India loses its iconic lensman Raghu Rai at 83
Raghu Rai, one of India’s best-known photographers, died at a private hospital in the city on Sunday. He was 83. Born on December 18, 1942, in Jhang, Punjab (now in Pakistan), Rai was qualified as a civil engineer and only took up photography at 23 before joining The Statesman newspaper as its chief photographer in 1966.
He is survived by wife Gurmeet, son Nitin and daughters Lagan, Avani and Purvai. “Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago but he was cured. Then it spread to the stomach, that too was cured. Recently, the cancer spread to his brain and then there were age-related issues too,” Nitin Rai, photographer and Rai’s son, said.
The prolific photographer, a protege of Henri Cartier-Bresson, shot some of the most significant events in Indian modern history, including the Bangladesh refugee crisis of 1972 and the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984. He recorded India’s social, political and spiritual shades in his portraits of leading figures, including Indira Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Satyajit Ray, Hariprasad Chaurasia and Bismillah Khan, which offered hitherto unknown perspectives into their lives.
During his long and illustrious career, Rai worked with leading Indian magazines, Sunday and India Today. Over the years, his photo essays appeared in renowned international publications, including Time, Life, The New York Times, The Independent, and The New Yorker. He served three times on the jury of the World Press Photo and twice on the jury of UNESCO’s International Photo Contest, according to Magnum Photos, where he was nominated to join by Cartier-Bresson in 1977.
Rai received the Padma Shri in 1972 for his coverage of the Bangladesh war and its aftermath, apart from several national and international awards. He received the Photographer of the Year award in the United States for his photo essay “Human Management of Wildlife in India”, published in National Geographic. The French Government conferred him with the Officier des Arts et des Lettres in 2009.
