Mumbai – the city its citizens are in love with, has been serenaded as a subject in books, films, songs – most times with the dirty underbelly laid bare and at others for its famed can-do spirit. But its citizens love the city despite or because of it. For the first time, a Mumbai lover has seen the city through the various peddlers and nomads that traverse in and through the city and form part of its rich heritage. Photographer David de Souza and his writer wife, Charmayne have not just seen but looked closely at the nomads, seen them in their colourful clothes or paint on their bodies and much later decided to come out with a coffee table book, Itinerants: Mumbai?s Nomads.
De Souza did not have to hunt or cull his subjects far and wide. They just happened to pass by the building he lives. ?I would hear their calls or see them entertaining people on the street below my street. I was intrigued by them.? The first nomad who cranked up de Souza?s thoughts was a family of Kadak Laxmis ? a man who whipped himself hard to crack his skin and let the blood seep out. This is harnessed through a belief that skin and mental afflictions of a diseased person is caused by ?possession? of the devi or the female principle. ?The Kadak Laxmis will take on the affliction on to themselves by invoking the goddess to possess him. He then releases the spirit, by his own blood-letting,? recounts de Souza. Bizaare as it may sound and appear to see the welters on the person?s body, the Kadak Laxmis go through it as it provides them a livelihood.
The bright colours ? red, yellow ? dabbed liberally on Kadak Laxmi?s body along with the vibrant hue of his skirt topped with a string of huge cowbells, a red bandana and the crack of the long slender whip fired up de Souza?s imagination. ?I asked the Kadak Laxmi whether he?d pose for me and though he was a bit amused by the request, he agreed immediately.? Instead of choosing the oft-seen background of the streets where these nomads walk, de Souza decided to take them to his studio at home and photograph them in a white background. ?It was a study in contrasts,? and the colours came to life in the studio.
From cotton mattress beaters to knife sharpeners, bandaar wallis (nomads with monkey performers), bhishti wallas (men who carry water in goat skin leather bags) to sufi beggars, whirling dervishes and fortune-telling bulls, de Souza has unveiled delightful slivers of a Mumbai that will soon fade into oblivion. ?We all see what we want to see,? feels de Souza. ?There are several Mumbais that its citizens inhabit and are familiar with to the exclusion of the other Mumbai that is lively, thriving and happening all around them. These itinerants too are there in the periphery of our vision but we are too wrapped up with our lives to notice them. For Charmayne, it was a bit disconcerting to see the itinerants sitting in our living room and in our studio. But the nomads were such undemanding folks. They did not try to fleece me and I respected the time they spent with me by paying them for it.?
The book, seven years in the cold storage for the want of a publisher, has been published by the de Souzas themselves. ?India?s publishing industry was an eye opener,? he says. ?There were so many demands made on us, that we decided to publish it ourselves.? Watch the itinerants come alive in de Souza?s book looking straight into the camera revealing their smiles, their wandering lives ? with not a single one amongst them with a sad or melancholic expression. ?They are simple folks, happy with their way of life,? says de Souza.