage was a blow to my younger son Saif who was feeling cheated out of his turn as he tells me e wanted to get married since the age of 4.
We are searching a girl, and Google search in this case is as bad as an Ice rocket up the wrong posterior.
Another thing my tame harmless love for the Blog Goddess is to keep my shadow play of my creativity alive , her thoughts even when I am not thinking about her keep creativity alive in the Barmecidal dungeon of my mind.,.. yes I love words..,they want to come out even when they don’t make sense.,.
So you see my picture should be read separately from my home grown potted thoughts, that the guys in the city of my birth, did not understand the instruction manual sent with blogs was in Japanese …with all my curses to the dimwit developer of Nikon disaster
Called D70 Yes Slr ..
Indojin Nihonjin no Tomodachi..in this case.
Well back to my picture , these are Hijdas totally tanked, drunk, I met them by fluke , I had come to the Carter Road Promenade , by sheer accident and all meetings with Hijdas for me are predestined.,..
God wants me to meet them..
I hope to meet them collectively when I go to Koothandavar festival Koovagam.,to shoot their one night stand of solemn marriage to Lord Aryavan , widows next morning..
So enjoy this series.
I paid Rs 20 to shoot them.
They wanted Rs 500 that is before Mr. Chidambaram our erstwhile Finance Minister placed the country’s Budget in the Parliament
Koovagam Festival
http://www.chennaionline.com/society/aravaani.asp
Get married in the night and break the ‘thali’ the next morning. This is the essence of the Koothandavar festival celebrated by the eunuchs.
The village of Koovagam is next to Ulundurpet taluk in Villupuram district. The Koothandavar temple is situated in this village. This is the only temple for eunuchs, and their family deity is the Koothandavar.
A fifteen day Chitrai festival based on Mahabaratha is celebrated every year in grand style. According to the Mahabaratha, Rajakumaran, a eunuch was born to Arjuna and Naga Kannigai. The Pandavas, decided to sacrifice a human to ensure victory in the war and Rajakumaran was the sacrificial ‘goat’. His last wish was to get married.
No one came forward to marry Rajakumaran. Lord Krishna appeared as a female and married him. The next day he was killed. To signify this, the marriage is held the previous night and breaking of the ‘thali’ the next morning is done every year as a ritual.
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Water Colored Pain of the Hijda – 2177 viewsThis was a picture that was a bit unfocussed , so I tweaked it I wanted it to live in your frozen consciousness, to gradully melt as watered pain ,this brings a short series to end..
I too have an urge to go out and shoot by I am stuck so I make the most of it..my Sufi procession is still on hold..
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Mayur Hijda Rough Road Ahead – 1550 viewsI must tell you I met Mayur Hijda again at Chapel Road begging on the streets , I was at my friend Fabian the cake makers house, before Akthar Imams majlis on Sunday, he saw me and I yelled out if he had recognized me
He said one thing I will remember in Hindi
Tumhe kaun bhul sakta hai
Translated it means who can ever forget you..
This is Hijda simplicity of pain..
Does he know I am writing all this.No .
Beggars cant be choosers..
I beg to differ.
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Hijdas and the Unknown Zone – 2027 viewsHijdas have a very powerful sixth sense, they are highly intuitive, they have a strange sense of knowing, much before an event happens.
They can read you intuitively, in detail, whether you will be good or harmful to them
These are my perceptions, I am certainly not wrong in my understanding of Hijdas.
Maybe my soul; has a Hijda quality, I don’t know , but most of the Hijdas a bit hesitant in meeting me first time , after a few seconds settle down to become overtly friendly with me.
This Hijda is Mayur, he came to beg I asked him if I could take his picture he assented, Niyamat my help shot this against light, I put my hand around Mayur to reassure him of my transparent bonding with a like minded attitude of comradeship.
A comradeship that is not gender based on our diverse sexual orientation but our inherent quality of being human. Period.
I treat transgender as my equal, we have much to learn from this gifted race that we have disbarred from the mainstream because of our fucked up gender bias and our superiority fucked complex..
It is to protect themselves the Hijda or transgender take up qualities of disgust like exposing their genitalia, bullying, what not.
I don’t think they are involved in the kidnapping of children as has been touted in old grandmother folk tales, there may be a few rascals among them..
But we have to reach out to them, make them aware of their responsibilities, their contribution, this is what our Indianness demands..
I have had problems with these badly scarred Hijdas who are very wary of Man.,. the social Man who has driven them put in the wilderness to fend for themselves on the outskirts of society.
I have no intention of writing their book; I have no intention of adding any more milestones to my notoriety of fame as a controversial Shia person.
Instead I keep telling Laxmi Narayan Tripathi , if she writes a book on her transgendered soul , her community from within , she will win a Booker prize no less.
