The story in this portrait, for me, is more important than the the portrait itself. Islam really looks like an ambitious man. His eyes tells the whole story, the story of his ambition, the story of the great inequality in India.
Your interesting posts about the People of India and the Children of India are also relevant to this conversation. It is disturbing that a slum lies below your lush, towering condo. However, I am impressed that you were humble and human enough to hire Islam and even pay a visit to his little home. If the politicians in India were like you, the living conditions would have improved.
An interesting anecdote that I did not include in this short post is thatthe little slum complex was owned by a upper-caste / upper class man who lived in one of the condo units.
He did not own the land, of course, but simply built the slum housing right on the public land outside the wall of the condo grounds. So, he was making a decent monthly income from land that he did not own.
And the "housing" he had built was nothing more than brick walls and corrugated metal roofing. With one single water faucet for the 200+ people who lived there.
Kinda pathetic ... but that's India.
These are quite interesting revelations, really. It is unfortunate that greed will not allow some humans show the grain of humanity in them. What more can one say of a man who collects rent for a land he does not own and from one of the poorest people in the world. Pathetic.
PS: I am aware that you currently live in Thailand but I am surprised that you still keep several old pictures from India, like the one shared now.