Today, in the brief and indifferent cadence of BBC news, I read of the death of Raghu Rai. And yet, what stirred in me was not sorrow, but a quiet, almost private smile—like recognizing a passerby in a dream one had forgotten.
It was before the time when the world would come to name its fragility as COVID-19. I had gone, without urgency, to the Kadavumbagam Synagogue in Ernakulam—that patient structure which has outlived the certainties of those who built it. Since the 13th century, it has received prayers that no longer belong to anyone, and lamentations that no longer need to be understood.
Elias, the caretaker—custodian not only of walls but of time itself—said simply, “We have visitors today.”
They entered without ceremony. A tall man, slightly bent into himself, his glasses resting uncertainly above his brow, as though vision itself were a negotiable act. His eyes did not look—they gathered. Beside him, a woman of equal height and composed presence, as if she existed not beside him but in parallel.
Recognition came to me not as a fact, but as a hesitation. I had seen his books, yes—but more than that, I had seen the way he saw. And so I approached him not as one meets a man, but as one acknowledges a way of looking at the world.
We shook hands. It was an ordinary gesture, and therefore complete.
Now he is gone, and yet the moment remains, suspended somewhere between the visible and the remembered—like a photograph that was never taken, and therefore never fades.
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