Her name is Raksha Kaur. She stands firm, guarding her precious corner at the tri-junction of Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan along NH 54 in Dabwali. In a corner of her house, Raksha runs a tiny store selling ‘Maniyari’ items; maniyari roughly translates to cosmetics and jewellery for women. Face cream, powder, lipstick, plastic pearl strings, rings with colourful stones, ear tops and cheap plastic toys sit on a sagging cot. Across her house two large banyan trees, older than Raksha, stand guard over her brick house and provide much-needed shade in this near-desert land. As a light drizzle and a cool breeze make for a pleasant drive, we witness a quieter battle unfolding at this bustling cross-roads.
Here, Raksha’s son, Pappu Khatri, runs a rudimentary tea stall on a prime plot of land. It is a piece of history; Raksha’s husband bought these 500 yards back in 1955 for the then-princely sum of ninety rupees. Decades later, when the highway cut through their property, more than half of their house was acquired, leaving them with a meagre compensation of just 5,000 rupees. Now, the real-estate mafia eyes the remaining land – prime corner property on the highway. The mother and son are currently battling a court case built on fictitious claims designed to dislodge them. Armed only with meagre resources but boundless resilience, this feisty duo refuses to back down.
Leaving Dabwali behind, the countryside opens up into amazing vistas as the excellent highway stretches toward Hanumangarh and Suratgarh. We are heading to meet my ailing aunt, but our journey will also take us deep into the past at Kalibangan. This 4,000-year-old site was once a provincial capital of the Indus Valley Civilization, perched on the left bank of the now-dried-up Ghaggar River. Today, this seasonal, monsoon-fed river has changed its course, flowing 50 km further west along a firm bund that stretches from Himachal Pradesh before finally terminating in the sands of the Thar Desert.
Once summer gives way to the monsoon and a cooler breeze flows over this rugged land I will come back and spend a day or two with these people to learn more about their lives and write a story about them. Till then, take care, Raksha ji and Pappu Khatri. The tea was precisely to my taste, delicious – for which Pappu Khatri refused to take money.
In the last 24 hours I have seen more portraits and pictures of Raghu Rai (on digital platforms) than I had ever imagined they even existed. It is sad that Raghu Rai is no more. He had been suffering for a few months. It is nice to see friends and acquaintances pouring out their love for him, and in turn, projecting their proximity to Raghu Rai. It is a veritable RR show online, an exhibition of his pictures some of which he wouldn’t even have known people cherished so much – friends, peers, fan, and acquaintances.
While a photographer is in the process of making a picture or when he is busy composing them, he doesn’t realise that he too becomes a subject of curiosity, an image himself. People knew him, people loved him as an icon, a star photographer and people adored him wherever he went. He would talk, he would explain politely and share the nuances of an art of which he was undoubtedly a master. Amateurs and youngsters in photography community addressed him as Guru and Ustaad and wanted to record their meeting with him. Undoubtedly his was a photogenic face too, handsome and his smile too could launch a few ships.
I can’t claim that he was my friend, yet our association and connection was such that we did treat each other as a friend. The first time I met him was in 1989 at his house in Rabindra Nagar next to Khan Market, Delhi. A UK based client of ours insisted on using one of Raghu’s Taj Mahal picture on the cover of his travel catalogue. Those were the days when film was used in cameras, pre-digital days. I had to pickup a 35mm colour slide from him and hand over a big amount for ‘one’ picture. He was a celebrity then and he is a celebrity now, thirty-seven years later. Even before I met Raghu Rai or had any association with him I had known his older brother S. Paul for whom we had designed and published a catalogue of his pictures. A show of S Paul’s pictures was organised by Max Mueller Bhavan, Delhi. I must say his pictures were very impressive.
As an advertising agency we are dealing with big names in photography all the time, whether for arranged shoots (industrial, architectural, food, fashion, product) or to buy stock pictures. That one meeting brought us closer and we kept meeting at art shows, galleries, social dos or at events organised by Kodak or Fuji. Ever since our meeting at SAHMAT events we got even closer.
