A legacy in frames

Photographer extraordinaire Raghu Rai has been capturing exceptional images for decades now.

At a corner of the restaurant sat a man in his 70s, eating his dessert slowly, relishing every little bit of it. His deep, brown eyes had an oceanic calmness as he spoke. These are the eyes that first saw, before anyone else in the world, the hundreds of images that went on to be icons etched to our memories. This is Raghu Rai, the man behind the camera that’s facing history. 

“Photography is history, not art,” he begins. “Art by itself is useless and meaningless. The purpose of photography is not to become art; it is bigger than art. History, can be rewritten, but photographs can’t be. It’s a responsibility.” 

Even while talking and savouring the caramel sprinkles, he clicked photos of the city through the glass window near him. Below was the bustling city, people and vehicles hurriedly moving to their destinations trying to flee from the hot sun in the noon, but his camera was facing elsewhere — at the Metro workers toiling hard, ignoring the dust, heat and commotion to raise a metropolis. Very much like a Raghu Rai frame. “Kochi,” he says, “is a special place with its backwaters, rains, lighting, islands, architecture… especially the Old Cochin. There is so much spirit and heritage all over the place. But sadly, it is not preserved properly.” 

A person who has been to the city several times in the past, Rai is unhappy about its current status. Pointing at the Metro rail, Rai says, “This is a huge monster snake running through the city seamlessly. Kochi is not a city that needs a Metro, but politicians need a reason to make money, no?” 

Rai has always been inspired by what he calls “the ever-changing spirit of life”. “Life on the streets, backwaters, inside and outside monuments are inspiring and challenging.” The great ‘visionary’ has immensely contributed in changing the face and definition of photojournalism over five decades. Everything he clicked – the Bhopal Tragedy, people around the Taj Mahal, the myriad expressions of Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, HH the Dalai Lama — were more than just frames. 

For the perfect click, he goes with his instinct. “A photograph, to me, is a moment of realisation and experience. It’s the same for a painter or a writer. A photographer should be an observer with sensitivity and responsibility. He should connect with the space, feeling and experiencing the wholesomeness of the place,” he states.

A witness to Bhopal tragedy, which he has chronicled a lot as photos, documentaries and writings, that iconic photograph must have been a painful memory. But Rai surprises, “No, it isn’t. It was shocking and numbing, but one needs to rise to the occasion and be responsible to share it to the world. Numbness and shock won’t take you anywhere. Journalism is not that simple.” 

The first Indian photographer to join Magnum Photos, an international photographers' cooperative formed by masters like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and David Seymour, Rai’s photos have been published in all international publications. The Padma Shri awardee has been through the transition ages of the camera, but he is not a nostalgic guy stuck in the past. 

“I have used the film camera for 35 years, but the day I started clicking with the digital camera, I couldn’t go back; it gave me such a control and freedom. This (caressing his camera) gives me the ability to penetrate, concentrate, meditate and capture life and nature,” he explains. His photographs of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi are very famous. He has admitted that he had been photographing her almost on a daily basis. Over the regimes, leaders and their persona have changed; so has access to them. “Earlier, photographers could be five-eight feet away from the PM. If any security stopped us, we could say Dekhiye Indiraji… and she’d glare at them and without speaking a word, would make them run away,” he laughs, adding, “Today, due to security issues, we are at least 100 feet away from them. That’s why there are no intimate moments with the PM and other ministers. They are no longer humans; they have become just dry political situations on the dais.”

Mother Teresa, for Rai, is a mother and a teacher. “Dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor, she is a mother to anyone who met her. With so much love and concern, her service was amazing. She has taught me many things,” he recalls. In the age of Insta-photographers, he has some advice for wannabe photographers. “Unless you have something specific to capture, do not click. It has to be love and passion. Practise every minute. Carry your camera always. Being there and now is the key. Instead of creatively reproducing memories, connect eyes to heart,” he says. He is always clicking and documenting — currently on the Himalayas, sacred rivers, a book on Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and his Rally for Rivers, on HH the Dalai Lama…. Many of his famous clicks are in black and white. Does her prefer black and white to colour? “Not necessarily. It’s about expression. Where I find lots of colour and it’s uncontrollable to restrict, I go with black and white. Rivers are in colour. But the Himalayas, Sadhguru and the Dalai Lama are not,” he says. Having travelled all over India, a paradise for photographers, there is more to learn and chronicle. He animatedly explains, “The more you know and understand India, you discover how little you know and how small you are. Knowing India is an endless process. You have to inhale the whole world into it and deliver. There is so much left to know.”

