Sorting out some old documents, I came across a photograph that up till now I had tucked out of my sight.
 
Year 2008

After my classes at university, I’d take a local bus back home. That used to save me a couple of hours to work on my assignments. On my way back home, came a very busy bus stand, where many routes merged.

For a few days, I’d been observing a psychotic person, sitting with his back against the steel grill under a fiberglass shade. I’d daily look at him passing by in a bus. Then I heard of a photography competition being organized at a national level in the university. 

The subject was in my mind. I took my camera the next day and for the first time went closer to him… closer than I had thought I’d go. He was a young boy, bald, dirty, completely lost and probably on drugs. He had built a defensive wall of garbage around him. The only piece of clothing on him was a long, dirty shirt. Upon reaching closer, I noticed, his filth smeared his body and piled around him. Flies and bugs swarmed around. He was in a miserable condition, lost, blank and empty. My eyes blurred, not with tears, but with the stinging acidic stench pinching my eyes. He looked up for a moment. I held my breath and took his picture. He lowered his gaze. I took the print out and gave it the title “You Blame Me?” It was submitted and displayed at the exhibition. 

After a few days, when the results were being announced in the seminar hall, I was lost in thoughts. The stench, the filth, his blank gaze, the misery and the blurred vision knitted a story without words. My name was announced, I got the third prize. Getting up from my seat I was swept off by an enormous wave of guilt. Regret, sorrow, hollowness and shame created kaleidoscopic patterns in my mind. I had exhibited his misery for a mere competition, and was collecting a shield for that. How low could I stoop? 

I took the shield thinking that I’d go back and try to help him. How? I didn’t know. On my way back that very day, I got out of the bus, determined to talk to him, or if he didn’t get me, I’d talk to the shopkeepers and vendors around to figure something out. If both of these failed, I’d at least get him a decent lunch, even if it was for one time only. 

My eyes followed the direction where I’d find that deranged soul. And then my heart sank. The spot was empty and clean. There was no sign of him or the garbage fort he had built for himself. He was either gone or thrown out of the bus stand.

After all these years, I still feel guilty of photographing and exhibiting misery. If I cannot do something to help, I have no right of exhibiting it. On the other hand, if I empathize with these people, I find it hard to come back to my life.

I don't photograph human figures now, only very rarely, I find the stories behind very bitter. And I particularly avoid sharing misery.