'President is waiting for me': UAE royal photographer Ramesh Shukla’s son fulfils final wish

For Neel Shukla, the tears came only after the UAE President walked away from him.

For ten minutes, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan chatted with him and his mother, as they presented him with a piece of history preserved for 55 years — a negative of the late founding father of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed.

The negative had been signed by Neel’s father, the man unofficially known as the UAE's royal photographer, Ramesh Shukla. It was the last thing Ramesh signed before he died on February 15.

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The audience with the President was supposed to last only three minutes. The seven rulers had gathered at the palace in Abu Dhabi and protocols were tight. "But when he saw us, he came to us — and for ten minutes we spoke to him,” said Neel. “When I gave him the negative, I told him, 'This is the last thing my father signed. He wanted me to give it to you.' Sheikh Mohamed was touched."

Then, his mother produced negatives preserved for 55 years — images of the founding fathers, stored with painstaking care. "When (Sheikh Mohamed) saw that, he said, 'I can't believe you have preserved this for this long.' We had never shown it to anyone because these were priceless pieces of history. My father was dedicated to the cause of safeguarding the legacy of the UAE.”

"When he walked away, we both just broke down," Neel said, his voice still heavy with emotion. "We cried like babies. It was the biggest honour for my father, and I wish he could have lived to see it"

'The President is waiting for me'

Ramesh Shukla was no ordinary photographer. For decades, he was the quiet eye behind the lens, documenting the journey of the UAE. From the signing of the union to Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the country, his images were the visual diary of a nation's birth. His photograph of Sheikh Zayed signing the document that unified seven emirates into the UAE has been immortalised in the Dh50 note in the country.

The photographer was hospitalised in February. But even in his final moments, his heart was fixed on one thing — meeting the President. “We had known about the meeting for a couple of months, and he was preparing for it,” said Neel. “He would spend hours in the dark room, sifting through the negatives and saying, 'I want to show this photo to (Sheikh Mohamed).' Even in the last few hours in the hospital, he was saying, ‘The President is waiting for me. I have to get prepared for that. We're wasting time here.' It was embedded in his mind.”

Ramesh passed away that day but he left behind a diary, written in Gujarati, outlining exactly what he wanted to say and show to Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.

'You are one of us'

That sense of belonging shaped everything Ramesh did — including how he protected his life's work. According to Neel, one of the first things Sheikh Zayed told his father stuck in the heart of this family. “He told my father, 'you are one of us',” he said. “Those words are what made us as a family, to follow his vision and leadership. We are standing here because of those words.”

Unlike other photographers who sold their archives, Ramesh Shukla kept every negative. "My father did not die with millions in his bank account," Neel said. "But what he left, in hundreds of years, he will be remembered for giving this nation its most incredible history. That collection will one day belong in a museum. This is what my father would have wanted.”

That meeting on February 27 was the “ultimate reward” for the family. "It was the moment life came a full circle — from the moment my father met Sheikh Zayed, to the moment I delivered this message to his son," he said. "I'm so sad my father couldn't live for one more week. But I'm also so grateful for the legacy he left."