Laxmi is far too communicative with the outside world, knows the idiomatic ups and downs..I even told her to have it ghost written, as Laxmi is always at a Hijda conference from one city to the other.
Frankly any one can fall in love with Laxmi ..
So she cleverly made me her Chela and guru bhai…, cutting off all escape routes..
She loves my wife as much as my wife respects her for her undaunted individuality,
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Hijda At Bhendi Bazar – 1636 viewsHijdas don’t like their pictures to be taken, they have this ancestral belief , their souls will be imprisoned by the photographer, I shot this picture she covered her face, so in a way it adds pictorially to their aversion they have for to photographers too.
This morning at Carter Road, I shot some Hijdas dead drunk, shot some weird pictures, they wanted 500 bucks, I gave them Rs 20.
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Hijdas at the Doorstep – 1706 viewsThe Hijdas can sense the birth of a baby, within seconds and will be there at the doorstep to take the Badhai, money for blessing the new born.
Once they collect this a mark will be made with their name say Pushpa , no other Hijda will bother you again.
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The Finale – 1646 views
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Ashok Row Kavi Humsafar – 1753 viewsAshok Row Kavi is a very dear friend of BT , we are not very close, but I respect Ashok for the tremendous work, selfless sacrifice in bringing the woes of the alternate sexuality syndrome.
I always wanted to visit his Hum Safar office meet and bond with him and his friends it never happened.
He is always there at B T's birthday party, was wondering why I kept following him with my camera to take a pot shot.
It was to write these few lines , try not to steal a picture of his from the internet if I could shoot him myself.…
About Ashok Row Kavi from Wikipedia.
Ashok Row Kavi was born in Mumbai on June 1, 1947 as a premature child. He graduated with honors in Chemistry from the University of Bombay. Later, he dropped out of engineering college. Due to his early difficulty in dealing with his homosexuality, he enrolled as a monk in the Ramakrishna Mission and studied theology. He has also studied at the International School of Journalism, Berlin, Germany.
In a journalism career spanning 18 years, he worked in various newspapers and magazines, including India’s largest circulated newspaper ‘Malayala Manorama’ (as Western India Bureau-Chief), ‘Sunday Mail’ and ‘The Daily’. For six years he was also senior reporter covering Science and Technology in ‘The Indian Express’ group of newspapers. His career as a journalist began in 1974 with The Indian Express and was the chief reporter with the Free Press Journal from 1984 to 1989.
In 1971, he started India's first Playboy clone, Debonair, with friend Anthony Van Braband and later in 1990, he founded Bombay Dost, Mumbai's first gay magazine. He was a representative at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam and served as chairman of the Second International Congress on AIDS.
Although he retired from journalism in 1990, he has worked at providing a formal platform for homosexuals –- people usually left out of mainstream life in a socially conservative India –- become actively involved in public life and institutions through media, advocacy, cooperation and community-building.
Row Kavi was the first person (and for a long time the only person) to openly talk about homosexuality and gay rights in India. His first coming out interview appeared in Savvy magazine in 1986. Incidentally, his mother, Shobha Row Kavi, too gave an interview to the same magazine; it was the first time that a mother spoke about her son’s gayness to the Indian media.
At the present, he is founder-chairperson of the Humsafar Trust, a male sexual health NGO, which also agitates for the legal emancipation of homosexuality in India. The trust’s work comprises community work, outreach into the gay and MSM groups, advocacy on gender and sexuality issues concerning sexual minorities and research into sexuality and gender issues. Besides running several intervention programmes (funded by national and international organizations and many private donors) for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections in Mumbai and Goa, Row Kavi and the trust have been lobbying with policy making bodies as well as supporting similar upcoming groups across the country.
In 1998, Row Kavi received a fellowship to design model questionnaires in the MSM sector at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), University of California, San Francisco. Row Kavi has been a participant in various international and national fora, including the ICAAPs and the International HIV/AIDS Conferences, where he has made at least five oral presentations. As head of Humsafar, he has also organized the first ‘Looking into the Next Millennium’ conference of 32 MSM NGOs in Mumbai in May 2001 and co-organized the first ILGA-Asia conference in Mumbai in October 2002.
Row Kavi has been a regular contributor to newspapers, magazines and journals around the world, on homosexuality, gay rights and issues around HIV/AIDS.
Row Kavi is also NGO representative, Executive Committee, Mumbai District AIDS Control Society (MDACS); member, Technical Resource Group, Targeted Interventions, National AIDS Control Organization (NACO); visiting faculty at Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the department of Clinical Psychology of the University of Mumbai, Nirmala Niketan, and the International Institute of Population Studies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Row_Kavi
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Another Look – 2236 views
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Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder – 2165 views
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Metrosexual Transgenders – 3238 views
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