Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the birthday of India’s first woman photojournalist Homai Vyarawalla.
Today is her 104th
birthday. She was born on December 9, 1913. She was commonly known by
her pseudonym – Dalda 13. She was awarded the Padma Vibhusan, the second
highest civilian award. She clicked some memorable photographs between
1938 and 1970. Her pictures like the first tricolour-hoisting after
Independence, the death of Mahatma Gandhi, the then Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru releasing a pigeon are some of the memorable pictures
that have made their way to national archives.
Homai Vyarawalla was born in a Parsi family in Navsari, Gujarat. She lived in many places because of her father’s traveling theatre company. After moving to Bombay, she studied at Bombay University and later at Sir JJ School of Art. She learned photography from Maneckshaw Vyarawalla whom she later married in 1941. They later shifted to Delhi. AT the outbreak of World War II she started working with The Illustrated Weekly of India magazine which published many of her black and white photographs. These photographs later became iconic because of the time and the turbulence that it depicted. She joined the British Information Services in 1942 after moving to Delhi and photographed many historical events and political leaders in the period leading up to Independence.
Some of the subjects for her photographs were Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Indira Gandhi and the Nehru-Gandhi family. The photographs that she shot were published under the pseudonym “Dalda 13”. The logic behind this name was that her birth year was 1913, she met her husband at the age of 13 and her first car’s number was DLD 13. Homai Vyarawalla quit photography a year after her husband’s death and moved to Vadodara in 1973. She had moved with her son Farouq to Pilani, Rajasthan where he taught at BITS Pilani. She moved back to Vadodara with her son in 1982. She lived alone in a Vadodara, Gujarat after her son passed away in 1989 due to cancer.
Homai Vyarawalla gave up her collection of photographs to the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, a Delhi based organization. The National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai (NGMA) presented a retrospective of her work in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in 2010. Homai Vyarawalla died on January 15, 2012, in Vadodara, Gujarat.
Source : Google
Homai Vyarawalla was born in a Parsi family in Navsari, Gujarat. She lived in many places because of her father’s traveling theatre company. After moving to Bombay, she studied at Bombay University and later at Sir JJ School of Art. She learned photography from Maneckshaw Vyarawalla whom she later married in 1941. They later shifted to Delhi. AT the outbreak of World War II she started working with The Illustrated Weekly of India magazine which published many of her black and white photographs. These photographs later became iconic because of the time and the turbulence that it depicted. She joined the British Information Services in 1942 after moving to Delhi and photographed many historical events and political leaders in the period leading up to Independence.
Some of the subjects for her photographs were Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Indira Gandhi and the Nehru-Gandhi family. The photographs that she shot were published under the pseudonym “Dalda 13”. The logic behind this name was that her birth year was 1913, she met her husband at the age of 13 and her first car’s number was DLD 13. Homai Vyarawalla quit photography a year after her husband’s death and moved to Vadodara in 1973. She had moved with her son Farouq to Pilani, Rajasthan where he taught at BITS Pilani. She moved back to Vadodara with her son in 1982. She lived alone in a Vadodara, Gujarat after her son passed away in 1989 due to cancer.
Homai Vyarawalla gave up her collection of photographs to the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, a Delhi based organization. The National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai (NGMA) presented a retrospective of her work in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in 2010. Homai Vyarawalla died on January 15, 2012, in Vadodara, Gujarat.
Source : Google
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