Obituary: International photographer, long-time surgeon and community leader Munir Kadri remembered

Munir Kadri. Photo / File

With the death of Munir Kadri, Rotorua has lost one of its long-time surgeons and specialist urologist, Indian community leader and internationally recognised photographer.

His death draws the curtain on a life that spanned 91 years, during which, as a 12-year-old, he walked in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi crusading for India's independence from British rule.

Having met Munir when he welcomed him to his school aged 9, the great political and ideological leader invited the Gujarati–speaking boy to be his interpreter when, two years later, he visited villages where that language predominated.

Throughout his life Munir Kadri lived by Gandhi's philosophy of pacifism and non-violence.

A Muslim, he broke with religious tradition when he married his doctor wife Chandra, a Hindu. Neither converted to the other's faith, Kadri went on to describe himself as an "avowed agnostic".

Their daughter, Meena Kadri, describes her parents' 57 years together as filled with love, laughter and travel.

"In New Zealand they realised what a paradise they had found and would always return to it."

She recalls her father as a loving man who took her and her brother, Sunil, hunting and hiking from early childhood to instil in them a sense of adventure and aroha for the country he'd chosen to call home.

"I went through the atlas with my dad recently and we counted 50 countries he had visited across his 91 years. He always told me that vacations were not a holiday from working but rather homework for living," she said.

Kadri arrived in Rotorua in 1967 knowing nothing about the city and with scant knowledge of New Zealand other than he'd seen the All Blacks play in Edinburgh.

It was a chance meeting with former colleague Arthur Hackett, who he knew from the days both were working in the UK, that led to him settling here.

Photography was Kadri's passion and it was an award-winning picture he'd submitted to the Illustrated London News that brought him and his wife together. He was on holiday, she broke the news he'd won.

One of his photographs, entitled Mother and Child, was exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art as part of its Family of Man collection.

He received a commission from Outlook magazine to record in words and pictures, taken on a borrowed camera, the day India gained independence.

Rotorua Hospital marked his retirement with an exhibition of his work.

In a 2011 Our People profile, Kadri talked about his involvement in Indian politics including making hand grenades and printing provocative posters for the Quit India movement.

He recounted the day a British soldier found two grenades in his pocket.

"He pointed his rifle at me, I was petrified but looked him in the eyes, he didn't shoot me, he whacked me instead. I woke up in prison with a gashed forehead."

Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick, a close friend of the Kadri family, paid tribute to him, noting he was Rotorua Hospital's first Indian specialist and a man who worked with precision.

"The way he laid out his trolley of instruments was a work of art."

She said they had great political discourse with Kadri becoming the first Indian member of the Māori Party.

Kadri regularly undertook voluntary work in third world countries, he was a valued member of the local Indian association and the Rotary West Club.

He is survived by his wife, Dr Chandra Bala, designer daughter Meena, and son Sunil, a global marine biologist.

A public memorial service to celebrate his life is to be held at Osbornes Funeral Home on August 14 at 10am.