Bombay Mumbai

An early coloured postcard of the annual Muslim Shia procession on the 21st day of the month of Ramadan commemorating the death of Hazrat Ali, the fourth Caliph.

A storied building, still standing, which was everything from a Governor's residence to Admiralty House and the first High Court of Bombay.

One of the earliest postcards of a "dancing girl" printed in India. Nach [or Nautch] women among the most popular subjects of early postcards of India.

The Bengali writer Nirad Chaudhuri (1897-1999) described the Eid celebrations in his birthplace of Kishorganj, Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh: "Since the Id moves backwards round the year it had no particular association with season and weather as…

The Jama Masjid is a mosque in the Kalbadevi neighborhood, near Crawford Market in the South Mumbai region of Mumbai, India.

A colonial offering, on a rare lithographic card, both obsequious and a caricature of the snotty memsahib.

A clever advertising postcard from what what Bombay's leading bookseller and major postcard publisher at the turn of the century.

This image by the Indian painter M.V. Dhurandhar manages to convey a real sense of personality and drama to the situation through the face and gesture of the priest.

The Taj Hotel was built to realize Jamsetji N. Tata's dream of a fine hotel to reflect the ascendancy of Bombay's own mercantile class. The Taj Hotel was completed on December 16, 1903.

A quick glance at this postcard might make you think it is a European city, but it is actually a street in Mumbai with the Cathedral of the Holy Name, the seat of the Archbishop of Bombay. Opened in 1902, it was new around the time of this postcard.