To escape the Japanese capture of Burma and the imminent persecution on account of their Christian names, Bartholomew fled with his family, walking the General Stilwell Road from Mandalay to Ledo in upper Assam, India.

Bartholomew lived in India as a stateless citizen until 1967 when he gained Indian citizenship, thereby closing all possibilities of returning to Burma which had become a dictatorship from the early–1960s.

Though he rarely exhibited his photographic work during his lifetime, his pictures intimately portrayed his family and his circle of artist friends and associates and his travels in India and the US.

Through numerous reviews published from the early–1950s until the late–1970s in publications like The Indian Express, The Times of India, and Thought, Bartholomew documented the artistic trajectories of painters such as Francis Newton Souza, Tyeb Mehta, Manishi Dey, Biren De, Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna, Akbar Padamsee, SH Raza, Sailoz Mookherjea, Bhupen Khakkar, Satish Gujral; sculptors like Ramkinkar Baij, Dhanraj Bhagat, Chintamoni Kar, Somnath Hore, Sankho Chaudhuri; graphic artists including Kanwal Krishna, Devayani Krishna, Krishna Reddy, Jagmohan Chopra, Jyoti Bhatt as well as renowned photographers Raghu Rai and TS Satyan.

Subsequently, from 1966–1973, he worked with the Tibet House, New Delhi as their curator and development officer where he catalogued the Dalai Lama's collection of religious artefacts and travelled with them to the US and Japan.