The Stories Behind Ten Viral Photographs of India’s Uniformed Heroes
The Moments, People and Ideas Behind Some of My Most Widely Seen Images
Art can simply be art. But what allows it to outlive its time is the statement it makes, the impact it creates, the soul it carries. A piece of poetry can win wars. A song can fuel a soldier’s motivation. A painting of a warrior hanging on a wall can inspire armies.
And a photograph can tell many stories within a single frame.
For me, that is when a photograph begins to become art—not because the frame is abstract or unusual, but because of the layers it carries within it, and what those layers reveal to the person looking at it.
My work has always been about inspiration. Perhaps because that is what I have sought all my life.
Inspiration.
When I discovered photography—or rather, when I discovered the power of a photograph—I decided I wanted to use that power not only for commercial gains, but for a larger purpose: to create awareness and to inspire.
At the time, an entire generation knew relatively little about India’s internal security, about many of our national heroes, or about the vast security ecosystem that existed beyond what was visible at our borders.
I wanted to photograph that world.
Not merely to show what these men and women looked like, but to create photographs that could make people curious about who they were, what they did, what they were capable of, and what motivated them to do it.
What began as photography gradually became something else.
I entered places I might otherwise never have entered. I met people whose motivations I could never have understood from a distance. I watched institutions change, cities transform, women step into new roles, new capabilities emerge and a country become increasingly conscious of how it presented itself to its own people and to the world.
And somewhere through all of this, while trying to photograph India, I rediscovered India—and my own self.
It is a journey I now wish to share.
Through my words. Through my photographs.
And through the stories behind them.
1. When Dawn Broke Over the Black Cats
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NSG commandos at Taj Hotel Mumbai. Photograph © Pravin Talan
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This one began with the memory of 26/11.
The Taj Mahal Palace had become one of the defining images of those terrible days in Mumbai. The NSG Black Cats had become faces of the response. When I began creating the first NSG calendar, I wanted a photograph that brought the two together—not as a recreation of what had happened, but as a tribute to the men who had fought, and to those who never returned.
In my head, the image had played out umpteen times.
The Black Cat Commandos above the Taj. The dome below them. Mumbai stretching into the distance. The hotel lights still glowing.
And night slowly becoming day.
The first morning didn’t work. Nowhere close to what I had been imagining in my head.
By the time the NSG team reached the top of the hotel with the staff and my team with photography equipment -we were too late. The light had changed, the hotel lights had gone off and the depth I had imagined wasn’t there.
So I returned.
We decided to go back the next morning. The second attempt was closer, but the perspective still wasn’t right. I somehow wasn't just getting the feel of a timeless picture.
I returned again.
I told the Group Commander we needed one more morning to get it right. The hotel management got a little frustrated, and understandably so. They had to make all the preparations, unlock the terrace and make arrangements for the NSG team at odd hours in the morning.
But they owed it to the NSG—and we owed it to the NSG.
On the third morning, we were there at around 4.35am. I needed more height to look sufficiently down over the dome, and with help at the hotel we found a way of getting the camera higher.
Then I waited.
There is a very small period before sunrise when the night hasn’t quite left and the morning hasn’t quite arrived. The lights of the city still belong to the night, but somewhere in the sky you can already see that darkness is losing.
That was the moment I wanted.
The Black Cat commandos stood above the Taj as Mumbai began to appear behind them.
I clicked. And captured a moment that would travel far beyond the calendar for which it was created. Over the years, the photograph has continued to resurface around 26/11 and on national occasions.
Perhaps because people see different things in it.
I see the men who braved it all.
I see the hotel that was at the centre of the storm.
I see a city that had been wounded—not only by the loss of lives, but by a loss of pride and a sense of security.
But most of all, I still see what I was waiting for that morning.
The darkness was giving way to light.
And this time, we were not going to be caught off guard. No matter what.
