[Original caption] Clive Street, Calcutta. This perpetuates the name of Clive who retook Calcutta after it had been captured by the Nawab of Bengal in June, 1756.
[Original caption] “Chowringhee, Calcutta. Chowringhee Road runs past the sumptuous edifice of the Bengal Club and the nest residential quarter of Calcutta to St. Paul’s Cathedral.
The word bungalow derives from the Gujarati word baá¹…glo and means "Bengali", used to communicate "house in the Bengal style". Such houses were traditionally small, thatched and had a wide veranda.
One of the earliest postcards of India, Calcutta, published by W. Rossler, a German or Austrian photographer in the city in 1897. Lithograph, Court sized, Printed in Austria. Undivided back.
One wonders how long the sitters had to be still in this rigorously posed photograph, where the kid on the far left seems to have moved his right hand, creating a bit of a blur.
The mithai-wala was a popular postcard subject; in this composition the textile pattern behind the man gives the image energy even as the man stares somewhere far away.