The lights & lives behind the lens

The narratives of Homai and Alice are also stories about women who were discovered, overlooked and rediscovered.

Alice Guy

It is commonly understood that Dadsaheb Phalke was the first Indian filmmaker while Georges Méliès was the world’s first. But have you ever wondered who the first women filmmaker and photographers were in the world and in India? Curious about this, we looked at our bookshelves to find two books from recent times: Who Clicked That Pic, a picture book for children, and Alice Guy, a graphic novel, both of which pay homage to two fascinating women and their lives behind the camera.

It is Ganesh Chaturthi in pre-Independence Bombay. A young woman in a sari hops onto her bicycle and rides the streets, weaving through the crowd with a nine-kilo Roliflex camera strapped on her back. The streets are merry with moongphali-wallahs, dancers, magicians, and monkeys. The local newspaper has promised to pay one rupee for each festival photograph, and young Parvez is eager to capture it all.

Ektara Trust’s latest picture book Who Clicked That Pic by Nandita Da Cunha, illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, is a fictionalised account of Homai Vyarawalla, India’s first woman photojournalist. The book is narrated in the form of a series of photos — it is Homai’s last film roll, only 10 shots remain, and she steps out, eager to chronicle the candid and the fun. Homai develops the photos herself and sends them to Mr Nakhrawalla’s newspaper but under her brother’s name. In the 1930s, photos clicked by women were seldom published. Do her pictures make it to the next day’s edition? And how did Homai’s career pan out?

Homai Vyarawalla was born into a Parsi family in Gujarat. She enrolled in JJ School of Arts, Bombay and met fellow classmate and photography enthusiast, Manekshaw, who introduced her to the camera. She eventually married Manekshaw and moved to Delhi. Homai captured some of the most iconic moments in history — the British departure from India, the funerals of Nehru and Gandhi and candid moments of President Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth and one of Nehru seemingly pulling the beard of a Vietnamese leader. Many of her works were published in The Illustrated Weekly, and under her own name, thankfully! This book is a delightful ode to Homai and her adventures.

Graphic novel

The graphic novel Alice Guy: First Lady of Film by Catel Muller and Jose Louise-Bocquet and published by Self Made Hero chronicles the journey of another under-recognised woman, the first woman filmmaker of the world, Alice Guy-Blache. Alice’s childhood involved many disruptions, travel, and situations that required fortitude: frequent separation from her parents, the sudden death of her father and having to start working as a child. She lived in her own imagination, often conjuring visuals as a coping mechanism. Set in black and white, the graphic novel uses striking imagery to bring out Alice’s thoughts.

Alice’s first brush with cinema came when she was 22, while she worked as a secretary to Léon Gaumont, the maker of motion picture cameras in Paris. In 1895, the Lumiere brothers invented the cinematograph and in less than a year, Alice asked Gaumont if she could shoot the company’s promotional film and Gaumont agreed. With just a painted backdrop, a female actor and a cameraman, Alice made her first film, The Cabbage Fairy.

Eventually, Alice moved to the United States where she started her own picture company and studio. She went on to make the first film with an all-black cast, A Fool and His Money (1912).

The stories of Homai and Alice are also stories about women who were discovered, overlooked and rediscovered; tales that chronicle women’s struggles with patriarchy and the sacrifices they made to make a profession out of passion, especially in fields dominated by men. Homai and Alice may not have had the opportunity to tell their story, but books such as these ensure that their stories continue to live on.

The author is sometimes a teacher, other times a writer but always a reader. She is also a library educator.

Piqued is a monthly column in which the staff of Champaca Bookstore bring us unheard voices and stories from their shelves.