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.
Man
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.
Kathiawar Prince
An unusual lithographic postcard, blind stamped across the entire back "Haji Yusuf Haji Mohammed Pictures, Post-cards and Cutlery Merchant. Grant Road Cross-Lane. Bombay, 7" that suggests this firm may have been the publisher. The exceptional series
Raja Sandow
P.K. Raja Sandow (1894/5-1943) was one of the most famous silent film actors of India, and later a producer and director as well. Born in Tamil Nadu, he was given the name "Sandow" after a well-known German body-builder of the time.
Chetty Rice Merchant and Money Lender. Ceylon
[Original caption] The Chettya are one of the trading castes of India whose mercantile activities take them far afield.
Saiyad Mobarik Ali, Moolvee (Learned Man)
One of siz postcards in Raphael Tuck & Sons first "Native Life in India" series, which featured the work of an artist with the initials G.E.M. who remains unidentified.
Pattawala (Office Peon)
This image by the Indian painter M.V. Dhurandhar celebrates the rise of a new type of worker in early Mumbai - the peon who worked for a business owner or manager and would ultimately gather some authority by controlling access to his boss.
A Toddy Drawer, Madras
A popular figure specific to early South Indian postcards is the toddy drawer. Palm wine was made from sap collected from trees in little pouches.
Water bearer. Bombay.
A very early India-printed postcard signed by the chief lithographer at the Ravi Varma Press, Paul Gerhardt. Gerhardt was probably aware of Ravi Varma's prize-winning painting that year, Water Bearer, and we know from Raja Varma's diaries - the great
