Pan & Aerated Water Shop, Calcutta
A postcard that reflects how easily Kolkata mixed past and present at the turn of the century. Paan is an ancient cornucopia of spices and nuts wrapped in a betel leaf. Next to it are cooling soda bottles.
People
Street Scene Udaipur
A less common, fairly casual, finely hand-tinted street scene in a then smaller city.
A Ward in Plague Hospital showing Patients, Bombay.
When the bubonic plague struck Bombay in the 1890s, postcards were used, in part, by the business community to communicate that all was okay, and that patients were being well taken care of in facilities like this one with clean interiors and an
Ladhakis and Yaks, Scinde Valley, Kashmir
It is to Bremner's credit that he managed to capture some of the most fleeting figures on camera, even if in rich, "picturesque" surroundings like this one where their presence added context and measure to images (and the trade that flowed through
Madras, A Road Scene.
[Original caption] This is a road in the thickly-populated native quarter of Black Town, west of the Esplanade.
Native Street
Unlike many photographic postcards that emphasized the crowded nature of Bombay bazaars at the turn of the century, Gerhardt opens up the foreground in this painted depiction to create a more spacious and effect.
Confectioner's Stall - Jaipur
Some of the most interesting postcards are bazaar and storefront scenes, which can be staged or candid, but always seem to contain a wealth of information about life a century or more ago.
Ceylon
A later "Greetings from" postcard where the divided back, allowing people to write messages on the back of cards in addition to the address, allowed the publisher to put many more photographs of the place on the front.
Ram and Tulsidas Meeting
This postcard is actually an exquisite work of art, signed by the Nathdwara artist A. Ghasiram. Nathdwara in Rajasthan was a center of "Pichwai" painting for centuries.
Native Cafe in the Camp
Jankidas, a Karachi photographer and major postcard publisher, worked largely for British troops in the cantonment area, where he had his studio and was known as "Johnny." Nonetheless, he also turns out to have been a photographer of the Independence
