OUT THE SIDE OF A RICKSHAW

 



timid sneakings .

 

I still haven't built up the courage to ask people in the streets if I can take photographs of their clothing. I would feel strange treating them like THEY are the odd ones, when in fact, it is me that is different here. When walking in the streets, sometimes I feel like I have stepped into another world, or another age, like I have time travelled back a generation or two.

 

Today, I even tried to ask two well dressed girls, about twenty in age, if I could take their picture. The girls were wearing longer length dress style shirt, which hung to just below their knees, paired with loose fitting pants, which clung to their ankles. They look clean cut and sophisticated, and very modestly covered. My eyes met with the taller of the two, and I was stopped dead in my tracks. It was by the sheer terror in their eyes of me coming to speak to them, as well as a huge amount of embarrassment from my side as I remembered that I was wearing a sleeveless shirt. I wondered what they were thinking, and put myself in their shoes. I slinked away from they, shy and feeling guilty for having so much skin exposed compared to them.

 

So, while driving along the back roads in Juhu, I have taken some sneaky street shot images from the rickshaw, hiding between a waterproof curtain and the warm metal rod that holds me inside the vehicle.

Daily life to some, but just so completely alien to me.

 

I am still to decide on a general comment regarding the dress sense, as such, though there is such a way about it, it's like something out of a movie. Every character is dressed to the same theme, like they are awaiting a big scene to happen.

In the last picture, I had just walked on Juhu Beach, of Tara Road. I have been to many a dark place in Mumbai, and may dark places before this city, and never before have I felt this power of a location of street wear. This was not an experience for the faint of heart, closed in mind and soft in heart. After being totally bombarded by photographers, small children selling henna-print stamps, and the poorest of poor glaring at you, I managed to look passed this and see to the dressings of the beach-goers, though terrified into taking a photograph at the time. The colours were mutes and faded, darkened with dirty and stained with the lack of power that the people have. The Monsoon colours of deep pinks, and magentas, forest greens and blood reds, were dipped dyed in mud from the  constant rain, and some sari were completely destroyed along the hem lines. Though, through the depression that the beach holds in it's grey skies and littered waters, comes a calm. A calm that makes it seem almost familiar, just like a memory from a place you have been before. It's some what mesmerising to see, to be a part of, and to be constantly reminded that, for now, I have to learn that this is my home.

 

Everywhere I go, I see hundreds of colours blending together like a tie dye effect on silk, I see fabric flowing like ribbons in the warm, damp wind and it completely captivates me, drawing me in.