For some strange, and unknown reason I addressed him Prabhu (lord of photography??) and he would shoot back ‘Lal Pari’. About this moniker he once explained, “I have seen you many times wearing different red kurtas. Long back I saw you with your long hair bouncing off the shoulders, thus the name.” I nodded; you couldn’t argue with Raghu. I attended one of his photography workshops which he conducted open-air at the gorgeous location of Ojas Art gallery in Mehraulli. A large manicured green lawn, anchored around a banyan tree with its entangled roots hanging from its strong branches and its large leaves reaching for the earth. A tree that itself is associated with many renowned folklores was an aptly location for the master storyteller whose ‘pictured tales’.
I had never imagined that there was even a remote chance to see so many of Raghu Rai’s pictures in one go, one day without having to move from house or visiting a gallery. A very large number of Raghu’s pictures are being shared online today; pictures that are artistically superb, iconic and are a story by themselves. These pictures are being shared because they are liked by masses and are a part of public memory. Thats a way condolences are shared.
One can’t disagree with people posting his marvellous pictures but then RR was known for his keen eye, the game he played with his subjects, the locale, the foreground and background, the light and shade and the very story that moment had. RR was known for capturing a story in his pictures – sometimes those were poetry or a song; an ongoing movement that brought forth a particular moment that he captured – the one that had both, the before and after in it. And then he hung that picture for all of us to see and feel the fierceness of a sand storm, a village rising from the dust and embracing air travel,
Just like my mother, his family also came to India from Jhang where he was born. He shared it with with me after I had visited Lahore with my parents on a trip looking for their parental houses before the Partition. Raghu was eight years younger to my mother and they had shared the same mohalla. His keen eyes must have observed the ever changing subcontinent and the trauma of the uprooted families. He mentioned that he had been to Lahore long-long back in 1978 to locate their house and that for him too it was hugely emotional moment. Yet, he made full use of the opportunity and mingled with the crowd as he went about taking hundreds of pictures of the people and localities. There is very touching picture of him riding a donkey on a street, crowded with people surrounding him while he enjoyed all the attention – which all Indians get across the border.
His pictures were defining visual voices of modern India. Impressed by an exhibit of his work in Paris in 1971, Henri Cartier-Bresson, possibly the world’s greatest photographer in his day, nominated Raghu Rai to join Magnum Photos in 1977.
Today, photographers across the country are grieving a loss, but are also celebrating the life of a giant that rose above others to make his images immortal or outlive time.
Raghu Rai was not only a photographer with a keen observant eye but an artist who brought forth the aesthetics of a moment in his pictures. One can find RR pictures of almost all important events of the country from the 1970s onward. In mid-seventies, he was at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ashram in Rishikesh photographing the phenomena in pop-music called the “Beatles”. His eyes found art where his contemporaries only found news. Like someone said, “Raghu’s evolution was meteoric. He raised news pics into world art. This was independent of his exceptional eye on the Taj Mahal, Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, all the contemporary musicians. No war photographer had mixed valour, victory with a deep sense of tragedy as in his coverage of the Bangladesh war.” For those of us who shared a space in social and cultural activism, Raghu would be found standing with all for any cause. His haunting picture of a half-buried child after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy or the labour movement or even the plight of the migrants during Covid are silent sentinels of our times.
He was there, almost everywhere. Raghu Rai was in Ayodhya at the pivotal moment in Indian history when the Babri masjid was demolished. Not just that he documented the tragedy for posterity, he was at the receiving end from the Kar Sevaks who assaulted him and other photographers and his camera equipment was also damaged.
Not that I ever went with him on a photo-sortie, but I know by his sheer demeanour in all else that he did—that Raghu was never in a rush. He almost mathematically calculated every aspect of composing a shot and taking a picture I saw him taking pictures of the display of his own show in such thoughtful ways that one wonders what formule or theorems went on in his mind while making a frame.
As a design agency we had the privilege of designing and printing catalogues of Raghu Rai’s shows that were assigned to us by art galleries. These catalogues gave me a chance to interact with RR on personal level for many reasons – be it technical or simply emotional. The last catalogue I did for him was for a show that exhibited photographs of three senior photographers of Delhi; namely Habib Rahman, Madan Mahata and Raghu Rai. The show was titled “Delhi… That Was”. Some of the finest pictures of these three greats were on display. On the day of the opening, Raghu went around the entire gallery interpreting each image for us who were keen to listen to him. Late Habib Rahman and Madan Mahatta would have been very happy that day listening to their pictures being deconstructed.
