From the coastal metropolis of Visakhapatnam to the farthest corners of the globe, Bharadwaj Dayala is on a rare journey: one that spans 195 nations, seven continents and 12 years, capturing the portraits of women. But it’s not the miles he’s counting. It is the faces, the tales, the lives. His dream challenge, Million Amazing Women, is a visible tribute to the on a regular basis girl…resilient, highly effective, swish, and infrequently invisible.
Armed with a digital camera, a 100mm f2.8 lens, and the braveness to chase a imaginative and prescient larger than himself, 55-year-old Bharadwaj is on a solo mission, driving in a modified automobile to capture one million portraits of women. Each {photograph}, he believes, will function a silent rebel in opposition to centuries of tales untold and contributions neglected. “This is a visual tribute to women, ensuring their stories are preserved, honoured, and remembered for generations to come,” he says. The portraits, a combine of black and white and colored ones, are posted on the Instagram web page of Million Amazing Women Foundation.
The inception
The concept was born from a private house to pay homage to his mom, Kusuma Dayala, who raised 5 kids with grit and beauty, regardless of difficult conditions. She instilled in Bharadwaj the values of self-discipline, laborious work, and cultural richness. “Despite living a modest life, she was the strongest person I knew. Her sacrifices and silent strength shaped who I am today,” he says. It was this inspiration that led Bharadwaj to ask a deeply uncomfortable query: Why has the world by no means actually captured the essence of on a regular basis women on a international scale?
What began as a thought quickly became an formidable blueprint. But this one would require him to quit monetary consolation, industrial alternatives and even certainty. “A single photograph can challenge perceptions, spark change, and even shift the mindset of an entire nation. Imagine what a million portraits can do!” he displays.
A second world tour
This isn’t Bharadwaj’s first tryst with the street. In 2006, he turned one of India’s first solo motorcyclists to circle the globe. On his return to India, he was obtained by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then Chief Minister of Gujarat. “That journey was more about discovering myself. This one is about honouring others,” he says. Quoting non secular author Richard Rohr, Bharadwaj provides, “In the second half of life, we discover it’s no longer sufficient to find meaning in being successful. We need a deeper source of purpose.”
That deeper function took kind on International Women’s Day on March 8 this 12 months when his journey was flagged off by Subhanginiraje Ranjitsinh of the Baroda (now Vadodara) royal household on the grand Laxmi Vilas Palace in Vadodara. Fittingly, she turned the primary girl to be photographed for the challenge, her magnificence and power immortalised in black and white.
In simply over a month, Bharadwaj has taken practically 500 portraits, from royal figures to tribal entrepreneurs, day by day labourers and younger designers. A second that lingers on is his assembly with a group of tribal women in rural Gujarat who run a small restaurant incomes ₹8 lakhs monthly. “That’s the kind of story we rarely hear. But they exist in corners of the world, waiting to be seen.”
Walking the speak
Bharadwaj Dayala, who’s on a street journey throughout the world overlaying 195 nations for a 12-year-project to doc tales of one million women by their portraits.
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SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
To fund the challenge, Bharadwaj bought off all his actual property and dipped into financial savings constructed over a long time. He estimates his present funds will maintain him for about a 12 months. “But this is not a business. It is a non-profit cultural documentation project,” he asserts. Million Amazing Women will stay untouched by industrial branding or promoting.
Two months earlier than his departure, he sat throughout the desk with potential traders. But the circumstances got here with branding obligations. “I realised that would reduce the women to objects, something beautiful to look at, rather than powerful stories to listen to,” he says. He merely walked away.
Instead, he’s banking on silent supporters akin to philanthropists, establishments, and cultural organisations, museums and archival establishments who align along with his imaginative and prescient.
A turning level
Bharadwaj Dayala’e solo journey throughout the world being flagged off at Vadodara. He is on a mission to capture one million portraits of women throughout the globe.
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SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Bharadwaj’s personal story unfurls like a roller-coaster. Born to a movie projectionist in Visakhapatnam, he grew up with 4 siblings, usually juggling monetary instability. While his siblings pursued skilled levels, Bharadwaj dropped out in his first 12 months of faculty, questioning the very function of schooling.
Drawn to expertise, he enrolled in one of the area’s first laptop coaching centres within the late ’80s. In six months, he was instructing others. By the early ’90s, he had arrange laptop institutes throughout Andhra Pradesh and Berhampur, solely to lose every thing and face chapter by the 2000s.
What adopted was a part of deep self-reflection and a solo bike journey across the world. That journey made him a well-known title in India’s biking circuits. By 2020, he returned to tech and began a digital manufacturing studio in Hyderabad, writing scripts and producing movies.
But the turning level got here when he stumbled upon the long-lasting 1936 {photograph} Migrant Mother. “That image changed the lives of migrant women in America. I knew then what I wanted to do,” he says.
Bharadwaj is presently on the Andhra Pradesh leg of his journey, earlier than heading to the Northeast and ultimately crossing into Southeast Asia.
Published – April 17, 2025 06:20 pm IST