2. The Jaws a Terrorist Would Never Want to Face
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| NSG team with K9. Photograph © Pravin Talan |
When I first began photographing the Belgian Malinois with the NSG, I wanted to understand what made this canine such an important part of an assault team. I was fascinated by their likeness to the German Shepherd—a breed I had grown up with and shared a special bond with.
They told me Belgian Malinois weren’t quite the same.
So I researched. I watched whatever material I could find and spoke to the people who worked with them.
Different forces train their K9 units according to their needs. A border force may have very different requirements from a counter-terror force. With the NSG, I was particularly interested in the role these canines could play during an assault.
In those early days, I was advised to keep my distance. The handler knew his canine intimately; everyone else remained appropriately cautious. I remember standing some distance away with a 70–200mm lens in my hands when one of the Malinois suddenly fixed his eyes on me.
It was a cold stare.
I had been listening to how they were trained to respond during an assault, and for a few seconds I became very conscious of the long black object I was holding. I wondered what I looked like to him.
There was enough in that stare to send a chill through me.
Over the years, I photographed Belgian Malinois many more times—with the NSG, CRPF and other forces. I became accustomed to having them around, though I never stopped respecting the distance their handlers advised.
And I learnt never to stare too deeply into their eyes.
I had already photographed them plenty of times outdoors. I had photographed handlers and training.
But I wanted something different.
Now I wondered:
What would a terrorist hiding inside a room see?
Perhaps almost nothing. Darkness. A movement.
And suddenly, emerging from it, a Belgian Malinois—with the NSG hit team somewhere in the shadows behind. That became the picture in my head.
I kept most of the training area dark. I lit only enough of the space where I expected the canine to emerge. And I waited for the jaws. For one instant everything came together. The teeth. The aggression. The darkness around him.
When the photograph was published, the reaction was exactly what I had hoped for. People suddenly wanted to know more about these extraordinary canines and what they were capable of.
And people were afraid. That too was part of the intention. Those who threaten innocent lives and national security should know what our special forces and special units are capable of.
Because the warriors in a counter-terror team do not necessarily all walk on two legs.
3. The making of a Black Cat Commando
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| The making of a Black Cat Commando. Photograph © Pravin Talan |
I wanted to try the opposite.
Could I create the identity of a Black Cat commando without the mask?
I discussed the idea with senior NSG officials. They were reluctant, and rightly so. The identities of special forces commandos were not meant to be revealed. I assured them I would show the face, and yet the identity would remain hidden. That's one thing I had earned with the forces over the years- trust.
I photographed a commando with black camouflage paint across his face.
His eyes had a naturally reddish quality. Almost like burning coals. The eyes of a predator lurking in the dark. It reminded me of the first time I had encountered a tiger in its den during my years as a wildlife photographer. That eerie feeling had stayed with me for decades.
I kept the background dark and reduced the light until only what I needed remained—the suggestion of the face, parts of the weapon and, above everything else, those eyes.
Then I asked him to bring the aggression from within. Not to look angry. Not to perform for the camera. Just to find that state of mind.
I was thinking of a black cat in the wild. It doesn’t always have to bare its teeth. There is something in the stillness, in the eyes, which tells you enough.
As I reduced the light, the man gradually disappeared into the black.
The eyes didn’t.
The photograph eventually became the cover of The Making of a Black Cat Commando.
And perhaps the reason it worked was simple.
We weren’t trying to photograph aggression. We were photographing control.
4. Mumbai Was Changing. So Was Its Police.
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Mumbai Police QRT commando photographed at Bandra Worli Sea Link . Photograph © Pravin Talan |
It took me three evenings to create this photograph. And two sleepless nights. A dozen possibilities playing out in my head.
On the first evening, I arrived late at the Bandra -Worli Sea Link. We were on schedule but late for the light we wanted to capture. There wasn’t enough light and the only person available was a policeman in khaki.
I photographed him against the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. I just wanted a routine patrolling shot.
It was too simple. And boring. I realised that later.
