Photography as Darshan

Raghu Rai, a famous Indian photographer, passed away this week (26/04/2026).

Having grown up seeing his amazing photographs in newspapers and magazines it felt a bit strange to see those same images turning up on the small but all pervasive screens of the new social media. Over the past few days, while we collectively mourn his passing, friends have posted PDF copies of his book "Picturing Time" (2015) on Whatsapp; YouTube algorithms brought up some of his earlier interviews where, with his usual charm and wit, describes his own world view, the difference between "drishti", the act of seeing, and "darshan" which is much more difficult to describe: 

Kehte hain ke kann kann mein bhagvan hai. They say that God exists in every grain. This is not to say that you lift a stone and you will find God. The ability to connect. With anything and everything. Significant or mundane. Precious or ordinary. When you start caring for everything, everything around you starts caring for you in some way or the other, so you stand connected. You connect with every inch of space and respond. It’s having a complete awareness of things, and by that I mean not only the physical but also the emotional and spiritual aspect. Even a breeze blowing — what does it do to you and the entire space around you? This is what is so magical about human life and the human spirit — that some people appear from somewhere, some situations arise from somewhere to bless you with the unexpected — and that is darshan. This is the way I look at it.

It is quite amazing to think how Raghu Rai managed to turn up with his camera - almost Forrest Gump like - at almost every historical event over the past 60 years. He was there at Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's funeral (1966); the ascent, descent and assasination of Indira Gandhi; Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama; The Bangladesh Liberation War (1971); Pokhran N-tests (1974); Operation Bluestar and Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1984), Kargil War (1999), not to mention his photo chronicles of some of India's greatest artists - Statyajit Ray, Bismillah Khan, Hariprasad Chaurasia, MS Subbalakshmi, S Balachander.

In the last set, these are my favourites :)

Life and Beyond

 Call it a calculated conspiracy of algorithms but over the last week I watched two 'recommended' TED videos, each dealing with with dimensions of life and death.

The first one was by Isabel Stenzel Byrnes titled the "The Art of Saying Goodbye", and the second one by Nancy Trivellato on Out-of-Body Experiences (OBE).

Isabel describes her own harrowing experiences with Cystic Fibrosis, numerous encounters with the death, end-of-life issues, and organ donation. She also talks about her realisation that there is no right or wrong way to say goodbye to a loved one, and that grief is an art, a deeply intellectual and spiritual process of making sense of loss.

I was particularly touched by this description of grief by Isabel's friend, Christine:

"If you were to ask me what stage of grief I'm in, I would say denial, anger, fear, profound sadness...sequentially, and then all at once, and sometimes not at all."

The second TED video by Nancy Trivellato, a researcher from Brazil, begins with a question that has long been familiar to ancient Indian philosophers - "Is the reality we live in the actual reality?". The point being made here was that the 'reality' being presented to us by our sense organs give us, at best, only a small fraction of the many realities that exist in parallel. Nancy makes this point by presenting a set of photographs of the cosmos, each showing how instruments that detect different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum see the same slice of the night sky so differently.

However Nancy's talk is not about the EM spectrum or the cosmos but something more subtle. She describes how as a child she had an out-of-body experience of 'seeing' a beloved uncle on a hospital bed in Sao Paolo. He and his wife had gone there for a gall bladder operation without informing anybody and were quite astounded to hear the little girl describe his hospital room.

The common thread that runs through both these videos is that there is more to life and death, and dimensions of consciousness that needs our attention with tools that are beyond the reach of existing scientific instruments and conceptual frameworks. 

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* TED Video - "The Art of Saying Goodbye" (Isabel Byrnes) - https://youtu.be/Dkffpibi-Dc

* TED - Nancy Trivellato on OBE - https://youtu.be/NMBNZspmn7I

* The Power of Two - A Twin Triumph Over Cystic Fibrosis - https://www.amazon.com/Power-Two-Triumph-Cystic-Fibrosis/dp/0826217540 

Frankl's Search for Meaning

A random quote on social media leads you to a book, and then some thoughts in the book hit you deep inside. This happens to me quite often - the latest example comes from the book, "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl.

The Frankl quote in this case came from a TEDxGenoa video - "Everything can be taken from man but one thing. The last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.". 

Much of the book is focused on the author's experiences in Nazi Concentration Camps while describing his psychotherapeutic method (Logotherapy, where logo = meaning ), of identifying a purpose in life to feel positive about, which then helps you survive the most difficult trails of life.

Towards the end of the book, while describing the various ways in which prisoners tried to keep up their hope through the months and years of being subjected to starvation, beatings, and torture amidst those who who were being taken away to the gas-chambers, he tells of a comrade who - 

"...on his arrival in the camp had tried to make a pact with Heaven that his suffering and death should save the human being he loved from a painful end. For this man, suffering and death were meaningful; his life was a sacrifice of the deepest significance"

This set me thinking about my father and my grandparents, who suffered prolonged confinements at hospitals before dying. It brought back memories of confusion, helplessness and despair; of constantly wondering why people who lead such gentle lives in the service of others, had to suffer so much in the end.

This book has many helpful pointers - 

"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life...it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us...Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct."

Where have I read this before..?  - The Gita? Teachings of the Buddha?

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Links and References:

* TEDx - Own Your Behaviours (Louise Evans) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BZuWrdC-9Q&list=PLJZfFMDhIj8x6c-zuDsF6Y6y2bx0geOal&index=60&t=0s

* Frankl, Viktor (1946): Man's Search for Meaning -  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Meaning