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Witness to
History
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Homai Vyarawalla, India’s first woman professional photographer, talks to
R.C. Rajamani on her life and work NO,
no, no. No blinding flash, not again," shouted Mahatma Gandhi,
the apostle of peace, as the Parsi photographer, a woman in her early
thirties, clicked her camera using a big bulb for flash.
"Gandhiji was a trifle annoyed as he came out of a prayer meeting
on that winter evening," recalls Homai Vyarawalla, 93, India’s
first woman photojournalist who worked at Delhi from the 1940s to
1970, chronicling in pictures the nation’s tumultuous march to
Independence and after. Homai’s remarks came in response to a
question if she had talked to the Mahatma during her long stint
in the capital.
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Clicking
with the times
Saibal Chatterjee
IF
a well-composed image is indeed worth a thousand words, the
fascinating tapestry of Homai Vyarawalla’s eventful life and times,
which yielded an amazing array of memorable freeze frames over a
period of three decades, articulates much more than what mere words
can express.
Chettinad
home to stately mansions
While Shekhawati in North
India is a part of the tourist circuit, the vast mansions built by the
Chettiars in Chettinad district of Tamil Nadu are yet to appear on the
tourism map, writes Dhananjaya Bhat
Shreshti
in Sanskrit
means the commercial vaishya caste and forms the root of the
words Settji (Marwari community) in North India and Chettiars in South
India. Both these communities have prospered in commercial ventures
for centuries.
Ants
teach better
Animal
behaviourists in the UK believe that they have found the first
evidence of two-way teacher-pupil communication between ants,
suggesting that teaching behaviour may have evolved according to the
value of information rather than brain size.
Wonders
beyond unspoilt beauty
Terence Blacker
THE
god of Sunday television at home is back, bringing beauty, awe and
creation looking down; sometimes he is so close to the creatures of
the earth that he might be one of them. The migration of thousands of
caribou and the mating dance of a bird of paradise are as one to him.
Court
dramas on Screen
A courtroom drama often gives
actors a great opportunity to showcase their histrionic and oratorical
skills and the court has been the setting for many a nail-biting
climax in movies. Vikramdeep Johal looks
at a few such films in both Hollywood and Bollywood.
Impassioned
pleas, tense face-offs, ruthless cross-examination, startling
revelations — it’s hard to beat a courtroom scene if you want
loads of drama and suspense. The law court has been the setting for
many a nail-biting climax in Hollywood movies.
Trial
and error
WE
have heard these lines in countless Hindi films, but often the persons
delivering them give false testimonies or pronounce wrong verdicts.
When the innocent are jailed and the guilty let off, the protagonist
has to avenge the injustice, usually in a violent way.
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