A tribute to Raghu Rai’s meditative approach to photography, tracing his India Today years and how presence, instinct, and a keen eye turned ordinary moments into enduring images, as recalled by a colleague who worked closely with him.
Raghu Rai once said he could never meditate without a camera. He had tried, but failed several times.
It was only behind the lens that he found a meditative state — where he became an ordinary man guided by intuition.
His pictures — simple, yet brilliant and telling.
An extension of his persona, a photograph for him was like a “darshan.”
It was about seeing in totality — not just capturing the physical, but also emotion, feeling, and, most importantly, the energy of the moment, as he said in an interview with Doordarshan.
His pictures, over a six-decade-long career, remained just that — ordinary, yet magical. He kept clicking until the last few weeks before he breathed his last on April 26.
For him, the magic came from being present. Clicking a picture was like a pilgrimage — a battle with his own ego.
To move beyond familiar compositions and create something truly deserving of the moment. Situations evolve, he said. So should frames.
PRESENCE OVER TECHNIQUE
For Raghu Rai, photography and spirituality went hand in hand. It went beyond seeing, into the metaphysical — the beating heart, the emotion, the energy.
Those who worked closely with him recall his ability to immerse himself completely in the moment.
“The first thing that caught my eye was Raghu’s intensity and tremendous focus — when he looked at you, he was always there,” said India Today Group Editorial Director Raj Chengappa, recalling the 1980s. “He wasn’t distracted, regardless of hierarchy or who you were.”
Raj and Raghu began their journey at India Today back in 1981. For Raj, then a budding correspondent, what stood out was Raghu’s immense awareness — his “eye for detail, childlike curiosity, and ability to capture moments others would miss.”
By then, Raghu Rai was already acclaimed. His images had captured the 1970s — Indira Gandhi’s raw public moments, and the wider zeitgeist.
He documented hunger and loss with a deep human gaze — the hollow, sunken eyes of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, carrying stories words could not.
These works earned him the Padma Shri in 1972, making him the first photojournalist to receive the honour — marking a moment when photojournalism found formal recognition as a civilian contribution to nation-building.
Recalling those years, Raj said Raghu seemed untouched by his own greatness — never weighed down by what he had already achieved.
FINDING THE FRAME
Their first assignment together was the 1981 Meenakshipuram mass conversion — nearly 300 Dalit families embracing Islam in search of dignity, decades after Independence.
It was here, Raj said, that he saw Raghu’s gift — to read the ordinary in an extraordinary way.
Driving through the village, Raj recalled that Raghu suddenly asked the car to stop. “To me, it looked ordinary,” he said. But Raghu had spotted something — a fleeting image of a woman at her doorway as clerics left.
That moment became a photograph — and an idea.
It captured Nagore Meer, formerly Nagu, kneeling in namaz, his child beside him, under the shadow of a Hindu deity.
As their India Today piece, Islam’s New Children (July 1981), recorded, Nagu spoke of exclusion in his old faith, and of dignity and equality in his newfound one.
The photograph spoke beyond words. In black and white, it held quiet tension — a man and child in prayer, a woman watching from a dilapidated doorway. A rebirth, frozen in a frame.
Raghu had seen it in an instant.
THE CRAFT OF INSTINCT
It was this ability, Raj noted, to merge news with artistic brilliance that set Raghu apart.
“He could create impactful images — immediate, yet remarkably composed,” Raj said.
Raghu described it as connecting to the “current” of a situation — being fully present, physically and spiritually — so that “whatever you project has magic.”
It was his way of capturing fleeting life — to shed learnt patterns, detach from the self, and immerse fully in the present, achieving speed, precision, and depth at once.
AN ACCIDENTAL BEGINNING
Raghu Rai’s journey began in the 1960s by what he called sheer accident.
“Accidents happen and this was one that gave me direction,” he told Doordarshan.
Visiting his brother, photographer S Paul, he picked up a camera out of boredom and photographed a donkey staring into the lens.
Paul sent it to The Times, London. It was published as a half-page feature.
There was no looking back.
