Mardanna Phool

The street is where I keep returning. Brown Muslim men. Pakistani men. The world already has its stories about them. This work is concerned with the lives that sit outside those narratives. The vendor setting up his cart before sunrise. The postman. The shopkeeper. The man who has spent decades providing for his family without recognition or applause. These are the men I photograph. Not because they are exceptional, but because they are ordinary. Because they endure. The petal and the weathered hand belong together. They always have. Strength has never existed without tenderness.