In Raghu Rai we have lost a visual historian, an artist, a photographer and a extraordinary human being.
P.S.: Social media platforms are a treat today to see some of Raghu Rai’s pictures that one had not seen before. It is also a rare day when we got a break from the seeing the sullen pictures of a rotten politico and his brigade.
On a burning-hot April afternoon (like today), sometime in 1994 or 95 Suneet Chopra entered the Ishtihaar office, his face red and profusely sweating. A safa, the kind worn by a peasant-mazdoor leader was dripping on his head. Without saying a word he pulled up a chair and sat down. Cleaning his glasses with the gamachha, he ran his fingers through his beard and drank two glasses of water. A cup of tea later he asked me to get up and come with him. “Where to?” I asked. At the Delhi College of Art, there is a show of final year students’ works on display and for sale.” When Suneet spoke with that kind of authority you couldn’t say no. We drove to the college where the artworks of final-year BFA students were on display for assessment and for sale. Walking up and down the corridor and the hall, we looked at the artworks but weren’t ready to pay the prices students had labelled them for. We were about to leave when we met Saam Lal (that’s how he pronounced his name). Saam (Shyam), a peon-like assistant at the college, held a few rolled sheets in his hand. He had displayed two others on a cord along the outer wall. Those were HIS paintings. Shyam Lal, who had never attended school, learnt to draw and paint at DCA only. A few works that he managed to sell in a year supplemented his meagre salary. Looking at his works Suneet retraced his steps, and so did I. Suneet kept looking at the “Goats” – a gorgeous single one, and a clean-coated family of four. Suneet asked Shyam Lal to open the roll in his hand, which had two more artworks; Goats again. He looked at me and nodded, signaling that we should take these. Between the two of us we bought all four works. Shyam Lal asked for 2,500 each. Mind you, these are 3×2 feet fabulous works, watercolour on acid-free chart paper. The two in picture are with me, I wonder what Suneet did with his. Over thirty years now… every time I look at these works I remember both Suneet and Saam. Suneet is gone, I wonder what ever happened to tall, emaciated, smoker Saam who could hold both a brush and a bidi in his left hand while painting. Syam signed these works for us with a pencil tucked in his left ear. I cherish these.
For those who don’t know: late Suneet Chopra was an art critic, writer, and poet. He was a trade unionist; Secretary of the All India Agricultural Workers Union and a Central Committee member of CPI(M). Born in Lahore, Suneet was an alumnus of Modern School and St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta. He taught regional development at Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi. More than everything else, the ever-smiling Suneet was a fine human being.
Welcome to the Cimitirul Vesel—the Merry Cemetery.
The Village Where Death is a Punchline: A Journey to Romania’s Merry Cemetery In most parts of the world, cemeteries are hushed, grey places defined by whispers and heavy hearts. But if you drive far into the northern reaches of Romania, almost to the Ukrainian border, you’ll find a village called Săpânța that sees things differently. Here, the graves don’t just sit in silence; they tell jokes, confess secrets, and burst with color.
A Forest of Blue Walking into the churchyard of the Assumption, you aren’t met with cold marble or somber angels. Instead, you are greeted by a sea of vibrant, radiant blue. This specific shade, now known across the country as “Săpânța Blue,” represents the sky, hope, and the freedom of the soul.
Each grave is marked by an intricately carved oak cross, topped with a little “roof” to protect it from the Maramureș snow. But it’s what is painted on the wood that stops you in your tracks. In a charming, “naive” art style, the scenes depict exactly how the person lived—or how they died. You’ll see farmers tilling fields, weavers at their looms, and more than a few scenes involving a car accident or a bottle of plum brandy.
The Man Who Started the Conversation This tradition wasn’t the work of a committee; it was the vision of one man named Stan Ion Pătraș. Starting in 1935, Pătraș decided that a person’s life shouldn’t be reduced to two dates and a “rest in peace.” He believed in the truth, even the uncomfortable parts.
Between 1935 and his death in 1977, Pătraș carved over 800 crosses, including his own. Today, his apprentice Dumitru Pop carries on the legacy. Pop doesn’t just carve wood; he acts as the village historian and judge. When someone dies, the family asks him for a cross, but Pop alone decides what the painting will show and what the poem will say. Because it’s a small town, there is no hiding. If someone was a bit of a grouch or loved the local tavern too much, it goes on the cross.
