British India Hockey Team 10th Olympiad Los Angeles
Perhaps the best known image of the gold-medal winning Indian field hockey team at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, where they won for the second time.
Divided back
Alastor Mystic
[Original back of advertising card] Alastor-Mystic-The Astrologer, Handreader and Clairvoyant from England. May be Consulted Daily at the Great Eastern Hotel, Calcutta, Room 59. (Hours 10 A.M. to 7 P.M.
Miss Chabukswari of Delhi
Usually, dancing women were unnamed, even when they become famous (for example, Gohar Jan became a "Bombay beauty"). In this case however perhaps her name or fame justified a different approach, and it was better marketing by the unknown publisher to
A View of Peshawar Fur market Showing Fur Bales Loaded on Carts for Export to Foreign Countries
One of those postcards that highlights the complex trade relationships between the Raj and Afghanistan, if not Central Asia.
Historic India. Ravages of White Ants. Beams Eaten Out.
An unusual "natural history" postcard from Tucks.
[Original caption] Ravages of White Ants: beams eaten out. The insect tribes of India may be said to be innumerable.
D. Billimoria and Sulochana
One of early Indian cinema's most famous silent and sound film actors, Dinshaw Billimoria, shown here with his favorite co-star and romantic lead, Sulochana (also known as Ruby Myers). The two made a number of silent films together, some of which
A Water Carrier, Madras
Today goatskins, pigskins and earthen pitchers have given way to plastic jars and bottles and huge, lumbering dripping water tankers that supplement inadequate piped water supplies in towns and cities throughout South Asia.
Bearer
Although Hobson Jobson (1903, p. 77) defines Bearer as, besides a palanquin carrier, also as "b. (In the Bengal Presidency) a domestic servant who has charge of his master's clothes, household furniture, and (often) of his ready money.
Best Christmas Wishes 1908
A 101 years later, a look at a Christmas card from a major Calcutta retailer.
Smoking Hookah
A distinctly colored postcard, with the pinkish mud offsetting the green grass and white garb of the smoker. Note the little boy and half-hidden woman watching from the hut.
