Churn The Elixir Within

August 19th is observed as World Photography Day and I have profound respect for all photographers and their keen observation for details and their extraordinary craft. It has been one of my passions since childhood until my late forties. A profession led by passion leads to epic success. Famous scientists, inventors, poets, scholars, eminent jurists, mathematicians, movie makers, photographers, wildlife adventurists, environmentalists and many more all have irresistible ‘passion’ within them in one subject or the other. Any person who is driven by passion achieves success of Himalayan heights and stands apart in society. They also become entrepreneurs with everlasting success. The passion that drove the Wright Brothers to invent a plane was also inherent in JRD Tata, which gave birth to the aviation industry in India. Ratanji Dadabhoy, JRD’s father, purchased a villa at a beach resort on the Channel coast of France, in a place called Hardelot. Their neighbour was Louis Blériot Jr, who had a personal plane that JRD was fascinated with as a child during their stay at the resort. The frequent takeoff and landing of Blériot’s plane was greatly exciting to the neighbours, especially JRD. Years later, his deep-rooted passion for aviation became a reality with Tata Airlines. In the same manner, there are many around us who have transformed their childhood passion with excellence. One such person is D Ravinder Reddy.

About a decade ago, I once visited the Canon showroom at Madhapur, Hyderabad, to purchase a camera for my son. As we were engrossed in looking at the different models, another customer, of a rather petite physique I must say, approached us and gave us valuable inputs about the features of the models that we had narrowed it down to. We were extremely happy with the suggestions and thanked him. He smiled and gave us his business card, which read ‘D Ravinder Reddy - Photo Journalist’. I preserved that card with a certain intuition that he could be extraordinary both in profession as well as in person. I could not forget his smile and, more importantly, his interest in advising us about photography, so I contacted him a year later and subsequently became close to him. It was after a few interactions that I came to know the gigantic personality behind Ravinder Reddy.

Ravinder’s father was an engineer in the Irrigation department and the family hails from Peddapalli village where he did his school education until 3rd standard. He was a very happy child but also mischievous. Ravinder’s first introduction toa camera was during his childhood where a photographer was hired for the school group photo. Ravinder’s infatuation with photography began then. Ravinder's father presented him an Agfa Click III camera in 1978 when he was in 10th standard, and his first photoshoot was with his aunt. But it was the most disappointing day in his life because all the 12 photographs in the roll were blank — he came to know later that it was due to defective rolling. The failure sharpened his focus on the camera technology and he was in total jubilation during his next shoot for all the photographs were a huge success.

Ravinder was not trained by any professional photographer. He learnt photography on his own but somehow, his passion was not understood by his parents who wanted him to be a doctor or engineer. During his stint at Vikram University in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, in 1985, where he pursued an MA in English, it was his Professor Sri LS Sarma who identified Ravinder’s romance with the camera and wrote a letter to Ravinder's father, on 28th May 1986:

"Dear Mr Koti Reddy,

I have closely watched the conduct, aptitude and progress of your son Ravindra Reddy in my Dept for a full two years. To me, he appeared to be a very very nice boy, full of energy, initiative and respect for the elders. But he is not well up in English literature; he is an excellent photographer, an imaginative artist with the camera and quite a genius in the field of photography. Photography has limitless scope for money making and Ravi has a spark in him for this field, a real aptitude for this field.

I therefore request you to allow him to enter the field of photography. It is for the real guardian and teacher to find out his aptitude of the boy and improve him to excel in that field.

I have all the hope that as a loving father you will encourage and inspire Ravi to take up a photographic career which is his real field. In English Lit, he cannot do any thing worthwhile.

I hope you will not take this letter as an interference in your area and will not misunderstand me. I am as much interested in Ravi's welfare as you are.

With regards,

Yours sincerely,

LS Sharma

That letter from Ravinder’s professor in 1986 changed the course of his life, he followed his passion without any hindrance. His parents too were happy with the forecast of Ravinder’s professor, which turned out to be true. Every photographer requires not just patience and true grit, but they should also be prepared to take any risk while entering into a field of chaos. Ravinder did a photoshoot with megastar Chiranjeevi of the Telugu film industry for an article in The Week in September 1992 titled ‘Bigger than Bachchan’, where both the article and photograph became iconic. Ravinder's association with film stars is a huge list even today. He had done photoshoots with the legendary NTR for his iconic statue after he became the Chief Minister, and has photographed other iconic politicians such as Janardhana Reddy, YS Rajasekhara Reddy and KCR. The photoshoot with late Prime Minister Sri Vajpai at the Lakeview Guest House and at his Delhi residence are also memorable, he says, as was Advani's Rath Yatra. Ravinder was assigned as the official photographer to accompany Sri Chandrababu Naidu, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, for his US tour to promote business in AP, where Naidu presented Hyderabad as an IT hub. Ravinder also did photoshoots with sport stars such as Sania Mirza, PV Sindhu and so on. His close acquaintance with celebrity politicians of all parties is an 'ace up his sleeve'. Legendary photographer Sri Raghu Rai was a great inspiration to Ravinder.

