Camera ready
Phuphee’s lesson on celebrating the power of individuality
Over the years, Rai has transitioned from using Nikon camera systems to the Fuji GF◣, which is almost always hung around his neck. “Digital technology is so amazing; it gives me greater control and superior quality to photograph any situation, day or night,” he says. Most images are now captured in colour, in RAW format, and converted to black-and-white if the situation demands it.
At no given time am I without a camera,” asserts Raghu Rai, one of India’s most important photographers, who is the subject of a major exhibition at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi. Now 81, Rai has been taking pictures for over half a century — since he was 23, when his elder brother introduced him to the camera, eventually making a name for himself as a distinguished photojournalist and editor who travelled the length and breadth of India to capture its essence.
“I was never just a photographer on assignment. When I was working with The Statesman and later India Today, I was sent to shoot specic stories, but I would document the entire journey and take my camera out on the plane, on the train, sitting in a taxi, or even a bullock cart, photographing the people, landscape and life,” he shares. It is this journey spanning the formative years of Rai’s career, from 1965 to 2005, that is reected in over 250 striking black-and-white images on display.
Named A Thousand Lives, the exhibition pays homage to India and the passionate journey of a photographer. The country is seen in its many faces, in moments of peace and protest, the spiritual and the mundane, glorious landscapes juxtaposed with the stark extremes of wealth, power and poverty.
Portraits of gures such as Indira Gandhi and her political adversary Jayaprakash Narayan, or JP as he was known — in two adjacent rooms — capture their fragility. They reveal the vulnerability behind Gandhi’s stern facade, whether she is waving goodbye to her grandchildren as she departs from the Prime Minister’s residence, or in moments of solitary contemplation before
M(Clockwise from above) Mother Teresa in prayer at Nirmal Hriday, Calcutta, 1986; Indira Gandhi at home in Delhi with daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi and grandchildren Priyanka and Rahul, 1972; the Dalai Lama watching in Dharamsala, 1988; series (1973-1977); wrestlers at an Delhi, 1988; and photographer Raghu Rai. (RAGHU RAI AND PHOTOINK)
addressing a large political rally. JP is depicted upholding the conscience of the country, both alone and amidst a crowd.
Beyond the political realm, Rai’s photojournalism led him to spiritual leaders such as the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa — experiences that profoundly impacted and inuenced his way of seeing. The Dalai Lama is portrayed enjoying a meal or playing with a cat in Dharamshala, while photographs of Mother Teresa show the dedication inherent in a life of service. any years ago, when I was in school, I had a teacher who found it very di cult to be kind to me. We had just started the new academic year and it was our second or third mathematics class with him. In the rst couple of classes, he asked students to come up and solve problems on the blackboard. Now, I wasn’t especially terrible at maths, but the prospect of getting up in front of an entire class put me in panic mode. Let’s just say I always knew that I could not be a politician.
When it was my turn to go to the front of the classroom, I could not concentrate on the question and muddled the whole thing up. He looked at me and said, ‘It is a good thing you have a pleasant looking face because here
[pointing to his head] it is all empty.’ Everyone laughed, including me. For the next couple of months, even when I worked up the courage to answer a question and put my hand up, he would point to his head and mouth ‘empty’, and pick someone else to answer. I know I messed up the rst time, but I didn’t understand the need for this constant mocking.
Soon, December arrived and with it our winter holidays. I was packed o to Phuphee’s house for a few months. On the day I arrived it started snowing — a little dusting at rst, followed by a pause of a few hours and then, a gentle, continuous snowfall that carried
Capturing the ordinary
This spirit of service inuenced Rai during his early encounters with Mother Teresa. “I was very frustrated with the state of the media. Most stories were being done from Delhi, and covering Indian politics was becoming monotonous. I wanted to photograph the ordinary people, who are the true soul of this country,” says Rai, who ventured deep into villages and urban centres as far as Kanyakumari, Kolkata, Jaipur, Varanasi, Ladakh and Srinagar –– capturing the extraordinary within thousands of ordinary Indian lives.
Beggars, theatre artists, shop owners, tailors, freight carriers, taxi drivers, soldiers, devotees, street gamblers, slum dwellers, school-going kids, nuns, and transwomen, all nd a place of dignity in his photographs. Animals too roam freely — dogs, horses, monkeys, goats, parrots, and pigeons — in harmony with their street surroundings familiar to every Indian.
