Kolkata is teeming with images like this. Its streets are a rainbow tapestry for the voyeur. I spent a whole week in Kolkata. A week I shall never forget. How can you? How can you forget scenes like this? There are no shades in Kolkata - only contrasts. I remember the first morning I arrived. I checked into my room, grabbed my camera, a couple of lenses, memory cards, polarisers, spare battery, sunglasses, bottle of water, and headed straight out onto the streets. I didn't return till the next morning! I'd been out all night; wandering, partaking, soaking, seeing and finally believing. I was headed for the worst places. I wanted to know if I could stand them. Places of beauty and hope hold no interest for me because they are not places of extremes. To feel alive I need to see life lived on the very edge of existence - that dirty spot on the edge of the tablecloth. Of course I got lost, but that's half the point. The next morning I stumbled back to the guest house and told the manager where I'd been. He took me aside and told me I was a fool! Why do I do it? I've asked myself this many times. They say that coming close to death brings you closer to life. Perhaps this is my way of getting closer to the essence of life? The pall of the anaesthetic of familiarity of everyday existence can be numbing. Is this my equivalent of a shot in the arm? I want to drink from the cup of life. I want to experience life in all its forms and structures and rituals and consciences. I want to step outside myself, take off this 'biological suit' called Wasim and put on a new suit called 'someone else'. I don't want to be Me always. Always Me is boring. I want to be You and You and You and yes You. I want to be everybody at least once. I want to be the little girl in this image and the mother that tied her up and the father that doesn't care and the street vendor who sees her everyday playing in the fucking dirt. I want to be the man that walks past her and doesn't notice and the man who sees her and can't take it.
