[Original caption] Bombay-Poona Mail. The magnificent train which carries His Majesty's mails between these two towns on the Great Indian Penninsular Railway is one of the finest trains in the British Empire. [end]
Sir Narayan Ganesh Chandavarkar, an early Hindu reformer and political leader, was born in Karnataka in 1855. He later became vice-chancellor of the University of Bombay where he spent most of his life working as a Justice, activist and reformer.
The word "Dhangar" owes its origin to the Sanskrit word "Dhenu" (cow), and apparently refers to a caste of people associated with herding primarily in Maharashtra, but also throughout India.
An early "Greetings from" postcard of Darjeeling by its premiere early photographer Thomas Paar. Clare Harris in her excellent book Photography and Tibet (Reaktion, 2016) "deconstructs" the figure on the left, whom she correctly calls a 'poster boy'
Taraporevala & Sons was the premiere Bombay bookstore and publisher, stock full of 19th century illustrated magazines and images eagerly bought and saved in trunks by artists like Ravi Varma as inspiration.
[Original caption] Wellawatta Canal. The length of the island of Colombo is 270 miles, its width 140 miles, an area about four-fifths the size of Ireland.
Handwritten on the back is this message: "Bombay, March 3, 1903: “Dear little General. This is a picture of the native portion of this city – we do not dare go in it because there are so many cases of plague.
Bhils are a name for ancient tribes across a wide swathe of India, including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan as well as in parts of far-eastern India. Although Hobson-Jobson claimed that "no distinct Bhil language survives" (p.
In India, elephants are revered as symbols of wisdom and good luck. Once it was common to find elephants on the roads of Mumbai.
A superbly coloured postcard by D.A. Ahuja. It has probably been coloured with stencils given the inaccuracy around some of the edges, but the colours also seem well woven into the card so could have been part of the German printer's process.
