Every now and than a photo found online stop me in the tracks. This was one of them. Surely, we can't always take everything we read online for granted and most of the time its not true anyway - what we know for sure is that this photo was taken by Italian photographer Tancrède Dumas who had worked in the Middle East and had his own photo studio in Beirut, ca 1860. While living and working there, he took some very unusual photo portraits of now completely forgotten and lost world - one of them is this heartbreaking and highly memorable photograph of two unfortunate souls who depended on each other for survival. Various web sites have mentioned their names as Muhammad and Samir - the story goes that one was blind Muslim and another paralyzed Christian and they were beggars who lived as one, sharing whatever lodging and meals they could find, until death eventually separated them and the survivor quickly perished from grief as one could not live without the other. While the story itself is certainly moving and inspirational, we don't need to take it as a literary truth - neither their names or history can not be confirmed but what is certain is that these were two beggars dependant on each other and very probably completely alone in the world.
The writer in me wants to know everything - who were their parents? Were they both rejected after birth? How did they found each other? Were they raised on some kind of orphanage and than kicked out as they grew up? How did they scramble for the food, survive harsh conditions of being homeless on the streets of Damascus, where did they found a place to sleep, did they comfort each other and wipe each other's tears? It is only a photo from a long gone world but my heart aches for them. If only I could go back in time, I would do everything to make sure they have roof over their heads and decent food, I find this so heartbreaking. Somebody should write a whole novel about them.
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