Poetry from the Beyond The real soul of the cemetery lies in the epitaphs. Written in the first person, they feel like the deceased is leaning out from the grave to share one last story with you.
Some are delightfully cheeky. One man’s grave famously features a poem about his mother-in-law, warning passersby not to wake her up: “Try not to wake her up, because if she comes back home, she’ll scold me even more. But I will surely behave so she stays in her grave!”
Others are brutally honest about their vices, like Stefan, who admits: “As long as I lived, I liked to drink… I drank because I was sad, then I drank to be happy. I’m still thirsty, so if you visit, leave a little wine here.”
Why the Humor? It might seem irreverent to Western eyes, but this “merriness” is rooted in deep history. The ancient Dacians, who once inhabited these lands, believed that the soul was immortal and that death was simply a passage to a better, more joyful life. For them, dying was a moment of exaltation.
While there is still room for sadness—such as the heartbreaking cross of a three-year-old girl lost to a tragic accident—the prevailing feeling is one of celebration. It is a reminder that while death is inevitable, a life well-lived (with all its flaws and foibles) is something worth talking about.
Planning Your Visit The Merry Cemetery has rightfully earned its spot as one of the “Seven Wonders of Romania.” It’s an open-air museum that captures the heartbeat of a village that refuses to be silenced by the grave.
I have moved to the otherside of the linguistic rainbow, hence, my absence from a few platforms where I used to contribute. Thin clouds are hovering under the rainbow but I can see them clearing. The light here – on this side – is soothing, the tones are muted, it is calm, not hurried. The colours are the same but the view from here is different, it is closer home, nearer the childhood, to the beginning, the earliest blabber (or is it babble!) of the first few sounds I mimicked. The first chatter I registered and the sounds that stayed; the words I picked up and the lips I aped are gushing in. Someone familiar is walking closer to where I stand. It is difficult to focus, it is not clear, there is fog – it must be Ma. She is trying hard to regain health after a downhill journey of the past nine months. Nine months! Is she birthing? At Ninety-one? Who? I am jealous. I have been listening to her with both my ears. Listening, storing, sorting, collating and writing. Mostly using the words she uses; broken, incomplete sentences where times, spaces, incidents, objects and people all churn and create a world with newer perceptions and realities unknown to any.
We have been talking. Yes, a lot. We talk in Hindi. From her fading memory words take time to form and flow. The recall, depending on how far she wants to go, is time taking and difficult. She thinks and many-a-times dismisses me not wanting to exert much. The fragile cervical spine doesn’t let the neck stay still, for long. No longer interested in reading or watching television, Ma spends most of the time lying down with eyes shut. We talk of her time in Lahore and Jhang; of her school; of Partition; of her college in Rohtak and Patna; of her teaching jobs; her marriage, motherhood; time with her husband; her life – the hits and the misses of life. Most of the time she smiles while answering/ talking and brushes off those queries that she doesn’t want to take.We think, converse and write in Hindi. I am glad that I can explore the other side of the rainbow with her.
Like a child I still watch her lips to make sense of the sounds and the words. It is ‘yesterday once more’ for me – it is the same as she was, as I was, decades back. The stage is the same, it is the same play, same script and same characters though time and age has added few props between us before the curtains come down. Without her dentures her jaw, the cheekbones and the face has shrunk.The pleats on her skin are mingled folds of silk which shines when light falls on her face at a particular angle. The hue and tint of her skin is pinkish-white other than the folds which seem darker (trust me they are not) that’s where light doesn’t shine. The blue veins now show more, especially on days when her heart pumps blood faster and the machine scares us with 210/130. Her toothless smile reminds me of my Nani – who was different – thinner, paler, whiter but cuter version – but Nani won’t smile as frequently as Ma does. Ma doesnt need a conversation or a joke or a tickle to smile – she looks at her granddaughter or grandson and fills the room with her smile. Sometimes she smiles looking at the Ranjha painting which she thinks is her beloved Krishna – both cattle herders – both flute players – both possessive lovers. Krishna or Ranjha – neither she, nor I can decide; but like her even I can see the rustle of kadamb trees even in the painting. She has been the source of my writing forever, but now she is the only source, the snout of the river which feeds me mineral-rich ambrosia.
Ankahi. Unsaid. 
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