Considered one of the first female Indian photojournalists, Homai Vyarawalla passed away in Boroda, Gujarat, on January 15 at the age of 99.
Born to a family of Parsi origin, Vyarawalla grew up in Bombay, studying at the JJ School of Art. She began her career as a photographer in 1938 at the Bombay Chronicle. In 1942, she moved to New Delhi, covering Indian politics for the next thirty years, from British rule through the country’s independence and beyond.
She was there to photograph the first Indian flag flown from the Red Fort in Delhi on August 15, 1947, the departure of British Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, and the funerals of Gandhi, Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri, the latter’s successor who came to power in 1966.
As a close friend of Nehru, she was able to capture moments from his public and private life with his daughter Indira and his grandchildren Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi, India’s prime minister from 1984 to 1989.
A retrospective of Vyarawalla’s work was held at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi in 2011.
Sybile Girault
