An extraordinary eye for the ordinary

In a career spanning over 60 years, T S Satyan (1923-2009) not only shot tender and evocative images but also captured key moments in India's history. A tribute.

Yehudi Menuhin being taught the Shirashasana byB K S Iyengar, New Delhi 1964.

Gomateshwara statue, Shravanabelagola, 1976

Chandni Chowk, Delhi, 1999

Jawaharlal Nehru, Parliament House, 1962.

T S Satyan sleeping amidst his exhibition photographs (Unknown, 1999)

A young girl leaning on a globe, 1973

A blind mother, 1972(MUST PIC)

Children smiling at Satyan's camera, Kerala 1980

An infant gets an 'oil bath', 1961

A rickshaw puller in Madras, 1948

Golden Temple, Amritsar 1976

A woman belonging to the Halakki Vokkal tribe, late 20th century

A poor blind woman lovingly touches her infant baby. A group of young school cheerful boys on the street wave jubilantly in Kerala. A yoga master helps one of the great violinists of the 20th century to realise his Shirshasana. Young boys resembling a flock of flying birds jump into the village pool. A newborn baby receives its oil bath from the expert hands of elderly women. An elderly Jain monk looks like a miniature toy as he reverently touches the mammoth toes of the majestic Bahubali…

A whole generation of viewers grew up with these and many other fascinating black-and-white images of a photojournalist who would have turned 100 this year.

In a career spanning over 60 years, T S Satyan (1923-2009) not only shot such tender and evocative images but also captured key moments of the country’s history. Often called the father of Indian photojournalism, the proud ‘Mysorean’ covered, among many others, Acharya Vinoba Bhave’s padayatra in Telangana in 1951; the merger of Pondicherry and adjoining French territories with the Union of India in 1954; the satyagraha against Portuguese rule in Goa during the 1950s; and Pope Paul VI’s visit to India in 1964. When Bangladesh President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in 1975, he was present to record the aftermath of the tragedy. His images came alive on the pages of Illustrated Weekly of India, Life, Time, Newsweek, Bunte Illustrierte, Christian Science Monitor, and many others.

Satyan’s assignments with international organisations such as UNICEF, WHO, ILO and UNIDO not only ferried him to all corners of the country but also enlarged his professional horizon. As early as 1979, a month-long exhibition of his photographs was held at the public lobby of the United Nations building to commemorate the International Year of the Child. His association with Time and Life helped him capture many major events of international significance not only in India but also in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Iran, and Nepal.

With professional ease and cheerful bearing, Satyan attracted the rich and powerful, high and mighty to his camera. Among the notable figures he photographed were the Dalai Lama, award-winning film director Satyajit Ray, Nobel laureate C V Raman, renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin, yoga guru B K S Iyengar, Hindustani singer Gangubai Hangal, Rajmata Gayatri Devi, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, to name a few. But Satyan was at his best while picturing common men and women at work, at rest and in action. “I am a photographer of people… Call it intimate intrusions, but it is these simple, ordinary people who dominate my oeuvre.”

From Mysore to Delhi

The eldest of 19 children, Satyan was still in his early teens when he first ran his fingers "ever so softly on the box (Kodak Box Brownie camera)." In 1948, he joined the newly started Deccan Herald as its staff photographer. Two years later, when he became a feature writer for the Illustrated Weekly of India, he was pleased to join his ‘Mysore’ friends, R K Laxman (Times of India), and H Y Sharada Prasad (Indian Express) in Bombay (now Mumbai).

The Weekly turned out to be a perfect spot to land. It was the most popular picture magazine helmed by editors who encouraged photographers. “But for the Weekly, I would perhaps not become a photojournalist at all,” Satyan would fondly reflect. “It helped me take to photojournalism seriously. In fact, for many years, I lived on the cheques that the magazine sent me.”

After spending a couple of years in Bombay, Satyan was back in his hometown Mysuru (then Mysore) choosing to be a freelancer. The same year his picture appeared in a foreign publication for the first time. In 1957, he moved to Delhi, which promised exciting opportunities and assignments involving extensive travel around the subcontinent. He remained in the capital for the next 32 years before retiring to Mysuru in 1989. He could have settled in Delhi, but the craving to return to "my roots in serene Mysore where I was born and educated" could not be resisted.

Curiosity and critical sense

In his long career, Satyan forged many fruitful relationships with eminent writers and artists in Mysuru, Delhi and beyond. He mentioned, for instance, how he relished meetings with film director Satyajit Ray in Delhi. “His humanism attracted me. His friendliness was great. Whenever he had some leisurely hours on his Delhi visits, he used to shoot some black and white pictures of whatever interested him. He would come to my home to borrow my camera for the day.”