Technically, there wasn’t much wrong with the photograph. I sent it to a senior IPS officer and friend whose visual judgement I valued. He looked at it and asked me whether the policeman was patrolling Mumbai or taking a nap. His body language just wasn’t right for the photograph.
It pinched.
I went back the next evening.
This time I carried lights and photographed two policemen against a beautifully visible Sea Link. I added a little more drama and action.
I sent that photograph to him too.
“Much better,” he said. “But it still doesn’t look like your photograph.”
I was annoyed.
I told him I was a photographer, not a magician.
Then he asked another question.
If I was trying to show a changing Mumbai, why wasn’t I photographing a commando?
Initially, I wasn’t convinced. A QRT commando wasn’t routinely standing at that particular spot.
But the thought stayed with me. And then I understood it. The Sea Link represented a Mumbai that was changing. The QRT represented a Mumbai Police that was changing too.
That was the photograph.
I returned for the third evening, this time after requesting a QRT commando through the Commissioner’s office. By now, understandably, the local policemen were wondering whether this photographer knew what he was doing. Every visit meant arranging personnel and assistance again.
I didn’t care.
I could now clearly see the picture I wanted in my head.
But there was still one problem.
If I photographed too early, the Sea Link wouldn’t have its dramatic lights and reflections. If I waited until it was fully illuminated, the sky would disappear into black.
I wanted both.
Through the police, a request was made for the Sea Link lights to be switched on a few minutes earlier that evening. That’s what I love about Mumbai. Everybody cooperates. Almost everybody !
There was still a hint of light in the sky. The bridge was glowing beautifully, its geometry sharp against the remaining light, its lights gently reflecting in the water.
And the QRT commando was in position.
Then my battery-powered light died.
I had to improvise. It is second nature to every photographer working in the field.
Four policemen standing nearby took out their mobile phones and pointed their lights at the commando.
After three evenings, that was all the light I had.
And it was enough.
I got my shot.
The four mobile phones make a good story today.
But they aren’t why the photograph matters to me.
The first evening I had photographed a policeman with the Sea Link.
On the third evening, I had finally photographed an idea.
A city was changing.
And so were the men preparing to protect it.
The photograph, released in the 2016 Mumbai Police Calendar, went on to become one of my most widely recognised images of modern policing in Mumbai.
5. Virat Kohli Was Five Minutes from a Double Century. I Was Photographing the Cops Securing the Stadium.
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| Mumbai Police at Wankhede Stadium. Photograph © Pravin Talan |
India was playing England at Wankhede Stadium. Virat Kohli was approaching a double century and almost every eye in the stadium was fixed on the cricket. My assistants hated the fact that we were shooting photographs instead of watching the match.
I wasn’t particularly interested in the match, though I admired Virat Kohli and had only recently photographed an advertising campaign with him.
From high in the stands, I noticed a police sub-inspector against this enormous sweep of spectators. And suddenly I knew what I wanted. Thousands of people had come to watch some of the greatest cricketers in the world.
I was interested in the man watching over them.
My assistant was naturally excited about the match. Why not go closer to Virat? With the police around us, perhaps we could even create a photograph involving him. I said no. The moment Virat Kohli entered my frame, it would become a photograph of Virat Kohli.
Our cop had to remain the hero.
My 24–70mm lens wasn’t giving me enough of the stadium. I wanted its scale—the curve, the crowd, the feeling of one policeman standing above this enormous world. So I stopped and sent for a wider lens. Then I worked on his position. He couldn’t overpower the frame. But he couldn’t disappear into it either.
I wanted him to look like one man watching over thousands.
The timing gave the photograph another dimension.
Had I waited another few minutes, thousands of hands would have gone up as Kohli reached his double century.
It could have been a wonderful cricket photograph.
But that wasn’t the story I had gone there to tell.
Everyone was watching the man playing the game.
I was watching the man protecting everyone who had come to watch him.
