Two hours with Raghu Rai

I was in Mumbai last week, and went into that gorgeous place, the NGMA opposite Regal, as I had 2 hours to kill between things. First I had a dilemma – I have two hours in this area – should I rush off to Churchgate and eat the gossamer chicken puffs (sans masala, just peppery, soft chicken filling and flakiest crust) at Gaylord, or should I go buy the amazing junk jewellery at the head of Colaba Causeway (lovely steely grey pearls at a fraction of the cost of real ones)…or should I take my friend Bonnie’s advise and go see Raghu Rai’s pictures at the NGMA. Good old triangular dilemma – feed the stomach, the vanity, or the soul? Soul won, thankfully this time, poor neglected soul.
Entered the NGMA on a Wednesday afternoon, which was smart. Not a soul in there. And I love the absence of odours and noise. The place is almost a vacuum. So there’s just you and the artist’s work. Not being very big on visual art, I began to float past Raghu Rai’s pictures, eyeing the lovely soft wood bench to sit on. But I was arrested, soon enough. People have said it before, it seems as if life lies in wait for RR to happen to it. Rather than the other way round! He catches moments, expressions, motion, stillness for us. His very first picture, a patient, sweet donkey, from the front – makes a slim line of a picture. I’ve always loved that creature, the donkey. Never known it from close, though. Not even a nodding or braying acquaintance, or a kicking one either.

There was one striking pic of sparrows on the ground, with one lone mynah amongst them. There were pictures at Benaras (a place that leaves me cold), which I drifted past.

Where I stood transfixed, and with sudden tears in my eyes, was his pictures of musicians – some of our greats. He has caught them and portrayed them in that state where they are looking so completely lost in their own world. It was like they were in the act of giving birth, I tell you, or being birthed themselves. This sense is particularly heightened with the almost clinical and humbly non-invasive side-presence of disciples or accompanists or instruments like tanpuras - looking like mid-wives and attendants and instruments all quietly focused on the act of assisting birth. There was Mallikarjun Mansur, sitting crosslegged, looking up to the sky, totally immersed. Surrounded by disciples. There was Kishori, in a state of near agony, only her tanpura stem showing. There was Bhimsen, almost wailing, that face that I love so much just barely in the frame. There was Vilayat, hugging his sitar. MS Subbalaxmi, delivering her music up to divinity. Stunning stuff.

On the topmost level were some quirky pics, that made you smile, stand back, wonder at the moment. The topmost level is an odd place, acoustically. It’s like the Gol Gumbaz gallery (which I visited every year as a kid – my great-grand-mother lived in Bijapur). Your every step echoes 7 times. Takak..kak-kak-kak-kak-kak-kak. I would have tried to whisper to see if that too carried to the other end of the dome, a la Gol Gumbaz. But there was no one to do it with. Couldn’t ask the bored looking guard to be my accomplice in that experiment, could I? Maybe I could have. He would have been less bored, then.
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