Satyan, who knew R K Narayan (1906-2001) from the early 1940s in Mysuru, kept in touch with the writer till his very end. It was the well-known novelist (originally Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Narayanaswamy Iyer) who, in fact, prompted Tambarahalli Subramanya Iyer Satyanarayana Iyer to get his name shortened.

“One of my greatest joys in life,” Satyan would reminisce, “was to stroll down the streets of Mysore in his (Narayan’s) exhilarating company, listening to his witty comments and observations of the people he met and the goings-on he saw.” He was struck by the way the writer observed people and attentively listened to all strata of society — hawkers, lawyers, clerks, printers, shopkeepers, students, and professors.

Satyan not only admired Narayan’s love for common people but also imbibed his curiosity and critical sense all his life. “At 81, Satyan retains the same robust curiosity about the world that he did when he was eight,” historian Ramachandra Guha had observed. Satyan’s friends too marvelled at the photojournalist’s energy and enthusiasm that even in his 80s, he was ever ready to travel long distances to speak to young students, deliver anecdote-filled lectures, hold workshops, and take part in debates.

A man of letters

If Narayan attracted widespread attention as a novelist, Satyan's delightful way with words had many admirers too. “He was as good with his typewriter as he was with his camera… If he had not taken to photojournalism but had stuck to the printed word, who knows, he may well have rivalled R K Narayan in transforming facts into fiction,” wrote journalist and editor M V Kamath.

Pramod Pushkarna, a renowned photographer himself, envied Satyan’s ability to tell the story behind each photograph he took. “Satyan belongs to the rare breed of photojournalists who tell the story well verbally as well as visually.” Besides numerous articles on varied topics, Satyan also published several books.

Slice-of-life photography

Satyan considered his pictures to be gentle, personal slices of human life. “They are a witness to interesting moments in time and in the lives of people I have met with. Photography has enabled me to save them from vanishing into thin air and to give them a life of their own.”

His preference for black-and-white photography was deliberate. Not only was it more graphic, long-lasting, and less distracting, it indeed "highlighted the essence." Modest to the core, the award-winning photographer credited his long life for his success. “When you spend 80 summers on one planet with a camera in hand, things happen, events occur, and you have a bunch of experiences and encounters because you were there at the right time at the right place.”

Identifying himself as "only a foot soldier of Indian photography", Satyan believed that photography made one feel that the whole world could be held in one’s hands. He preferred to be called a photojournalist rather than a photographer or photo artist. According to veteran journalist G V Krishnan, Satyan practised photojournalism at a time when the term photojournalist was not even invented.

Advice to budding photographers

Like many of his generation, Satyan too was inspired by the French master Henri Cartier-Bresson whose idea of ‘the decisive moment’ became every photographer’s dictum. He was also highly enthralled by the ‘Family of Man’ exhibit conceived by Edward Steichen of the Museum of Modern Art, New York in the early 1950s. The exhibition passed through several Indian cities and Satyan who saw it in Madras (now Chennai) was amazed by its eloquent photographs and fine display.

Throughout his life, Satyan believed that there is beauty in everyday life for someone who could see with an acute eye. He implored photographers to spot the extraordinary in the ordinary; to find and record the meaning of life in common gestures and situations of even ordinary people. He urged budding photographers not to look at things casually; not to be easily satisfied; and not to lay too much emphasis on equipment. Most importantly, he told them to be honest witnesses to history that unfolded before them every moment. “I would appeal to all photographers to be human. A super combination of integrity, humanism, modesty and a sense of service should be the foundation on which a photographer must build his life.”

By all accounts, Satyan practised what he preached. His work consciously involved a high degree of concentrated observation, thought and concern for the subject, and a sensitive mind-eye combination. His long-time friend and cultural ambassador Chiranjiv Singh reveals that ease and effortlessness marked Satyan’s working process. “He is at ease and his subjects are at ease... If Homai Vyarawalla captured the drama of Independence, Satyan captured the drama of everyday life.”

'With great ease'

Satyan’s family estate has donated his vast archive of photographs, negatives, and writings to the Bengaluru-based Museum of Art & Photography (MAP). The archive comprises over 1,500 prints, including photographs and contact sheets; 1,200 negatives and transparencies, as well as over 40 CDs and DVDs. It also includes postcards, awards and certificates received by Satyan, including his Certificate of Doctor of Literature, not to forget his first camera, which his English professor helped him buy.

To celebrate Satyan’s birth centenary this year, MAP is organising a three-month-long exhibition of his works titled ‘With Great Ease: The Photography of T S Satyan’. The exhibition is open to the public from August 12. For details, visit https://map-india.org/

The author is a Bengaluru-based senior art writer and curator of several art exhibitions. He has been on the jury of the Toto-Tasveer Awards for Photography and was invited to the International Curators’ Residency in South Korea in 2017.