Ravinder's first collaboration with The Week magazine in 1991 was when he revealed to the world the fury and agony of the communal riots in Hyderabad Old City and, thereafter, Ravinder had an opportunity to meet legendary Naxalite Chief Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, along with Stanley Theodore, a staff journalist. One day, on a late night when he reached home, there was a small slip of paper from Stanley to contact him urgently. Ravinder, Stanley and the Senior Sub-editor met Seetharamaiah at Gudivada after three days of round trips. Ravinder was thrilled to meet the great leader, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah. The article about Seetharamaiah was published in all magazines, including Andhra Jyothi and The Week. Stanley always paired with Ravinder for photoshoots for his articles.

On December 6th, 1992, Ravinder Reddy made history with his camera. Despite Section 144 and battalions of CRPF, Ravinder travelled to Ayodhya by train to be among the fiery atmosphere that prevailed in the de-facto war zone. Other freelance photographers such as the legendary Raghu Rai had also arrived at Ayodhya to capture the chaos when the Karsevaks advanced towards the controversial Babri Masjid. Four lakh Karsevaks arrived early December 5th from different parts of the country and were prepared for the riots, if there was any resistance. Ravinder Reddy, who arrived earlier, photographed several meetings held by BJP leaders on the streets of Ayodhya and he mingled with the Karsevaks itself. At 6 am on that fateful day, emotions were running high throughout the country and people were tense. Ravinder took his bath at the Sarayu river and started his day, his camera hidden in a cloth bag slung over his shoulder. There was an atmosphere of life and death inside the iron barricades. National and international scribes who arrived at Ayodhya with their cameras were frisked and beaten by saffron armies and chased from the war ground.

At this stage, Ravinder entered solely and captured the incident from many angles and at one point, he even received blows from the Karsevaks but somehow, he managed to leave the field with the best footage and thereafter, ran to the Faizabad Railway Station. He didn’t even notice the blood. He reached Faizabad and then Lucknow and finally, arrived at Delhi. On reaching Delhi, he realised that he was the only photographer who had the best pictures. Sarath Saxena of India Today was thrilled to see the photographs. Ravinder gave his photographs to India Today and The Week magazine and, at the PTI building, he met Mr Deepak Puri of Times Magazine who introduced him to the Times’ South Asia Chief Editor, Jeff Penberthy who was blown by Ravinder's photographs of the December 6th chaos at Ayodhya. He said, "Ravi, you have saved my head." Ravi was paid US$500 and ₹5,000 from India Today. Ravinder became a celebrity photographer overnight.

Sri Ravinder always had a vision that was deeper than the eye of the camera itself. He brings out the sadness, the fury and the beauty in the subject. The sadness of the Latur Earthquake in 1993 was praised by many and Ravinder was acclaimed as the best photographer. The fury and destruction of Ayodhya on 06.12.1992 has been communicated by Ravinder through his photos. The beauty of fabric viewed at Andhra Pradesh has been journalised as an excellent portrait of the fabric for which he won the President's Award in 2012.

Every human has a drop of elixir in the form of ‘passion’ inside them and to follow such passion, whatever be the difficulties, is nothing other than churning the elixir within to achieve epic heights. I see many disoriented and lost in their narration to pursue their passion. I too had the passion in photography and had many opportunities in the said wonderful art, but did not pursue it with the perseverance that Ravinder did. As I realised very late that my weakness was not in having the ability but the true grit, it was then that I had identified that I had the legal acumen which should not be left unattended. And I achieved the result with the simple mantra of churning that one drop of elixir, but if said passion could be identified at an early age, the success is humungous. Ravinder Reddy received the National Tourism Award on 29.02.2012 for ‘Excellence in Photo Journalism’ for the book ‘Threads of Hope’ from the then President of India, Her Excellency Smt Pratibha Patil.

My photograph taken by him, very casually one day, became the theme photo for ‘Prem’s World’.