Golden Exchanges With Rafique Sayed

Times changed.

- Shivantee Bhattacharya

“When I was a child, I was only interested in cricket. Pictures never attracted me, ads held no meaning. Photographers were a non-entity, and models were never more beautiful than my English teacher.”

Rafique Sayed came into professional photography more by chance than by choice. He chose fashion as his field of specialisation, which brought name, fame, arrogance and a narrow vision with it. Photography was turning people into beautiful babydoll images; expressionless but beautiful.

After ten to twelve years, when he realized an empty gap in his life and career, he then set out to shoot real people, nature, still life, even cars and hotels. “The more I put on my plate, the more hungry I became.” Inspired by the words of Kahlil Gibran, “How mean am I when life gives me gold and I give you silver, and yet I deem myself generous.”, Rafique wants to give gold for gold.

Q. How would you define beauty?

A. I abhor the whole ‘singular concept’ of beauty. In India, it is very disturbing, as there is just one concept of beauty. i.e one has to be fair, big forehead or one should look like Aishwarya Rai. This is one of the reasons that I want to quote an excerpt from Laila Majnu. Laila means night, darkness. She was dark. When the king invited Laila to his darbar and asked her what Majnu saw in her and why he loves her? The reply of Laila is my concept of beauty. She said that you never saw me from Majnu’s eyes. The whole definition of beauty changes from one person to another. Beauty is not something you see from naked eyes, but you feel it. The beauty is the aura of the person. There is nothing right or wrong in beauty. They say that even a conversation makes a person more beautiful than the appearance.