Old Is Gold: Margaret Bourke White

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is famously known as M.K.Gandhi, the father of the nation to India.

- Shimran Epari

His diligence and the way he struggled towards the goodwill of the country with utter tranquility and peace has been recalled in stories and pictures since his assassination in 1948. One such not so highlighted but iconic recollection is the portrait of Gandhi with the spinning wheel, taken by the very first female photographer of LIFE magazine, Margaret Bourke White.

Margaret Bourke White, professionally an American photographer and documentary photographer gave LIFE magazine this amazingly symbolic photograph which turned the storytelling of that happenings upside down. To pull the history here, besides being a reputed photographer, she understood the chaos that took place during the partition period to portray it in her style of journalism. It is so obviously visible in her shots that there was hardly any tranquility found and this image that had Gandhi beside his symbol of power- the spinning wheel, expressed the irony of his way of dealing with partition.