Published in Deccan Chronicle on September 23, 2017 

Journey sans money

Life has changed for Niyog ever since he embarked on his penniless road trip across the country.

Niyog has been on the road for 107 days. He has been penniless all these days, but he is not worn out. “In fact, I have become rich,” he says, “with ample experience, happiness and friends.” 

The Kerala native started hitchhiking from Kanyakumari on June 1, planning to cover the whole nation. Somewhere during the solo journey, he turned another year older with an experience of a lifetime. 

Speaking from a remote village in Ajmer, Rajasthan, through calls interrupted by coverage issues, the 26-year-old sounded cheerful. “This is my longest stopover. I will be staying here for a week, collaborating with an NGO named Manthan, which is providing education and lifeskills training for people whose lives are marred by water crisis,” says Niyog, who is mesmerised by Rajasthan’s colours, contrasts, mysticism, qawwali, rich folk, Hippie-influenced foreigners and their Bohemian lifestyle. 

So far, he has covered Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat before reaching the desert state. “Seven states and three Union Territories,” he stresses. The road he chose to tread has been his dream for some years. His family — mom, grandmothers and sister — weren’t aware that it was a penniless trip. When they came to know about it, they panicked. “Mom asked me to carry at least a debit card. I didn’t want to. As the days went by, she realised I would survive without money,” he says with a laugh.

Was there any moment he regretted the decision? “Actually, yes. The first three-four days were tough. I couldn’t bring myself to ask random people for food. I wished I had money. But hunger helps you lose all inhibitions. You won’t get free food at hotels. I banked on families, temples and dargahs. I just had to come out of my comfort zone,” he recalls. 

The responses were interesting — many felt he was crazy, some others thought he had left his home and advised him to go back to his family. Yet there were many who surprised him with their hospitality — like the host at Usilampatti, Tamil Nadu, who offered him a bed and food, despite them fetching water from a well 4-5 km away; the stranger who sheltered him at an illegal liquor godown at Ambaji, a town on Gujarat-Rajasthan border. All are memorable moments; the bad ones are negligible, he says. 

For Niyog, this journey is a process of learning and unlearning. He calls it “unlearning materialism and relearning life”. “Each day has brought changes to my perspective. I have learned to appreciate little pleasures — like a cup of tea. Difficulties have become subjective. I now know that a life free of illusions is possible,” he explains. 

Coming from a state with lush greenery, monsoon, high literacy and higher living standards, the Indian reality — of poverty, patriarchy and ignorance — hit him hard. At a panchayat meet in Rajasthan, he saw people are seated on the basis of their caste. The sarpanch is a woman, but it is her husband who does the talking; she sits far behind the crowd among other women. In Mumbai, he saw two families — eight of them — sharing a dingy room that they call home. 

“It is a learning beyond academics. This is not the India we were taught in textbooks; reality is at the extreme. The lives of people are worse than even the poorest tribal settlements in Kerala. There are people who have no idea about the government, their rights or even the Constitution. An area that was a forest and later agricultural land, was lying barren, slowly turning into desert,” rues Niyog, a law graduate and a budding filmmaker. 

However, his focus will be on journeys — at least two every year. “Films will happen only in between those,” Niyog says. A lot of faces, lives, stories have come up. He is working on the screenplay of a road movie. He also has plans to make a documentary. He already runs a Facebook page Road to Magic that chronicles his travel. The next halt is at Jaisalmer and from there, off to Punjab. He just can’t wait to get on the road.

 Published in The Asian Age on September 17, 2017

Lessons from jungles

Aparna Purushothaman, whose only dream was securing a government job, is now a school teacher and a passionate wildlife photographer.

