Homai Vyarawalla

Homai Vyarawalla was born on 9 December 1913 to a Parsi Zoroastrian family in Navsari, Gujarat. Vyarawalla spent her initial years in Navsari and her childhood moving from place to place with her father's travelling theatre company. After moving to Bombay, Homai Vyarawalla studied at Bombay University and the Sir J. J. School of Art. Homai came from a middle-class Parsi family, therefore education was a priority for her. There were only six or seven girls in her class, and she was the only one of 36 pupils to finish her matriculation. Dossabhai and Soonabhai Hathiram, Homai's parents, were not well educated themselves but were focused on her studying English and enrolled her at Tardeo's Grant Road High School. Homai's attempts to educate herself were thwarted by a variety of obstacles, both societal and otherwise. Homai frequently moved houses and travelled long miles to school due to her family's low financial situation. Homai, like all other females in her village, had to endure great stigma during her menstrual periods, living in seclusion for the duration of them, preventing her from attending school. Following her matriculation, Homai continued her education at St. Xavier's College, earning a bachelor's degree in Economics. == Personal life ==

Vyarawalla was married to Manekshaw Jamshetji Vyarawalla, an accountant and photographer for the Times of India. Homai Vyarawalla then moved to Pilani, Rajasthan, with her only son, Farouq, who taught at BITS Pilani. After her son's death from cancer in 1989, she lived alone in a small apartment in Baroda and spent her time gardening. ==Career==

Vyarawalla started her career in the 1930s. At the onset of World War II, she started working on assignments for Mumbai-based The Illustrated Weekly of India magazine which published many of her most admired black-and-white images. In the early years of her career, since Vyarawalla was unknown and a woman, her photographs were published under her husband's name. Vyarawalla stated that because women were not taken seriously as journalists she was able to take high-quality, revealing photographs of her subjects without interference: Eventually her photography received notice at the national level, particularly after moving to Delhi in 1942 to join the British Information Services. As a press photographer, she recorded many political and national leaders in the period leading up to independence, including Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Indira Gandhi and the Nehru-Gandhi family. and, in 2010, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai (NGMA), the foundation presented a retrospective of her work. "As a child, I once saw a photograph of another child sleeping on its stomach," Homai recalled. "I was told it was taken by a woman, and I wondered whether I'd ever get another chance." She surely did, for by the late 1930s, she had relocated to Delhi and begun a thirty-year career as a photojournalist. == Exhibitions ==

From 6 July 2012 – 14 January 2013 The Rubin Museum of Art in New York presented Candid: The Lens and Life of Homai Vyarawalla, in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in New Delhi. The exhibition was the first on Vyarawalla outside of India. It showcased her photographs from the 1930s to 1970, alongside a biographical film on her extraordinary life and ephemera from her career including her cameras, personal correspondence and press passes. == Awards ==

In 1998, Vyarawalla was honoured with the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediaperson. In 2010, the I&B Ministry honoured her with the Lifetime Achievement Award. She was awarded Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour in 2011. ==Death==

In January 2012, Vyarawalla fell from her bed and fractured a hip bone. Her neighbours helped her reach a hospital where she developed breathing complications. She had been suffering from interstitial lung disease which resulted in her death on 15 January 2012. ==See also==