Switching off the Shutterbug!

The word lost opportunity doesn’t subsist in my dictionary because I hardly got  any in my life that I rued latter for missing out. While in school I was considered to be a moderate sportsperson and I was very active too during my early days. However, even I am proud of my orthodox background at the same time it was one of my biggest drawback. Whenever I intended to move to my desired direction I was dragged back to the square by my superior. Often those moments were very irritating but at the same time it gave me a great sense value that still I carrying forward. Today when I looked back I never regret for those opportunities I was denied but later I was thrust forward to create my own opportunities and I am proud of it. Women in India, that too from an era when being a women was a biggest shortcoming yet someone surged forward against all odds to be someone that needs to be mentioned. Today, my blog a tribute to Homai Vyarawalla, the first lady of the lens.

Homai Vyarawalla

Homai Vyarawalla, was India's first woman photojournalist. First active in the late 1930s, she retired in the early 1970s. In 2011, she was awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of the Republic of India. India’s first woman press photographer Homai Vyarawalla, captured the last days of the British Empire in India. Her work also traces the birth and growth of a new nation. The story of Homai’s life and her professional career spans an entire century of Indian history. This selection of rare photographs tells her life story amid footnotes of an emerging nation, as she saw it.

The story of Homai’s life and her professional career spans an entire century of Indian history. Belonging to the small Parsi community of India, Homai was born in 1913 into a middle-class home in Navsari, Gujarat. Her father was an actor in a traveling Urdu-Parsi theatre company. Homai grew up in Bombay. She was the only girl in her class to complete her matriculation examination. Vyarawalla, studied at the Bombay University and the Sir J. J. School of Art.

Homai moved across Delhi on a bicycle. Wearing a saree, with two huge sling bags across her shoulders that held her cameras and equipment, she also carried two boxes, one holding new flashbulbs and the other to keep the fused ones. "I would get strange looks from people on the street" she chuckles. "A lot of them thought I was a foreigner in spite of the fact that I wore a saree!"

Homai Vyarawalla took a number of memorable photographs during her career. Her favorite subject was Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India.

Most of her photographs were published under the pseudonym “Dalda 13″. The reasons behind her choice of this rather amusing name were that her birth year was 1913, she got married at the age of 13 and her first car’s number plate read “DLD 13″.

Homai Vyarawalla, who passed away January 15, 2012 at the age of  98. Thus, she surged forward to fulfill her passion in a male dominated turf and left a huge footprint behind.

!!!In the land of opportunity, Lost and Found are non-existing, all we have to do is create one for ourselves.!!!