Framing India

Raghu Rai’s images don’t merely capture the ‘decisive moment,’ instead his images contain the drama of the mundane. To walk into a room filled with his work is to be a transported into a black-and-white universe where seagulls fly in slow-motion over the Jamuna, where the Gandhi family frolics with their pet dog and where schoolboys with tucked out shirts stare into the camera with expressions of defiance and mischief (in a series of photographs curiously titled Confessions of a Wall). But the photograph that, perhaps, best captures the ongoing exhibition Raghu Rai: A Thousand Lives, Photographs from 1965 – 2005 is that of a man seated before a cloth painted with a fort. He stares straight ahead into a Daguerreotype camera even as two other men watch with gleeful eyes the unusual contraption and the man hooded by a cloth who operates the machine.

A Thousand Lives focuses on the pre-digital phase of Rai’s career, when he used analogue photography. This show brings many photographs into the public domain for the first time, concentrating on the black-and-white ones of everyday people and world leaders shot on film.

Rai, however, points out that he prefers digital. “In my case, my switch over to digital technology was magical,” says the 81-year-old veteran photographer. “The immediacy of things [of digital photography] is that the response was very heartwarming.” But having lived with the analogue camera for 35 years, “the love affair” with it cannot disappear.

While he misses some aspects of the past, he is not immersed in it, asserting, “I don’t believe in nostalgic nonsense, that we used to do this, and this was something unique. What I am doing today is far more fulfilling than what I was doing then with that technology,” he adds.

Rai began his career with The Statesman in 1965 and has also worked for India Today. His photographs caught the eye of French artist Henri Cartier-Bresson who nominated him to join Magnum Photos, an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, in 1977. Besides capturing the daily lives of the public as well as public figures, Rai also made a documentary for Greenpeace focusing on the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy. The documentary also focused on the lives of the victims and the aftereffects of the tragedy. For his coverage of the Bangladesh Liberation War, he was awarded the Padma Shri in 1972.

Time conquers all—be it technology, art or even cities. But Rai’s photographs have kept alive India’s landscapes, and he describes his art as “visual history”. In one photograph, taken in 1986, Rai captures the fast-moving life of Calcutta with a man boarding a rushing tram against the backdrop of the quiet and serene Esplanade house, bringing out the dichotomy of the City of Joy. In another 1976 photograph, men sleep and rest atop an empty fountain in Delhi’s Lal Kuan area as the city continues to move at its own rapid pace.

Speaking of Humayun’s Tomb as an example, Rai laments not being able to walk as freely as he used to earlier, surrounded by slow-moving bullock carts and an expanding railway track. “Today if I revisit many of these places, which I photographed 40, 50 years ago, they just don’t shout visual poetry anymore to me,” he says.

The nature of photographing eminent personalities has also changed. Now, capturing the photos of a politician is usually limited to public events and rare interviews, making them impersonal. Rai had the advantage of spending time with spiritual leaders and politicians, including the Dalai Lama and Indira Gandhi.

This exhibition is a proof of those ties, filled with photographs of these personalities as they go through the daily routine of their lives. Rai managed to capture Indira Gandhi at one of her lowest moments, when she was defeated in the 1977 General Assembly elections following the Emergency of 1975. In one of these photographs taken at the Vinoba Bhave ashram in Maharashtra’s Wardha district in 1977, Bhave, the spiritual successor of Mahatma Gandhi, stares into the abyss. In the background is Indira, accompanied by women, as if they are mourning the death of a family member. The photograph captures the heartbreak that Indira must have been going through. Rai also saved intimate moments of her life—with her daughter-in-law Sonia and her grandchildren Priyanka and Rahul. Through Rai’s eyes we see a laughing Indira, as Rahul points to their dog while Sonia plays with an infant Priyanka.

The photojournalist witnessed all this during the early years of his career when he got unprecedented access to Indira’s personal and private life as part of his assignments with The Statesman.

“When I started capturing moments of her political and personal life, I realised that I wanted to document for future generations the aura of her power and elegance,” Rai says. “The photographs would be a testimony to her strong personality, a tough leader she proved to be, and the long history of support and warmth from the people of India, till the turn of events led to her assassination.”

