HOMAI VYARAWALLA - the 1993 INTERVIEW

Thanks to Partho Chatterji  and to Kajal Das for transcribing and keeping it for so long.

the fountainink interview

'DALDA 13" she was NOT !

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/world/asia/homai-vyarawalla-india-photojournalist-dies-at-98.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

The New York Times- ‘the newspaper of record’ records/repeats the Wikipedia mistake. “ DALDA 13”  was NOT , I repeat N O T  the name Homai Vyarawalla  was known by.

“Mummy” is what her colleagues called her and that was the name I used when I wrote my first recovery/discovery article about her. In 1992 - in ‘The Economic Times’, New Delhi. (Scroll down the blog and u can see an e-copy the text.)

I can understand how the NYT made the mistake. Google will throw up the material that is there on the worldwide web and the Wikipedia page will pop up, at the top. What happened before the web took over the world will seem (and now be deemed) to have just not happened.  And the circle of misinformation will repeat itself.  Very interestingly though, a link in the article does clear the mystery of  “Dalda 13”.  That was the name of Vyarawalla’s black Italian Fiat. The locals called it that because of its license plate- DLD 13. And a documentary made on Vyarawalla by Monica Baker from London  was called “Dalda 13”.  Vyarawalla was definitely not known by that name.

Dalda, anyway, is a cheap, hydrogenated, vegetable oil. It is the poor man’s substitute for the Real Thing.  And that is something Homai Vyarawalla was not. She is no cheap substitute for the West’s Photography Heroes and Masters  The grand old lady was Pure Desi Ghee. She was, and is, the “Mummy” of Indian Photography.

KODAK - I won't miss it

I am not going to miss Kodak.

I went Green a long time ago when I decided that a certain Yellow was a rather not-so-nice fellow. The green boxed Fuji became my film. Kodak went out of the khirkee.  I didn’t like the view I saw through the Kodak window. It was too imperial. Too neocolonial. And I am not talking about Kodak’s involvement in its Government’s ‘Defence’ industry.

I don’t think my little boycott had anything to do with the bankruptcy that Kodak has filed for. I wonder, though, how many others were boycotting Kodak along with Coca Cola and McDonalds, etc. Silently opposing the increasing militaristic hardening of soft power hegemonies. Hegemonies that are about changing cultures– for strictly commercial purposes.

This little extract from a marketing magazine did a lot to reinforce my boycott. It is from an Indian magazine called A and M - Advertising and Marketing.   A Karen Smith Pilkington, then the General Manager  camera business  and Vice President Consumer Imaging is quoted as saying  “what photography companies in India need to do is tackle the lack of involvement in photography and popularize the concept of  Candid Photography. Only after creating a new photo culture can we think in terms of big market share and volume”

The normal consumption of film did not match Kodak’s expectations and, according to its market surveys, was too low for such a large population. The average Indian consumed just one roll of film in a month. Each frame was carefully composed and equally carefully exposed. The framing was frontal. The photographs too posed. Converting the single clicks to quick fire bursts that attempted to catch a candid moment would mean more film consumption. Multiple, money making, frames for that one perfect “candid’ frame was what photography was about, we Indians were to be taught.  TV commercials and print ads were launched to change our cultural habits and create that new photo culture of profit, for profit.  That the candid moment was often embarrassing to the subject, who had no control or even a vague say in his candid representation, just did not matter.  The commercial bottom line was what it was all about.

 Remember all those yellow painted or brass plaque “Kodak Photo Points” in the worlds most photographable and photographed places?? They marked the spots where one was supposed to stand  for the best photos.  This latest attempt to capture the Indian Market was just an update. Only, this time, there were cultural biases that had to be changed. Cultures had to be homogenised.And hegemonised.