Few meters from Jamalpur Darwaza is a barber shop strutting its way to its 79th year of existence. Set up by their father in 1939, the legacy is now taken forward by his three sons, Ahmed Khan, Gulam Rasool Khan and Mustafi Khan. It sits amidst the chaos of old Ahmedabad streets but is far away from the hustle of the daily life. From, the shop, its owners, to its very regular customers, the place is untouched by the ever changing landscape around it. It still has those vintage wooden doors, shelves that are bent to its limits, rusty walls with posters and broken mirrors. It is more like a place for most of the customer where they come frequently for shaving and then end up conversing over some chai-bidi (tea and smoke). With the pile of grey hairs on one side to the rusty old shaving brushes on the other, there are always people in the shop either drowned in newspaper or lost in deep conversations.
A day spent with these brothers at their shop gave me an insight of their life and how they have managed to balance their work space in the form of a closed community of friends and acquaintances. The vibes are so contrastingly different inside the shop than that of outside that it feels like travelling back in time as soon as you step in. In this photo series I have tried to share my experience there by trying to show the place, the people and the activities in all its extremities and in a way it has been there since times forgotten.
These series was shot on Cosina cs1 with Illford PAN 100 film roll. This is a part of my assignment at NID.
