The Master Mind

Over four decades, Raghu Rai has photographed the Dalai Lama, an experience unlike any other in his vast body of work. We speak with the master lensman, who is soon releasing a book on this special relationship.

I MEET RAGHU RAI ON A COLD WINTER AFTERNOON, but the shivers he gets during our interview have nothing to do with the weather. The topic of discussion is the Dalai Lama, and the famed photographer is starstruck —“I am a man driven by spiritual energies.” This is easy to see in his work, too. Since he first began his career in 1965, Rai’s subjects have included Mother Teresa, Tibetans in exile in India, the Golden Temple, and, most recently, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, on whom he is soon self publishing a photo book, which features images of the yogi dancing, riding a motorcycle, playing golf and tennis.

But it is the Dalai Lama with whom Rai shares the longest relationship. Photographs from their journey of over 40 years, half of them previously unpublished, will comprise a new book His Holiness: The Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Roli Books). Rai first encountered the spiritual leader in 1975, when he was a photojournalist with The Statesman and spent three days in Leh during the kalachakra (a practice in Tibetan Buddhism). “I was amazed at his connection with his people, his compassion and his love, the way he looks into everybody’s eyes. That was magical,” he says.