| Raghu Rai | Interview |
| Raghu Rai interviewed
by Anita Kaul Basu |
| ANITA KAUL BASU. It’s
been a long time since we met and a longer time
since we were colleagues at India Today. My first
impression of you was of a modern day Sufi man,
striding past, the wind blowing in your hair and
always, a song on your lips . . . a man whose steps
were long, who had miles to go . . . an assured
purpose in your eyes . . . |
| RAGHU RAI. Yaar,
what a picture! I don’t think I had that much
purpose. I wasted a million years of my life. One
must know when to move away. I spent 10 years at
India Today . . . I was late by 3 years . . . moving
away. I remember the day I told Aroon [Purie] I
wanted to quit. He was stunned. He said, “Raghu,
you have always done whatever you wanted, however
you wanted, the way you wanted. Why are you leaving?”
I told him simply that when we came together to
produce India Today, we were all searching . . .
we grew up together. India Today became bigger,
richer . . . was slotted as the top magazine in
the country. We achieved a great deal . . . Everyone
started to feel secure. I knew I had to move. |
| ANITA KAUL BASU.
It’s a creative angst. You don’t like
the feeling of security, the smugness and complacency.
It can be very frightening to be at the top with
nowhere else to go, nothing more to achieve. |
| RAGHU RAI.
To begin with, I don’t believe in slots.
I needed to fly. I needed to create a space for
myself. Nobody else could do that for me. I was
losing my purpose. We at India Today began to dance
to all the adulation . . . perform to the “Wah!
Wahs!” For me, it was a very comfortable situation.
I had everything—the office fax, the office
telephone, the office darkroom, the paper. Along
the way, somewhere, I discovered I was no more than
a kaddu [pumpkin], sitting smug. Creative people
can’t afford to be stagnant, static and anchored.
I felt useless and dependent. Somewhere, I had lost
that urge and that charge that is the essence of
creativity. |
| ANITA KAUL BASU.
So what is different now? How has the world changed
for you, since the last time you held a job? |
| RAGHU RAI. I
am so free now. Bahut masti hai! I am ecstatic.
I dance in complete happiness. I take the pictures
I want. I take them when and where I want. I take
my pictures and dance in the streets sometimes!
I feel inspired. Life is beautiful and Nature, enthralling
and ever-changing. I can’t imagine how people
can get bored. Every moment the colours and faces
are changing. I wish sometimes that there were 10
of me. Just so that I could capture the immense
bounty that life is. |
| ANITA KAUL BASU.
But surely you still have to earn and be answerable
to someone? |
| RAGHU RAI.
I don’t give a damn now. I don’t
have to prove anything to anybody. I select the
assignments I want to do, even the lucrative foreign
magazine ones. I get offers of $2,000 a day for
assignments where charges would usually be $500.
I refuse even those. If I feel I don’t want
to do it, I won’t |
| ANITA KAUL BASU. So
are you saying that money is not your priority?
|
| RAGHU RAI.
No. Money matters a great deal. We are now in the
digital world and that really costs an enormous
amount. What I am saying is that I am not willing
to do anything and everything with anybody. If I
accept, then I expect to be paid handsomely, so
that I feel privileged and do a good job of it as
well. My heart and soul and my entire energy goes
into every assignment I accept. I feel enlightened.
The world is dancing around me! |
| ANITA KAUL BASU.
I was really taken by surprise when I read that
your first job was that of a civil engineer with
a Jat regiment! It seems in total variance to your
present profession. |
| RAGHU RAI.
My dad was a senior administrator in the government,
so it was taken for granted that his sons would
follow. Both my brother Paul and I held government
jobs to begin with. Paul had already been taking
pictures. He gave up his job and joined the Himachal
government as a photographer. My father just could
not fathom why we were both keen to take up photography
and that too as a profession. He would often say
to people that he had 4 sons, 2 of who have “gone”
to photography. It was laced with sarcasm. But things
did change. Once I established myself as a serious
photographer, and received recognition, he was finally
very happy. |
| ANITA KAUL BASU.
It’s every parent’s dream, I guess? |
| RAGHU RAI. Well,
I actually wanted to become a musician. Punjabis
have these folk singers called Mirasis. My father
used to taunt me and say, “What! You good-for-nothing
man—you want to become a Mirasi!” Yes,
I was a Mirasi at heart! But for him, becoming a
photographer was even less noble! |
| ANITA KAUL BASU. Is
your mother still alive? |
| RAGHU RAI. No,
she passed away a long time ago. She was very proper
and nice with all of us, very level-headed and chilled
out. A very loving and a wonderful human being. |
| ANITA KAUL BASU.
Do you remember a lot about her? |
| RAGHU RAI. Not
a lot. There were things she told me when I was
a little boy that will remain etched in my heart.
One of them had a very deep and beautiful meaning.
“Aatma mare te swarg na jayenge, agar aatma
hi nahi maara toh swarg kaisa jaayega!” [If
the soul does not die, one cannot go to heaven.]
|
| ANITA KAUL BASU. Your
first picture ever was that of a baby donkey . .
. do you still have that Agfa with which you took
the picture ? |
| RAGHU RAI. I
don’t have anything . . . not the film, nor
the print nor a cutting from the paper—London
Times—where it was printed on half a page.
I was stunned that Paul actually sent it and received
such a welcome and money as well. A London agency
saw the picture and told me they’d like to
use it on a greeting card. They paid me a good sum.
They told me to send them the original negative
which I did. When they sent it back, it came to
me folded. When I asked them why it was sent like
that, they denied all responsibility but I feel
it was done deliberately. So that nobody else could
use it. I lost that. I have it on a catalogue somewhere
but I just don’t remember where. Much later,
Cartier Bresson wrote me a letter of appreciation
as did Satyajit Ray. Alas, I have misplaced everything
. . . but I am hoping, one day, they will all turn
up from the stacks of uncared-for papers strewn
everywhere. |
|
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