Master storytellers of India: Media fraternity remembers Mark Tully, Raghu Rai

One, a product of the British Raj who became the BBC's voice of India; the other, a rustic boy from Punjab's Jhang (now in Pakistan) who captured modern India through his lens -- veteran journalist Mark Tully and photojournalist Raghu Rai were worlds apart, yet united in telling India's story. At a remembrance at the Press Club of India on Tuesday, loved ones and colleagues gathered to honour the two titans of journalism. Tully, a renowned journalist, author and Indophile, breathed his last on January 25 at the age of 90; Rai, one of India's best-known photographers, died on April 26 at 83. Fittingly, the room brimmed with stories of Tully's 'Indianness' and wry wit, Rai's instinctive genius and eye for detail, his knack for finding spaces within spaces, and a shared fondness for a good drink. As colleagues and friends recounted stories of the two, attempting to read the men behind the legends, journalist Saeed Naqvi -- who joined The Statesman around the same time as Rai began his career in 1966 as chief photographer -- remembered the lensman as nothing short of a ''genius''. Assignments with him, he said, were among the most enriching experiences of his life. ''Raghu would suddenly stop somewhere, and he had seen something, which I hadn't, and I couldn't, until that frame, that picture came out. And then, again and again, I learnt how, what Raghu was, keen, roving eye .. he was so penetrating, he knew exactly why you were fidgeting, he knew exactly why your pupils are dilating, he knew, he was so quick and so sharp.'' Beyond his craft, Naqvi admitted he also admired Rai's innate ability to connect with people from all walks of life. ''He had this knack of striking a rapport with Mother Teresa, like as politicians, buffoons, anyone. His range was enormous. The man could just get along,'' said Naqvi as Rai's wife Gurmeet, sitting among the audience with her children, was visibly moved -- at times holding back a tear, at others breaking into a smile -- as memories of her late husband filled the room. Over a career spread across six decades, Rai captured India's social, political and spiritual shades in his portraits of leading figures, including Indira Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Satyajit Ray, Hariprasad Chaurasia and Bismillah Khan, which offered a hitherto unknown perspective into their lives. Photographer and filmmaker Parthiv Shah recalled an incident during a rural workshop with children that, for him, defined Rai's legacy. In a village on the border of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat -- with barely any mobile network -- he found that when children were asked about their favourite painter, they would say M F Husain, and when asked about photography, the answer would be Raghu Rai. ''That says everything about the man,'' he added. Journalist Satish Jacob, who worked with Mark Tully at the BBC for nearly two decades and later co-authored a book with him, traced their bond back to a chance meeting on a flight to cover a cyclone in Andhra Pradesh in 1977 -- one that grew into a lifelong friendship. ''He was one of the best writers I've ever met -- frank, simple, and Indian at heart. 'Saala, tum bahut badmaash ho,' he'd often laugh, switching effortlessly into Hindi. He taught me a lot. Though he was my boss, he never acted like one; we always worked as colleagues,'' Jacob said, adding with a smile that Tully would often check if the day's story was done so they could turn to ''serious work'' - clinking glasses together. Journalist Qurban Ali, on the occasion, remembered his ''friend, philosopher, guide and guru'' Tully, and like Jacob, described him as an ''Indian at heart'', who began covering India in the 1960s and reported closely on the country from 1971 onwards for the BBC. Recounting his wide-ranging coverage, Ali pointed to defining moments in Tully's career -- from the 1971 India-Pakistan war and the creation of Bangladesh, which made him a ''household name'', to the Emergency in 1975, when he emerged as one of the few voices reporting India to the world under censorship. He also spoke in detail of Tully's fearless journalism during major turning points such as the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan and Operation Blue Star, when foreign correspondents were asked to leave Amritsar and Tully continued reporting from Delhi. Founding editor of The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan, who said his professional association with both Rai and Tully was largely ''perfunctory'', used the occasion to reflect on the larger crisis facing journalism today. Remembering Tully and Rai, he argued, should not just be about nostalgia, but about recovering that spirit of ground reporting and visual storytelling. ''I think that today, when we remember both of these remarkable personalities, we need to find ways to push the envelope again in the media. ''How do we create an environment with more space for ground reports, for hard-hitting photojournalism, and for hard-hitting reporting -- even if it irritates or annoys those in authority? I think that is the hallmark of these two journalists whom we are paying tribute to,'' he added. The memorial was also attended by Bangladesh High Commissioner to India M Riaz Hamidullah, Tully's partner and noted writer-translator Gilliam Wright and oral historian Sohail Hashmi.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)