Rai believes that these candid photographs, including Indira’s leisure times in the hills and the political strife following the imposition of Emergency, would not be possible today. He says that now photojournalists get to do their work from far away. “The fact is if you are not close enough, your picture is not intimate enough,” he says. “We used to get so much time and closeness to get the spin of things. We would be standing four feet from Gandhi. If a security guard would come in between, we would say ‘Indira ji look at him’ and he would vanish.’”

“I don’t believe in nostalgic nonsense, that we used to do this, and this was something unique. What I am doing today is far more fulfilling than what I was doing then with analogue technology,” says Raghu Rai, photographer

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He is also one of the best-known chroniclers of the 1975 Emergency. One of his assignments, during the Emergency, took him to Patna, where he met the face of the opposition, Jayaprakash Narayan, fondly known as JP or Lok Nayak. During his long stay, Rai witnessed several protests and even recorded those that turned violent. His photos capture the heat and energy of those moments. In 1997, Rai captured the strength and idealism of JP. As he recalls, Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) that bans the gathering of four or more people had been imposed, but JP and members of the Yuva Mukti Morcha decided to defy the restrictions and hold a march. The rally started small, but more and more protesters joined JP, making the march unmanageable. This resulted in paramilitary forces stepping in and stopping the procession. However, it wasn’t enough to stop JP, who got down from his jeep and continued the march as if nothing had happened. Soon enough paramilitary forces resorted to baton-charging JP and the students. And this moment was captured by Rai, resulting in an iconic and painful image of the Emergency—JP and the students forced to the ground as lathi-wielders continue their onslaught.

Rai was also present in yet another defining moment of the country’s history—the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. He travelled across Ayodhya, witnessing the silence before the storm. Even in the face of turmoil, Rai captures the heart of the holy city. A sadhu, who had bought fried chickpeas, to feed many of the monkeys that inhabit the city, shares the snack with another man. The monkey watches the sadhu, patiently waiting his turn, and in the background, a beggar stares into the camera. This show of camaraderie doesn’t betray the events of the day.

But Rai, who has a collection of quintessential images to his name, could not get to photograph the destruction of the Babri Mosque. But if Rai and other leading photographers could not take the iconic photograph of the “boys” atop the masjid wreaking havoc, which was carried by Time, then who did? Rai solves the mystery. “The only person who managed to take the picture of people climbing [the mosque] and pulling it down was my son Nitin Rai,” he says, with pride and a chuckle. “And he was beaten up badly for it. I couldn’t take the picture.”

Thirty-two years later now that the Ram Temple has been built, Rai feels Hindu mythology has finally won big. “The fact is that every Indian needs gods,” he says.

Spirituality has been an important part of Rai’s life, a fact complimented by the time he spent with religious leaders. Among these leaders is Mother Teresa who Rai says is “ingrained in his spirit”. Rai shot her during the 1970s at the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, recording a part of history that otherwise might have gone unnoticed. He captured the kindness and compassion of the “Mother”, as he fondly calls her. He also shines a light on the sisters who helped the poor and the orphans, nursing them, helping them, praying for them. In one of the photographs, a man pulls a hand-drawn rickshaw in which a patient is lying unconscious as a sister walks by guiding them. The patient was on his deathbed like many others who came to the charity for help. Rai shot the photograph showcasing the grim reality of the poor and the downtrodden of 1970’s Calcutta.

Rai took another series of photographs of Mother Teresa praying at her charity. Today a statue of her stands at the site, modelled from Rai’s photographs, a testament to the power of his image-making.

The photojournalist also met the Dalai Lama, another spiritual leader he calls a friend and an inspiration. Rai did not fail to capture all sides of the Buddhist leader—playful, spiritual and curious. In one image, the Dalai Lama can be seen intently watching the Mahabharata on his TV. In another, his face lights up as he plays with a cat. Rai also caught his best-known side, in moments where the spiritual head offers prayers to devotees.

At a time when everyone has turned into a photographer, Rai’s work shows that there is no shortcut to immortalising the fleeting. He might have embraced digital technology, but his early photos are a poignant reminder of an India that was.

(Raghu Rai: A Thousand Lives, Photographs from 1965 – 2005 runs at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi, till April 30)

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Neelabh Raj