Noted cinematographer Navroze Contractor killed in a bike accident

Navroze Contractor, 80, photographer, cinematographer, and writer was killed in a road accident on Sunday morning. 

Navroze Contractor, 80, photographer, cinematographer, and writer was killed in a road accident on Sunday morning. 

Mr. Contractor, a bike enthusiast who rode and wrote regularly for bike and car magazines and even made a documentary film Bharat Parikrama on his circumnavigation of India on his motorcycle in 2005, was ironically killed in a bike accident.

As was his practice, he was on a Sunday morning bike ride when he was hit by another bike on Hosur Road. He was shifted to Denkanikottai Hospital in Tamil Nadu, but succumbed to his injuries.

Mr.  Contractor, who hailed from Ahmedabad, had settled down in Bengaluru with his family. He was married to prominent documentary filmmaker Deepa Dhanraj. Mr. Contractor was known for the contributions he made to the documentary scene in India and across the world, shooting several documentaries, including Ballad of Pabu by George Luneau, Dreams of the Dragon’s Children by Pierre Hoffmann, Are you listening? by Martha Stewart, and Last House in Bombay by Luke Jennings.

He also wrote a book The Dreams of the Dragon’s Children, a memoir of his filmmaking experiences in China in 1984. He was also a frequent collaborator with his wife. He also shot several feature films, including Mani Kaul’s Duvidha, Pattabhi Rama Reddy’s Devarakadu, and Shankar Nag’s Lalach. 

Mr. Contractor was a multi-faceted talent. He has had several one-man shows in India and abroad. His photographs of jazz musicians are part of the Smithsonian Museum, Washington DC, while his photographs of artist Bhupen Khakhar are part of the collection at Tate Modern, London. He had recently been working on a collection of photographs on the dying art of ‘kusti’ and ‘akhadas’.