Homai Vyarawalla
Encyclopedia
Homai Vyarawalla commonly known by her pseudonym "Dalda 13," is India's
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 first woman photojournalist
Photojournalism
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...

. First active in the late 1930s, she retired in the early 1970s. In 2011, she was chosen for the second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan
Padma Vibhushan
The Padma Vibhushan is the second highest civilian award in the Republic of India. It consists of a medal and a citation and is awarded by the President of India. It was established on 2 January 1954. It ranks behind the Bharat Ratna and comes before the Padma Bhushan...

 by Govt. of India.

Early life and education

Born in 1913 at Navsari
Navsari
Navsari is a city and municipality in the Surat Metropolitan Region and also the administrative headquarters Navsari District of Gujarat, India. Navsari is also the Twin City of Surat, and only 37 km south of Surat.-Geography:...

, Gujarat, Vyarawalla, studied at the Bombay University and the Sir J. J. School of Art
Sir J. J. School of Art
The Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art , is the oldest art institution in Mumbai, and is affiliated with the University of Mumbai...

.

Career

She started her career in 1930s and thereafter received noticed at the national level when she moved to Mumbai in 1942 with her family, before moving to Delhi where in the next thirty years she shot many political and national leaders, including Gandhi, Nehru, Indira Gandhi and the Nehru-Gandhi family
Nehru-Gandhi family
The Nehru–Gandhi family or Nehru - Feroze Gandhi family is an Indian political family which has been dominant in the Indian National Congress for most of India's history since independence...

 working as a press photographer. At the onset of the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, she started working on assignments of the Bombay based The Illustrated Weekly of India
The Illustrated Weekly of India
The Illustrated Weekly of India was an English language weekly newsmagazine publication in India. It started publication in 1880 and ceasing publication in 1993...

magazine which over the years till 1970, published many of her black and white images, which later became iconic. After the death of her husband she moved to Vadodara
Vadodara
Vadodara formerly known as Baroda is the third most populated city in the Indian State of Gujarat . It is one of the four cities with the population of over 1 million...

 in 1973.

In 2010, the National Gallery of Modern Art
National Gallery of Modern Art
The National Gallery of Modern Art is the leading Indian art gallery. The main museum at New Delhi was established on March 29, 1954 by the Government of India, with subsequent branches at Mumbai and Bangalore...

, New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

(NGMA) in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts presented a retrospective of her work.

Homai Vyarawalla took a number of memorable photographs during her career. Her favorite subject was Pt. Nehru. However, if you go through the archives of photojournalism, you would not find the name “Homai Vyarawalla” anywhere!
Do you know why?
It is because Homai Vyarawalla worked under a different professional name. And the identity she had chosen was “Dalda 13″! The reasons behind her choice of this rather amusing name were that her birth year was 1913, she got married at the age of 13 and her first car’s number plate read “DLD 13″.
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