Raghu Rai (1942-2026): A keen observer of strategies of survival

Rarely does the word brilliant fall short for an exceptional artist. For Raghu Rai, it does. His eyes were a camera and the camera held his gaze and blinked exactly to his command. Browsing through his photographs, viewers are more than stunned by his timing, his eye, and his presence in places were life was aching to be discovered and caught in the stillness of motion.

A protégé of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Raghu Rai worked as a photographer-journalist in The Statesman and India Today. His images appeared in scores of other publications around the world. He covered the Bangladesh war of 1971 and the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, among other events.

Rai’s most memorable projects keep probing the question of calamity – natural, historical and political. He was a keen observer of the destitution of human life faced by displacement and the disappearance of destination. The camera frames and reframes the question of survival, where you are left with something more than agony and empathy.

Rai’s images of the Bhopal tragedy are surreal: they focus on empty eyes and gazes that do not look at us and prevent us from looking at them. They are caught in their own time that separates us from them.

They ask a question: how do you...

Read more