homage to homai vyarawalla - 1993

GALLERY: From the Economic Times - Sunday 12 September 1993

Honouring the ‘mother’ of all Indian photographers

The 78 year old Baroda based recluse, India’s first woman photographer was the toast of the Capital’s news photographers for almost three decadesl, till she stopped shooting in 1970. Local lensmen affectionately called her “Mummy” The exhibition of her archibval work , on for a month at Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, proved rare insight into how Indian Photogrpahy contructed its frame.

Framing magical moments seized from the flow of life

The Vyarawalla show links us to our photographic past, says its curator

PHOTOGRAPHY India has yet to define its own space and evolve an individual identity. Photographers here have always looked elsewhere for inspiration – first to the Raj and its Pictorialism and, more recently to American Modernism. Hardly ever have they looked inward – at their own past. Hunting for their own historical roots has not been very much of a priority; the past for them, is passé it seems - or simply does not exist.

Homai Vyarawalla is a figment of this forgotten past. She is the first Indian woman press photographer. A “new phenomenon” to Rajaji and “Princess” to Dr. Radhakrishnan. , she was called “Mummy” by the first generation of Independent India’s photographers - her colleagues- photographers who are forgotten figures today. Like she was – till very recently.

For me, meeting her for the first time two years ago was more than a memorable surprise. It really was a shock. How could she have been so easily forgotten, I wondered. Her work is not just unforgettable, it is a historic bonanza that should have been categorised a National Treasure and carefully preserved in archival conditions, and not left to moult in inappropriate wooden drawers , suffering the hot summers and the dangerous damp of many a monsoon in Baroda, her city of choice for the last 23 years.

Here is a photography collection that is invaluable in more ways than one dares to enumerate. This is photography at its pure best – documentary work that rises above being a mere record and becomes an exploration of photo aesthetics and form. Without the ‘melodrama’ of wide angle lenses, these are products of a restrained, dignified vision – the eye of a photographer who lived in innocent times and maintained the dignity of her subjects. Vyarawalla’s photographs of the Capital’s socio-political milieu of three decades, from the forties on, are more than just visual history and an archive of the past.

Here are photographs that are as much about photography and the photographer as they are about the people they portray. This is an eye that understands the photographic frame –split second magical moments of spontaneity seized from the flow of life which resist rendering its subjects in simplistic ‘subject-at dead-centre’ print media frames. The edges of the frame are used too, cutting into life, enabling it to ‘become’ a Photograph.

Curating an exhibition of these photographs became a compulsion that could not be ignored. And when the moment for actually putting together the exhibition came this year, the biggest pitfall that presented itself to me was nostalgia - an unavoidable emotion when handling any visual material from the past. And, definitely, creating and promoting nostalgia was farthest away from my interest.

Mrs. Vyarawwals is nearly 80 years old and has already burnt some of her work “because there was no space and no one was intere4sten in them, anyway.” One select trunk-full of negatives had been misplaced and lost – “The best of the VIP negatives.”

Burnt and lost! That could easily become the bottomline of the history of photography in India – a desperately needed history that is yet to be written.

We cannot afford to wait for another American to present us with more of our ‘Old Masters of Photography” and define our history for us. One Clark Woswick with his Princely India summing up our photographic history with one Lala Deen Dayal is something one can accept no more.

Yet our leading cultureal institutions are guilty of precisely that. For the Indra Gandhi National Centre of Arts (IGNCA) as well as the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) Lala Deen Dayal seems to be the only old ‘master photographer’ worth collecting and exhibiting. It is a project they are currently working towards.

They seem to know of no other photographer from the past. Why do they , one wonders, fail to initiate any research in our own photographic history, and keep bypassing Indian photographers over foreign diplomat turned amateur photographers. The India photographer and Indian photography, it seems have to look elsewhere for recognition and support.

Mrs Vyarawalla’ photographs are, currently on display in the Capital (till October 7) at the Max Mueller Bhavan. The MMB Delhli and its director Dr. Georg Lechner, distinguished themselves last year by being the first institution in the capital to establish an exclusive gallery for photography in which they have been presenting intelligently curated photo exhibitions. Fortunately they have remained open to showcasing India photography too – something that local institutions should be doing.

Homai Vyarawalla’s work and the enthusiasm her exhibition has generated, once again highlights the fact that it is time photography was given its due here. It is time serious efforts were initiated to study, collect, document, curate and exhibit vital segments of Indian Photography.

SATISH SHARMA