For most girls, wedding marks the end of their dreams as their world shrinks and limit to their homes and for a few fortunate, their office. For Aparna Purushothaman, it’s just the opposite. Marriage opened before this school teacher new avenues; from a bookworm whose only aim was securing a job, she turned into a wildlife photographer who explores the forests looking for rare sightings and exquisite clicks.

Looking back at those days, the 33-year-old can’t hide her surprise. “As a child, camera was a rare and precious object kids weren’t allowed to touch. Also, I was a sick child and hadn’t gone for even a study tour. I was a padippist with no dreams beyond a secure government job.” Her only extracurricular activity was glass painting, which she claims, anyone can do.

It was when she was doing her MPhil in 2010 that she got married to Ashok Damodaran, an assistant engineer at KSEB. On seeing her glass painting works, an impressed Ashok asked her to focus on art and she hesitantly tried her hands at painting. Soon, she discovered that she was ‘not bad’. On their first wedding anniversary, Ashok gifted her a Sony Cybershot camera remembering her mentioning once that she wished for one. The excitement is still there in her voice when Aparna remembers those first clicks, “It was a small red one. I clicked everything I saw. My practice ground was the lonely Kattoor Beach near his home at Pala.”


One day, in the garden outside her lab, she spotted two Red-whiskered bulbuls building a nest. She clicked their activities every day as they built the nest, laid two eggs, guarded those till they hatched, the nestlings were fed, taught to fly and finally, left their home. “After my husband posted it on Facebook, the response was very encouraging. That was the beginning of photographing wildlife. He was working in Sholayar back then. I went there with him and clicked the photos of a lot of birds and posted it on Facebook. Many said I had a frame sense and could try a DSLR camera. Ashokettan was waiting for such a response and he literally rushed out to buy me one,” she recalls.

Aparna learned the techniques from the manual and help from photographer friends. Caught in the web of wildlife photography, she began to keenly follow professionals like Rathika Ramasamy and their beautiful action shots. “My interest was in avian photography. Animals came only secondary,” she confesses. Then came the huge turning point. The couple was roaming in the forests in Sholayar when they came across an animal which resembled a mongoose. She was reluctant to capture it on the camera as her focus was on birds, but on Ashok’s insistence, she took a few ‘lazy clicks’. The shocking revelation came when she asked a friend what the animal was. It was the endangered carnivorous Nilgiri Marten that featured in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. No one knew that it existed in Sholayar! It was her ticket to fame in wildlife photography and zoologist circles. “It also boosted my confidence. Then on, it has been journeys and clicks,” she says.

Ashok got a transfer to Kottayam and Aparna’s school was in Kannur, but whenever they got a holiday, the duo escape into the wilderness. They had been to forests all over Kerala and the borders of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. No jungle has frightened her. “Forests are the safest place on earth. Animals are very harmless, far more than human beings. You just have to stay on the forest path. For a sharp click, you need good lighting, so a photographer always stays in well-lit open areas.”

Ashok got a transfer to Kottayam and Aparna’s school was in Kannur, but whenever they got a holiday, the duo escape into the wilderness. They had been to forests all over Kerala and the borders of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. No jungle has frightened her. “Forests are the safest place on earth. Animals are very harmless, far more than human beings. You just have to stay on the forest path. For a sharp click, you need good lighting, so a photographer always stays in well-lit open areas.”

Asked about her best shots, Aparna is confused. There are so many — the leopard that won her an award, the lizard that was chosen by Lalithakala Akademi, the Great Indian Hornbill feeding its mate, the frightened Nilgiri Langur holding its baby, so on. But her all-time favourite is owl. She has already photographed eight of the 10 owl species spotted in Kerala. “We are setting out next week to spot the Indian Eagle Owl. I am also looking for a black panther,” she says.

Inspired by their ‘Physics miss’, a lot of her students want to become like her. Aparna is happy about them pursuing wildlife photography as a passion, but won’t advise it as a career choice. “It earns only happiness, not money. Jungles offer a lot of sights and inspire you to explore more, but the income is zero.” She has more plans — to spread awareness on nature conservation and various rare wildlife species through exhibitions, to write a book, to go on that long-pending international wildlife expedition and photograph the Bird of Paradise species in Papua New Guinea.

 Published in The Asian Age on September 8, 2017