Here's a book, immaculately produced, on one of the most distinguished photographers in the world, that opens wide its arms and holds you in its warm embrace. Raghu Rai's India spans a distinguished career of some 40 years and provides a visual record of this country's seemingly commonplace, everyday events that give one an insight into the character of its people, their collective dreams and aspirations, and the vicissitudes of their day-to-day existence as seen through an uncannily perceptive eye, and a heart that warms to their desperate struggle for existence. What emerges from this prodigious body of images is a story of the fortitude and faith of the so-called "common man" of India.
Pushkar fair, 2004: Ancient shapes pass through Rai's needle eye
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The first picture that greets us and, in a way, represents the vision that holds this book together, is called blandly, 'My father and my son'. A tribute to the past, and an expression of faith in the future, this image, in the final analysis, reflects the simple love and humility of the photographer Raghu Rai himself. The ageing, wrinkled thumbs of the grandfather are held in the firm grip of the child's fingers—a token of love, faith and solidarity. Here, in the thumbs of the grandfather, we have the past; the fingers of the little child are the future; and Raghu Rai, in the book as a whole, as, invisibly, in this photograph, serves as the connecting link. The picture represents, symbolically, both the life of Raghu Rai, as well as the history of their common motherland, India. This picture provides the clue to Raghu Rai's vision and philosophy as a photographer. In the whole history of photography we are not likely to find a statement as simple, poetic and dignified as this. Raghu Rai's photographs of political figures are always layered and revealing. In one, 16 Congressmen are seen standing by in polite silence, whilst the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, carefully scrutinises a report.
In another, Mrs Gandhi is shown perched on a bolster, lost in thought, a briefcase beside her. Portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and an equally pensive portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru adorn the back wall. They represent three generations of stalwarts who played a prominent role in India's struggle for independence. Yet the nation was perennially beset with problems, and, sadly, with no consensus on their solution. For Rai, the photograph has to be not merely the representation of a person or a place. It has to serve as a visual metaphor.
Congress plenary, Tirupati, 1992: The momentary and the unchanging in soft collusion... leaders converse, three generations of luminaries look on in benign benediction
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In another photograph of the same series, while in the foreground, party men exchange greetings, four erstwhile leaders of the nation are shown in gestures of blessing. Three of these eminent national figures were to die violent deaths: Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
Of them, only Nehru died in his sleep. A book of poems by the American poet, Robert Frost, lay on the bedside table. On the page marked by Jawaharlal Nehru were the lines:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep".
Worshipping Ganga, Calcutta 2005: Devotion spreads out and converges in concentric circles
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Calcutta is the city that gets literally the widest coverage with double-spreads covering every aspect of urban life: studies from sculptors' studios, where it is difficult to distinguish the clay figures from the creative artists; wrestlers near Howrah Bridge where a group are engaged in massaging the obese body of an "ustad", while the right half of the picture shows huge trees stretching out their savage roots menacingly towards the viewer: The conflict between man and nature could not be conveyed with a greater sense of terror.
'Shepherds and a tank' is a bucolic scene where a herd of sheep finds itself in an Arcadian paradise, which has been violated by the presence of a massive tank with its rotating turret standing guard. Another double spread sparkles with the joy and laughter of girls celebrating the arrival of spring against the background of Rabindra Bharati university while a bust of the Great Master surveys the scene.
Yet another aspect of life in Calcutta is reflected in the series of pictures of Mother Teresa, her dedication and faith nowhere more poignantly portrayed than in the image of her hands, pressed in prayer against her wrinkled face.
There is a moment of extraordinary drama in the photograph of a Punjabi wedding where the turbaned bridegroom walks with eyes shut as though in a trance, as do the three ladies accompanying him, while in the foreground the attractive bride turns in sudden panic towards her companions. It is almost like a still from a film.
Raghu Rai scales even greater heights of poetic allegory in 'A pilgrim and a bird, Varanasi, 1974' and 'Goddess, cow and woman, Calcutta, 1990'. The inviolate sanctity of 'Evening prayers at Jama Masjid, 1982' brings this treasure house of photography at its purest to a fitting close.
