Homai Vyarawalla, ‘First Lady of the Lens’ Homai Vyarawalla (9 December 1913 – 15 January 2012)
Credit H.V. Archive/Alkazi Collection of Photography
Homai Vyarawalla,
India’s first female photojournalist, who died on Sunday, chronicled
India’s independence with a spirit that was unmatched by the following
generations, in part because of changes in India itself.
“Her images of
Jawaharlal Nehru addressing a jubilant crowd in Delhi, and of the body
of Mohandas K. Gandhi being prepared for cremation, give a vivid sense
of the mood of a nation whose self-image was cast in a romantic epic
mold,” Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times in a 1997 review of a show in Queens, New York, that featured Ms. Vyarawalla’s work.
“Much has happened
since — sectarian violence, economic upheaval, the extended medical
emergency of AIDS — to eat away at that initial tragedy-shadowed
optimism,” Mr. Cotter wrote. “And the heightened, even exultant mood
that runs through Ms. Vyarawalla’s pictures is nowhere to be found in
the work of her younger colleagues.”
Associated PressHomai Vyarawala handles a camera, in this undated file photo.
Ms. Vyarawalla died on Sunday at age 98 in Vadodara. Her passing, and her iconoclastic life, were chronicled by news outlets
in India during the past two days, but there are few examples of her
photographs on the Internet. Later in life, Ms. Vyarawalla gave her
collection of photographs to the New Delhi-based Alkazi Foundation for
the Arts (“like a true Gandian,” the Hindustan Times observed).
An Alkazi Foundation spokeswoman shared these images with India Ink.
The daughter of
traveling theatre professionals, Ms. Vyarawalla married at a young age
to a Times of India photographer and accountant, said India Today, in a
story that dubbed her the “First Lady of the Lens.”
“The Vyarawallas got
their big break when World War II came to Asia. With Singapore being
overrun by the Japanese, the British shifted their Information Office to
New Delhi. The office was looking for photographers and Stanley Jepson
at the Weekly recommended the Vyarawallas, who shifted to New Delhi in
1942.
[Husband] Manekshaw
was “lent” to the British Information Services (BIS) for one year by The
Times of India, but Homai became a full-time employee at BIS and was
allowed to accept freelance assignments also.”
Ms. Vyarawalla traveled around Delhi by bicycle, wearing a sari and lugging her heavy equipment herself.
In 1970, she abruptly
packed up her cameras, disgusted by her peers in photojournalism. “My
colleagues had all been gentlemen but the new crop did not know how to
behave in high society,” Ms. Vyarawalla told India Today. “I did not want to be associated with such riffraff.”
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