My father, my hero

What Raghu Rai taught me about life, photography and leverything in between

- BY NITIN RAI

My father was a very loving and simple person. His biggest strength was that he connected with people. A father-son relationship is most special, but not the easiest because, for a child, his father is his hero and role model, and so it was with me. He wanted me to be the best at everything, and kept encouraging and pushing me. This led to differences as we both had high expectations from the other. But we loved each other dearly. No one could replace what my father was to me, and what I was to my father.

I am sharing some of the special moments in my 57 years with him.

When I was a boy of four or five, my father would come home in the evening with a set of prints and spread them on the table. There would be discussions with artists and photographer friends on what images worked creatively and what did not. Some of these friends were Jatin Das, Himmat Shah, S. Paul (my father’s elder brother and guru), and Kishore Parekh, another famous photographer. Kishore uncle was also the photo editor of Hindustan Times when my father joined the newspaper in Delhi in the late 1960s. He played an important role in honing my father’s skill and vision as a photographer.

Before I realised it, my interest in photography and art started developing, and my home became a great place of learning. When I was about seven years old, I asked my father for a camera, and so began my journey as a creative photographer; my home became my centre of learning. It was a place where there was always classical music playing and where artists, photographers, writers and friends of my parents congregated often.