Mother Teresa's discipline, Ray's creativity inspired me: Raghu Rai

Kolkata: Ace photographer Raghu Rai continues to draw inspiration from Mother Teresa, Satyajit Ray and Kolkata. In a conversation with TOI, Rai said Kolkata was special to him, not only because it had character and throbbed with life that created immense possibilities and made powerful photographs, it was also home to his twin inspirations.
"Mother and Manikda have had the most profound influence in my life.From Mother, I learned about total dedication and commitment in work. She was compassionate and loving but also tough. Ray, whom I called Manikda, was a master of visual language. He was creative but also disciplined. That ability to deliver in a creative journey is a lesson for everybody. Ritwik Ghatak was also very creative but lacked discipline, and hence, faltered in consistent delivery," he remarked.
Rai first encountered Ray in the late 1960s during a competition in which both were judges along with Ramkinkar Baij. By then, Ray was already a phenomenon in world cinema. "Ray was to cinema what Henri Cartier-Bresson was to photography. I was a fan of his films and always marvelled at the frames and how he subtly captured true life emotions on celluloid. About a decade later, I received one of the biggest complements from Ray when he recounted a photograph I had taken in Delhi in 1979. It showed a woman pushing a cart with all her might. He also talked of some of the Bangladeshi refugee photographs I had taken a few years earlier but it was the 'Cart pushers' that the maestro remembered. It remains a favourite of mine," said Rai.
His tryst with Mother Teresa began around the 1970s and continued till the end. He had been making trips to the city to cover the Naxalite movement and the Bangladeshi refugee influx. But this time, he came on a specific assignment: to understand why a nun from Albania had made Kolkata her home. "I went about the city, capturing images of ordinary people, the poor, sick and dying that Mother Teresa reached out to. It was on that very trip that an emotional bond developed. Mother did not like to have photographers hovering around. But she saw the commitment in me and permitted me the liberty," he recounted.
Though Rai visits Kolkata less often these days, he never tires of the overcrowded city brimming with human expressions. "Kolkata is a photographer's paradise. Here, anyone can peep into the private lives of thousands who live on the footpath. Then there is the British legacy, the intense colonial architecture. Most of the buildings are imposing, but some of them are falling apart. These crumbling edifices create greater possibilities for image making. There is no beginning or an end. One can get up at the middle of the night and catch the thread," he said.
Rai loves the narrow alleys of north Kolkata, the madness of Chitpur, the continuous ebb and flow of life at Sealdah and Howrah stations. But one location that draws him like a magnet is the Hooghly. "The river plays such a massive role in the lives of thousands of people who turn up for their morning rituals and religious activities. The Howrah bridge that spans majestically across the river is itself such a gigantic symbol of activity. Everytime I am at the Hooghly riverfront, I get to experience the eternal India, its everlasting strength. Further upstream, the experience of idol-making at Kumartuli is unbelievable. I can go back to Kumartuli and continue to be amazed by the magic the artisans create with bare hands," said the Padmashree awardee who will be in the city to do a workshop with Camarena for aspiring photographers.
Kolkata, Rai says, has more photographers than any other city. While it has always been so, digital technology and easy access to camera via phone have made the medium more democratic. "Growing up in the city that offers such photo opportunities, the passion intensifies and some bloom into photographers of note," he added.