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She captured through her lens the nation’s rite of passage – from its colonial antecedents to the post-Independence era.
Homai Vyarawalla has the distinction of being the first woman photojournalist India ever had. The choice of photography as a vocation must have certainly raised eyebrows in the 1930s – a time when ‘work’ was a men-only bastion; photography, a rich man’s hobby; and Homai, the only woman photographer in the midst of an all male syndicate.
But Homai was never the one to be ruffled by societal constraints. Her stellar work for the Illustrated Weekly of India during World War II got her recognition. Soon, she moved to Delhi, where she turned official press photographer for India’s political luminaries until her retirement in the 1970s.
Homai’s stunning black-and-white photographs encase India’s kaleidoscopic history – as in the evocative images of the unfurling of the first Tricolour on August 15, 1947, Gandhiji’s funeral, engaging personal moments of India’s first Prime Minister (incidentally, her favourite ‘subject’), and visits of world dignitaries like Dalai Lama, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr.
In transforming the momentary to the momentous through her lens, this feisty camerawoman gave us not just pictures from a bygone past, but a vital sense of our history.
Why we find her inspiring:
– Because she had the chutzpah to pursue a ‘different’ profession, one predominated by men even today
– Because she was willing to risk anything for the perfect picture
– Because she respected the dignity of her subject, quite unlike the modern, intrusive paparazzi
– Because she gave us our greatest legacy – a pictorial narrative of India’s history
Suggested Readings:
India through her eyes
Lens view
The Lady In the Rough Crowd: Archiving India with Homai Vyarawalla
*Picture courtesy – http://photo.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20120115/HomaiVyarwalla_20120113.jpg
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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