Homai Vyarawalla, commonly known by her pseudonym Dalda 13, was India's first woman photojournalist.
20 Facts About Homai Vyarawalla
2.
Homai Vyarawalla began her career in 1938 working for the Bombay Chronicle, capturing images of daily life in the city.
3.
Homai Vyarawalla was amongst the first women in India to join a mainstream publication when she joined The Illustrated Weekly of India.
4.
Homai Vyarawalla was born on 9 December 1913 to a Parsi Zoroastrian family in Navsari, Gujarat.
5.
Homai Vyarawalla spent her initial years in Vyara near Surat and her childhood moving from place to place with her father's travelling theatre company.
6.
Homai Vyarawalla came from a middle-class Parsi family, therefore education was a priority for her.
7.
Dossabhai and Soonabhai Hathiram, Homai Vyarawalla's parents, were not well educated themselves but were focused on her studying English and enrolled her at Tardeo's Grant Road High School.
8.
Homai Vyarawalla frequently moved houses and travelled long miles to school due to her family's low financial situation.
9.
Homai Vyarawalla was married to Manekshaw Jamshetji Homai Vyarawalla, an accountant and photographer for the Times of India.
10.
Homai Vyarawalla then moved to Pilani, Rajasthan, with her only son, Farouq, who taught at BITS Pilani.
11.
Homai Vyarawalla returned to Vadodara with her son in 1982.
12.
Homai 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:.
13.
In 1970, shortly after her husband's death, Homai Vyarawalla decided to give up photography, lamenting "bad behaviour" of the new generation of photographers.
14.
Homai Vyarawalla did not take a single photograph in the last 40-plus years of her life.
15.
Later in life, Homai Vyarawalla gave her collection of photographs to the Delhi-based Alkazi Foundation for the Arts and, in 2010, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, the foundation presented a retrospective of her work.
16.
In 1998, Homai Vyarawalla was honoured with the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediaperson.
17.
Homai Vyarawalla was awarded Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour in 2011.
18.
In January 2012, Homai Vyarawalla fell from her bed and fractured a hip bone.
19.
Homai Vyarawalla's neighbours helped her reach a hospital where she developed breathing complications.
20.
Homai Vyarawalla had been suffering from interstitial lung disease which resulted in her death on 15 January 2012.