Bal Thackeray, by ace photographer Raghu Rai

I looked at the rooms and decided to put the elements of the tiger and Shivaji together as these things where what he represented, says Raghu Rai.

I clicked this photograph for The New Yorker for a story on Hindutva in the late 1990s. The Thackerays asked me to come for the photo shoot at around 10:30 in the morning. Udhav received me and Bal Thackeray took me around, asking me where I wanted to take the picture. He was interested because he had also been taking pictures for a long time.

HT Image

I looked at the rooms and decided to put the elements of the tiger and Shivaji together as these things where what he represented.

We started at around 11:15. I was expecting it to be a 15 minute shoot but at 12 noon Thackeray looked at the clock and said, “Ab to mera cigar aur wine ka time ho gaya hai”. (It is now time for me to have my cigar and wine.)

He asked if I would mind if he went ahead. As a photographer there was nothing more I would have wanted as no one had photographed him like that before. He lit a cigar and brought a glass of wine and was very comfortable with getting clicked. No other politician would have agreed to get clicked like that.

As told to Mallica Joshi