Sir, I am not a child labor!

Roaming around a vegetable market in Bangalore, he caught my attention and I took this photo. Afterwards, I showed him his picture and to my surprise he was a bit frightened.

With a hesitating tone, he said in english, "Sir, this picture will not come in newspaper naa? I am not a child labour. My mom sits here and she has gone somewhere around that's why I am attending the store".

Recently schools have started teaching young kids about importance of education and ill effects of child labor in India. This somewhat has started new wave among kids as they themselves become aware of what is right and wrong.

But anyways, I enjoyed a two lined conversation between me and him. And yes he was not a child labor. I met his mom afterwards.


(Similar kind of story but with a different contrast: Gamna)

A man relaxing on chair

Portrait of a man sitting on a chair, smoking and relaxing. He owns a shop located in small alley inside main market street on Malleshwaram. He sells assorted jute bags and accessories. In the photo you can see the bags hanging on the walls of passage entrance. While walking on the main streets, I saw him sitting like this and took his picture. I showed him the photograph afterwards and came to know that towards his left was a doorway where his actual shop was located. It was pretty big! And surprisingly I had a jute bag in my hand when I came out! :)


Interesting note by a friend: "He is not relaxing, he is idling... A guy with cigarette can never relax. Intoxication feigns relaxation, I think."

(PS: Smoking cigarette is injurious to health.)

Never Stop!

Never Stop. Its a short description of a person's photograph I've never met, I've never known, yet I've seen him so many times in my photo gallery to recognise his individuality.

Around a month back, while walking across busy streets of Malleshwaram, at around 7 evening I was standing among the crowd, perceiving the movement of people thinking about something. Within a flash of interval, I saw an old man walking briskly in the crowd, as if he is on some mission, I quickly took the picture. It didn't come well, shot at high ISO, lot of noise and lacked in sharpness. But his charisma got stuck into my eyes. Every-time I see this pic, I get several parallel thoughts fighting with each other -  the old age, the noise in photo, yet the sharpness.

After a month or more, recently on the same streets I saw him again, for a fraction of seconds only. Same old face, but with a haircut, clean shaved a probably a different spectacles, walking and holding hands with a young lady - probably his daughter. I quickly recognised him, the same person. But the briskness was missing in the slow walking.

I came back and today I opened my photo gallery and finally decided to share the photo that confuses me every-time I see it. And I never stop thinking about it! 

Vegetable Seller

In a busy market evening, I gently asked her, showing my camera - "May I take your photograph?"
And she gave me this pose.

Taken under Artificial Light, the common 200w or 400w Yellow Bulb, that is glowing just above towards her right.