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Alive and Clicking: A
Memoir
I know celebrated photojournalist T.S Satyan as a fellow-photographer who has been an elder brother not only to T.S. Nagarajan but also to many of us who have wielded the camera and captured Delhi’s news world over the last three decades. The journalist’s and the photojournalist’s real fan club is not the readers who may praise photographs or remember the memorable among them but those who listen with rapt attention to the story behind every picture. These fans avidly listen to the narration of the atmosphere in which a celebrity or a hapless person was caught by the camera and what the interaction between the person behind the camera and in front of it was like. Also of interest to them is how the reporter or photographer managed to get an assignment, set up the appointment, got to the venue and covered the event. How he almost missed it, but more often, how Lady Luck wrapped him in a tight embrace, and helped along in scooping it. Such anecdotes fascinate those who are lucky to hear them straight from the horse’s mouth. I envy Satyan not because he has achieved a lot as a photojournalist, which he has. I envy him because in his memoir, Alive and Clicking he has done what all of us would love to do, but perhaps cannot. Tell the story behind each photograph, and in what style! After reading these stories, few can deny that the story behind the pictures are more interesting than the stories told by them. Whether it was Nehru’s photograph for Deccan Herald in the era when it took almost forever to process a film and get it into the front page: Satyan unabashedly lets you into how he faked it, and scooped it in the bargain! The readers get to know how Satyan shot the pictures of a lissome Leelavathi bathing in the Kaveri at Srirangapattana.
Her brother thought she looked like a film star and wanted Satyan to click more but they never saw the pictures which were published in many foreign newspapers. Nobel Laureate Sir C.V. Raman got annoyed when an assistant accidentally dropped Satyan’s brand new Speed Graphic camera, not because it was affecting the shoot session but because a ‘beautiful instrument of science’ had been damaged. Satyan shares his excitement over the way they waited for the Dalai Lama to surface after he fled from Lhasa and bares the way the foreign correspondents kept feeding their publications stories, often imaginary ones. Satyan belongs to the rare breed of photojournalists who tell the story well verbally as well as visually. Mysore-born son of a doctor, Satyan is the eldest of 19 children. The printed word fascinated him, and the urge to see his byline in print steered him on course when he was a teenager. When he saw his friend Kailasam’s box camera, Satyan was turned on. He chased his dream. From sending entries to the photo competitions held by the now defunct Illustrated Weekly of India, to traversing through all the major publications across the world, Satyan’s affair with the camera continued to grow with the level of passion rising as he grew older. He saw more of the world and captured it for posterity. His eyes have made people see what he saw, the way he wanted his subjects and events to be seen : From fastidious maharajas and beautiful maharanis, to powerful prime ministers and scientists, Satyan has had the opportunity to meet and freeze them in film for ever. How he did it is what the Padma Shri recipient of 1977 tells the world. Because Satyan was fortunate enough to witness some important events from very close quarters, he thinks, and rightly so, that the experiences have to be shared. |
