First encounters: Indian photographer Raghu Rai did not recognise MF Husain, was pulled up by Mother Teresa

M F Husain and Mother Teresa were among Raghu Rais most celebrated muses Yet his first encounters with them were strikingly different he failed to recognise the artist and was sharply rebuked by the nun midshootRai one of Indias bestknown photographers who chronicled an India on the move and received a Padma Shri when he was in his 20s died on Sunday He was 83The meetings with Husain and Mother Teresa happened while Rai was still finding his footing as a young photographer moving between newsroom assignments and field postings according to the biography Raghu Rai Waiting for the Divine by Rachna SinghRecounting his first meeting with Husain in the 1960s at The Statesman where he had joined as chief photographer Rai is quoted as saying A bearded man came in and said I am Husain and I am an artist I did not know about art and artists thenHusain had come to praise his work telling him We see your photographs every Sunday No one captures India like you doIt was only after Husain left that the significance of the encounter became clearMy editor stopped me and said That was Husain baba you dont know him He is the greatest artist I said No Rai recalledThe next time they met Husain gifted him a paintingHe brought me Birth of Ganesha the original Rai saidA later assignment took him to Kolkata and Mother TeresaSent to photograph her by a magazine editor around 1970 Rai walked into the modest premises of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata where there was an old wooden table and a few rickety chairs nothing moreAs an instinctive imagemaker he quickly began scanning the space for a frame Through a halfcurtain he noticed a group of nuns reading the light and movement struck him as almost ethereal according to the bookDriven by the urge to capture the moment he dropped to the floor to find the right angle an action that startled even the ever calm Mother TeresaShe thundered What the hell on earth are you doing there Rai recalledEmerging from behind his camera he explained Mother those sisters through the curtains are looking like angelsThe tension dissolved instantlyShe understood and said All right he said That was Mother tough but if you made sense she was all yoursRai went on to produce four books on Mother TeresaThese encounters came as Rais work was beginning to draw attention soon moving far beyond India His photographs of Bangladeshi refugees during the early 1970s created quite a ripple bringing him into conversation with officials in the Indira Gandhi government the book recordsThey wanted me to take an exhibition only on refugees abroad I said no he said wary of propagandaInstead he proposed a balanced show 50 photographs of his creative work and 25 of refugees The proposal was accepted setting off an unexpected international tourWhat followed went far beyond expectationsHe found himself being feted by the press in Paris and Germany Famous German newspaper Die Welt carried glowing reviews and the response was repeated in Tokyo Washington Hong Kong and other capitalsWhen the exhibition went to New York he added our foreign secretary was there to meet me but surprisingly the American TV channels were more interested in me rather than the Indian ambassador to US or other senior bureaucratsTheir question when they arrived at the gallery always was Where is the photographer I was given great coverage reads the book published by Hawakal PublishersOn his return to India recognition came swiftly Summoned by then home secretary Govind Narayan he initially assumed it was a routine debriefingInstead he was told he would be honoured with the Padma ShriI blurted out Are you sure Thats how I received my Padma Shri he added An early honour that much like his first meetings with greatness arrived before he had quite recognised his ownThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever