Remembering the first photojournalist of India, Homai Vyarawalla

At a time when India was new to the idea of working women, Homai Vyarawalla with a camera in her hand changed the scene.

India’s first woman photo-journalist, Homai Vyarawalla was born on December 9, 1913, to a Parsi family in Gujarat's Navsari, and learned to operate a camera and the art of photography from her husband, Manekshaw Jamshetji Vyarawalla.

She started her career in the 1930s, and rose to fame for her work between 1938 and 1970, which included some of India’s most iconic images.

I met her at her residence at Vadodara sometime in December 2011, the wrinkles on her face were prominent and her hearing faded.

She guided me towards a dimly lit corner and behind me were copies of her many iconic pictures.

I smiled looking at them, and she said softly, “I was in the right place at the right time.”

I started by asking her probably a very cliched question you can ask a photographer, “Out of the many iconic pictures you have taken, which one is your favorite?”

She moved her gaze to a blank wall, as though looking back at all of her past years and said, “There are many, you cannot grade photographs. Every picture has its own subject, significance, and individuality. But I often recall the one I took of the Dalai Lama when he first visited India in 1959. I was given the opportunity to go to Sikkim to take pictures from his arrival to departure.”

I was a little taken aback by the answer, considering it was a known fact that her favorite subject to photograph was Jawaharlal Nehru.

Her most well-known photographs include the picture of the first flag hoisting ceremony at the Red Fort on 16th August 1947, the cremation of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and the picture of Lord Mountbatten when he was leaving India. 

She also photographed other moments of great historical significance such as the visit of Queen Elizabeth with Duke to India and of the meeting where the leaders voted for the June 3 Plan leading to the Partition of India.

Her first photograph was a click of a picnic party of the Women’s Club in Bombay which was published in the Bombay Chronicles magazine in 1930, for which Homai received Re. 1 per photograph.

She was also awarded the second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan in 2011.

Search engine giant, Google, paid homage to India's first woman photojournalist, Homai Vyarawalla, on Saturday with a doodle on her 104th birth anniversary.

Shortly after her husband's death in 1970, Vyarawalla decided to give up photography lamenting over the "bad behaviour" of the new generation of photographers.

Vyarawalla passed away at the age of 98 on January 15 in 2012.