Sequence of Drugs, by Hajime Kimura

IPA Photography, PROJECTS 16 Comments

In India, there is a population of more than 15 million people residing in slums, of which 1.5 million of them live in Kolkata. I met some of these slum residents one day.

Most of them were drug users orphaned at a young age or at birth. They band together in gangs run by local mafias. The Mafia make them injure themselves on purpose to gain more sympathy when they worked or begged for money.

One of them is Raju, a 20 year old man addicted to heroin. Raju was orphaned when he was 3 years old when his mother passed away, and his father left and never came back. He now wishes to return to an ordinary life without heroin. He tries to earn money collecting trash. But the heroine addiction is too strong, and he succumbs to its abuse when withdrawal kicks in.

Sunny is another 22 year old man living in a slum near Raju. He was also a drug user. His arms are filled with injection scars. But he is now rehabilitated. Sunny kicked his addiction of his own will (barely), and even found a decent job cleaning rooms with the help of a good friend. Last year, He married his girlfriend, moved in with her family, and fathered a son with her. “Someday, I want to run my own hotel, and not clean rooms anymore. I want to get more happy and big.” He said to me, looking at his baby son smiling.

Photographs & Text: Hajime Kimura | Website: http://hajimekimura.net

 

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Comments 16

  12. Hi Hajime,

    This is a beautiful photo essay. You mentioned you “met some of these slum residents one day” and I suspect there’s a very interesting story here. How do you go about meeting people like this? How did you make them feel comfortable enough to open up and share their lives with you? Was it dangerous?

    Cheers,
    Dave

    Reply

    1. Hi Dave
      One day is true. But the coverage was taken about for 2months.
      For me,I won’t be able to preconceive before going the actual field. And what the most important thing is to commit the people living ,to share good time with them. After that I could make a decision to take photos for my subject or not. If my emotion would spill over,I would ask them to let me take photos. So it’s not so dangerous.

      Cheers H
      Hajime

      Reply

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