Over the years, the photograph found an audience of its own.
6. Precision Through a Perilous Descent
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| An NSG commando slithers down for room intervention. Photograph © Pravin Talan |
Being upside down while descending from a building is difficult enough.
Doing it while maintaining perfect control of your weapon is something else.
And that too when thick smoke surrounds you and tiny sparks are flying around.
I wanted to capture the grit of an NSG commando and the precision required for this particular skill.
The first attempt didn’t work. We had placed smoke below, hoping the commando would descend through it. But by the time he reached the position I wanted, the smoke had swallowed everything.
There was another problem.
The commando needed the wall for control. But from where I was positioned below, too much proximity to the building killed the depth I wanted in the photograph.
I needed the building. I needed the sky. I needed the inverted body. And above all, I needed his weapon pointing precisely where it should.
So we changed the plan.
The commando came into position first. The smoke was introduced from above.
It worked, although the smoke devices brought another problem. Towards the end they could throw sparks. Some caught the edges of his uniform. Standing below, I felt a few on my own face and hands.
But finally everything I had been trying to bring together was there.
His body was inverted. Smoke moved around him. The building rose behind. He pushed his body swiftly away from the wall and, in one clean moment, the gun was pointing at my camera.
Precise aim.
That was the photograph.
What interested me was not simply how perilous the descent looked. It was part of their training, and I never push personnel into doing something they are not trained to do.
What interested me was something else.
The peril did not disturb the precision.
7. When Training Overcomes Instinct
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| NSG commando over fire obstacle. Photograph © Pravin Talan |
I was photographing an NSG fire obstacle as the commandos crossed it one after another.
Initially, I shot from the front. The photographs were fine. But something was missing. Something is always missing.
Then I stopped looking at the obstacle and started looking at the men. One commando was consistently clearing it higher than everybody else.
I went to him.
I learnt that he was one of the strongest performers in that exercise.
The commando felt that the flames could be higher. I wanted to be certain that whatever we did remained within what he was trained to handle. Once that was clear, we increased the fire.
Rupali suggested we move closer to the fire and go lower. The heat was almost impossible to bear but I moved much closer, switched to an ultra-wide lens and went for an extremely low-angle shot. Now I was close enough to feel every burst of heat. By the end, the hair on my forearm had been singed.
But when he came over the obstacle, I got the instant I had anticipated. His body came flying through, almost carrying the flames along.
I clicked. And yes, we didn't have those 30fps cameras, at least i didn't have. I was always one-click, one-shot person.
The photograph came from something wildlife photography had taught me years earlier.
Don’t wait for the action and then react.
Watch long enough to know what is about to happen.
Over the years, I have seen this photograph blown up on the walls of training centres, serving as inspiration for new recruits.
For me, that completes the circle.
The photograph itself became part of the purpose for which I had begun creating these images.
8. Beneath the Barbed Wire, Resolve Looked Back
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| NSG woman commando at the battle obstacle assault course. Photograph © Rupali Talan |
This photograph, created by Rupali Talan, became one of the most widely circulated images from our work with NSG in 2023.
Over the years, as we began working together, I watched Rupali develop her own relationship with the forces—and her own way of seeing the men and women she photographed. She always brought a new perspective to everything when we worked together on projects.
During an NSG obstacle course, a woman commando was approaching the end of a demanding stretch of training. She had already crawled over fifty feet beneath the barbed wires.
She was exhausted. Rupali went down close to the ground and watched.
She didn’t need to create exhaustion for the photograph. It was already there.
As the commando crawled towards the end, Rupali called out to her.
She instinctively lifted her head. For a fraction of a second, she looked straight towards the camera. Their eyes locked. Rupali clicked. That was enough. The mud, the barbed wire and the exhaustion tell one part of the story. Her eyes tell the rest.
The photograph went on to travel widely after it was published. It went on to appear on the covers of Times of India supplements, including Delhi Times and BombayTimes.
