The Monk Who Sold His Pictures

Twenty-five years ago,Nicholas Vreeland,grandson of legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland,left New York for the quaint Rato Dratsang monastery in Mundgod,Karnataka,to become a Buddhist monk. When he returned home,his brother gifted him a Nikon camera. Vreeland discovered a passion for photography at 15,when he assisted noted photographer Irving Penn and spent a summer working with another cameraman,Richard Avedon. At Rato Dratsang,Vreeland rarely used the camera,except to photograph his surroundings. “I did not want to be the monk who went around taking photographs,” says Vreeland,55,as he chooses 20 pictures shot at Dratsang for an exhibition at Delhi’s India International Centre.

His pictures provide a glimpse into daily life in a monastery. In one image a student in a maroon robe is engrossed in conversation with his teacher; in another,a monk is holding rosary beads in Hubli. The collection arrives in Delhi after travelling to Paris,Geneva,Rome,Chicago and Milan; and the money raised from the sales will be used for the reconstruction of the Rato monastery. Established in 1983 by monks who managed to escape to India after the Chinese crackdown on Tibet in 1959,Rato’s residents have gone from 12 in 1985 to more than 100 now. The cost of reconstruction was estimated at $500,000 15 years back but there’s been a setback since the global economic slowdown of 2009. During a trip to Europe,Martine Franck,wife of Henri Cartier-Bresson,suggested that Vreeland exhibit his pictures to gather funds for the monastery,and introduced him to French photographer-curator Robert Delpir.

Vreeland recalls his foray into Buddhism and its weird link with photography. In the 1980s,when he was still a professional photographer,his camera was stolen in New York. He used the insurance money to sponsor a Buddhist philosophy course at New York’s Tibet Center. It was also photography that brought him to India in 1979,when he travelled to Haridwar,Rishikesh,Amritsar,Dehradun and Dharamsala with his wooden camera. This was the first time he photographed the Dalai Lama,and was then chosen as the Dalai Lama’s official photographer during his first trip to America. Soon after,Vreeland decided to become a monk. It wasn’t an easy decision. “At first it was scary. I told my teacher in New York,but he asked me to wait. In 1984,during an audience with the Dalai Lama I expressed my intention and the next year I was in India,” recalls Vreeland.

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Shuttling between Rato Dratsang and New York,where he is the director of the Tibet Center,Vreeland says he feels at home in both places. Next,he will travel to Mumbai with the exhibition. Berlin,London and Los Angeles follow.

The exhibition is on till January 18. Each photograph costs Rs 46,000 approximately ($1,000) and can also be purchased at http://www.ratodratsangfoundation.org