Photo Essay – Disappeared People, Around Town
Missing from life.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
Mr. Mohamad Rafiq,
Son of Mohamad Ismail
Aged 62 yrs. an Afghan National,
was missing on 29 May 2011,
At 19.00 in Saket
The Delhi Walla spotted this flier on a wall in Jangpura.
Such notices are seen across the city. They often show badly-printed black and white photographs of the disappeared people. There is always a phone number to contact the relatives in case if anybody has any clue about the missing person.
But do the passersby really take note of these lost people?
Or, are these people now merely faces on the wall?
Find me
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Big cities like Delhi are like kaleidoscopes…people come and go, who cares!
This matter of disappeared people is a rather uncomfortable one, very difficult to brush aside. That face that we see on the wall could, after all, be that of someone’s parent, child, brother, sister, husband or wife, or whatever…About 2 months ago, as I waited for the bus in the evening, a missing person poster suddenly swooped out of nowhere and fell on my feet. The photograph was that of an elderly Sikh gentleman. He seemed to resemble my father so much! I looked around me, wondering if he could perhaps be around. I also showed it to the group of girls standing there. Obviously nothing could be done; so I walked to the wall behind the bus stop and respectfully, with both hands, I placed the poster in an upright position, weighed down by a stone to prevent it from falling so ignominiously on someone’s feet again. I hope the man is alive and fine and his family managed to find him. If not, I hope his soul rests in peace.