But what stays with me is the simplicity of the moment. Rupali didn’t ask her to show strength.
She simply caught the instant when strength looked back.
9. Khaki, Mehendi and an AK-47
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Khaki-Mehendi and Ak-47. Photograph © Pravin Talan |
I was stepping out of a police training centre in Bihar when I saw a recently inducted woman returning from training. There was nothing unusual about a woman in uniform carrying a weapon.
Then I noticed her hand. The mehendi was still clearly visible.
And that mehendi-covered hand was wrapped around the rifle.
I photographed it almost instinctively.
For me, the photograph was never about a contradiction.
Quite the opposite.
The mehendi belonged to her.
The khaki belonged to her.
The weapon belonged to the profession she had chosen.
Why should one cancel the other?
At the time, women were increasingly entering roles and responsibilities in India’s police and security forces that the public was not accustomed to seeing them perform.
Sometimes that change appeared in a large ceremony or announcement.
Sometimes it was simply there in front of you.
In a hand covered with mehendi, holding an AK-47.
The photograph went on to become one of my most viral images of the changing face of Indian women.
10. Into the Tunnel: The Policing We Never See
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| Railway police patrolling inside Karjat tunnel. Photograph © Pravin Talan |
When we think of railway policing, we usually think of platforms, stations and crowds.
But the railway doesn’t end at the platform.
The Railway Police Commissioner requested me if I could take some photographs to show what his men actually did—particularly the work commuters rarely noticed.
Till then I had not thought of them as interesting subjects. But I began researching.
Tracks.
Bridges. Anti-sabotage work. And
tunnels.
They
patrolled tracks, bridges and tunnels, looking for anything that could threaten
railway security—from suspicious activity and sabotage to obstructions or other
potential threats along the tracks.
It was a fascinating study. I started shooting them across Maharashtra. I had always been intrigued by tunnels. I hunted for a tunnel and eventually found a long operational railway tunnel near Karjat. The access to it was a couple of kilometres from the main road.
We walked.
And then we walked into the tunnel.
It was dark, dominating and carried a character I hadn’t encountered before.
The policemen carried powerful torches. I could have introduced more light, but I didn’t want to.
The darkness was part of the photograph. So was the scale.
I deliberately kept the policemen relatively small. I wanted the tunnel to dominate them—to curve away into darkness and make the viewer wonder what lay beyond what they could see.
There was, however, one fact we couldn’t forget.
This wasn’t an abandoned tunnel.
Superfast trains were running through it.
Someone remained outside in communication with us over walkie-talkie. Train movements were tracked. We worked within the available intervals and knew where the safe recesses were.
There was risk.
But risk and recklessness are two very different things.
That distinction became increasingly important to me during my years photographing the forces.
The men and women in front of my camera are trained national assets. I may push hard to create a photograph, but a photograph is never worth creating unnecessary danger for them, my team or myself.
Eventually, I got the frame I wanted.
Two small human figures surrounded by a tunnel that seemed almost endless.
Millions of us travel by train without thinking about the kilometres of track, bridges and tunnels that exist between one familiar station and another.
We see the platform.
There are people whose job begins where our view ends.
Ten Viral Photographs. And a Journey That Continues.
These are only ten photographs from an archive built over many years.
There are countless more.
Some were created after days of planning. Some appeared without warning. Some required me to return again and again. Some taught me more about photography.
Others taught me more about people.
They introduced me to the human being inside the uniform.
Over the years, I have photographed courage in many forms. But I have also seen humour, exhaustion, discipline, fear, pride, loneliness, ambition and an extraordinary sense of purpose.
Perhaps that is why, when I look back at these photographs today, I don’t only remember where I stood or which camera I used.
I remember conversations.
I remember people.
I remember things they said that changed the way I understood their lives.
And I remember a country changing around us. There are many more of those stories still inside these photographs. Perhaps it is time I began telling them.
— Pravin
Talan
15 August 2026
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