Despite the vibrant colours of the country, his on for days. Soon everything was covered in a heavy white blanket. Every morning we would see the white pile get taller and taller, until it reached the ground oor windows. We played outside making snowmen and women and having snow ghts, until chilblains covered our hands and feet, which made them hurt and itch.
Phuphee rubbed mustard oil on
Yphotographs are rendered in analogue black-and-white. He notes, “Until the 90s, most Indian newspapers and magazines were publishing black-and-white photo stories, while only a few western publications had begun to embrace colour.”
In the here and now
India feels both familiar and foreign, with photographs reminiscent of a recent past — a country on the brink of modernity and liberalisation. “The India of 40-50 years ago was a dierent world. Reality had another kind of visual experience back then. Today, it has been bulldozed by new products and even politicians being sold in the market,” he says, commenting on the changing state of aairs. He recalls Humayun’s Tomb in our hands and feet in the evenings, covered them with woollen socks and mittens that she had knitted, and told us never to set foot outside in the snow again. We, of course, did not listen and the whole process was repeated again the next evening, including the threats and admonitions.
In my second week there, I remembered the discouraging
Delhi, once surrounded by farms where farmers could be seen ploughing wheat. Now, walls have gone up, separating the people from their heritage, which now lies amidst shantytowns.
But that doesn’t stop him from photographing. “My faith lies in the eyes of the people of my country whom I photograph,” says Rai, who recently returned from snapping the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi. “Life is ever-changing and challenging, and every time it has new energy to share.”
Black and white gave way to colour photography, analogue to digital, an old India to a new India. And yet, Rai remains humble in his search. “In Zen Buddhism, there is an old saying about
ILLUSTRATION: ZAINAB TAMBAWALLA words of my teacher and I promised myself that I would stop going out and wasting time. Instead, I would throw myself into becoming so procient in maths that he would have no choice but to stop mocking me. So, for the next month, I would wake up early in the bitter cold and work, taking breaks only for the bathroom and food. One day when I was sitting in the importance of being here and now. For me, photography is about being here and now. It is about connecting with every inch of space that your eye can see. When you do, you become a part of the whole. That’s when the magical moments happen,” he shares, his words as poetic as his images.
A look around the exhibition makes it clear: Rai is present in each of the thousand lives he photographed — himself a crucial part of the whole.
‘A Thousand Lives: Photographs from 1965-2005’ is on view till April 30 at KNMA.
The culture writer and editor specialises in reporting on art, design and architecture.
Phuphee’s room, she came in with a bowl of hot rni (semolina cooked in milk and sugar topped with nuts and saron strands).
‘Eat it before it gets cold,’ she said. She sat down and asked why I had stopped playing with my cousins. I told her of my predicament and how I was determined to win my teacher’s approval. She got up and opened the window. A blast of cold air swept into the room.
‘Look, it is snowing again,’ she said, scooping a handful of freshly fallen snow and putting it on the tray. She dried her hands on her pheran, closed the window and sat down. She lit two cigarettes and smoked for a few minutes.
‘You know, maetonji [the
English missionary nurse who ran a local clinic in the village] told me that snow is made up of snowakes. Tiny, small akes that clump together to form the blanket you see outside,’ she said. ‘Each snowake is dierent. No two are the same. Can you imagine that? And, in order for us to see the individual akes, we would have to get a special glass.’
I didn’t understand why she was telling me about snowakes.
‘Whose fault is it that we cannot see the snowake? Us, for not possessing sharper eyes, or the snowake itself?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘I guess the defect lies with our eyes.’
‘Yes, it is our eyes that cannot see the beauty of an individual ake. Do you think the snowake is any less beautiful or powerful simply because we are incapable of seeing it?’
‘Boaz, myoan gash [listen, light of my eyes], everyone around you will not be able to see you the way you are. Most of us are limited by our own defects. The important thing to remember is that just because someone cannot see you for who you are, it doesn’t diminish you in any way. You remain the same. Now nish your rni,’ she said and left.
I thought about her words as I spooned the creamy mixture into my mouth. I nished the rni, closed my books and went outside to play with my cousins. A month later, back in the classroom, I realised my teacher was exactly the same. I, on the other hand, had changed. I worked hard but stopped seeking his approval or even kindness. There was power in knowing that I was valuable and unique even if he was unable to see it.
Instead of concentrating on his unkindness I chose, like the snowake, to bask in my own individuality and power. I took my nal examinations and did well,
both to my surprise and his.
a Kashmiri living in England, spends her scant free time contemplating life’s vagaries.
Saba Mahjoor,