The River Cooum, Madras
A view of the shortest river (76 miles) to empty into the Bay of Bengal, and a long-critical artery for Chennai, at a time when it was much less polluted than today.
A view of the shortest river (76 miles) to empty into the Bay of Bengal, and a long-critical artery for Chennai, at a time when it was much less polluted than today.
[Original caption] The Saman Burj or Princess Boudoir in Delhi is richly inlaid with mosaic work. Delhi. [end]
The exquisite hand-tinting of this postcard is worthy of the original design.
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.
A rather unusual portrait of "coolie" women. While popular postcard subjects, often shown with their baskets, this studio portrait features one woman with her back to the viewer, and another looking straight into her (invisible) eyes.
Illustrated postcards often celebrated the post offices that made their rapid spread possible.
An unusually lively postcard with what seem to be wooden full circle swings or spinners common at amusement fairs. What exactly the Shibjee Fare [Fair] was is unclear.
According to Hobson-Jobson, the word gymkhana "is quite modern, and was unknown 40 years ago. The first use that we can trace is (on the authority of Major John Trotter) at Rūrkī in 1861, when a gymkhana was instituted there.
The Urdu text and number suggests that this postcard was made from what was originally a carte-des-visite. Joachim Bautze in his essay Umrao Jan Ada: Her carte-de-visite describes how this form of identification on images was a common practice among
[Original caption continues] Marks the Victory Over the Musalmans. [end]
The original Chittorgarh tower, or Vijay Stambh was constructed in the 16th century to commemorate a victory by the Rajput Maharana Kumbha over the Malwa ruler, Mohamed Khilji
Raaja Bhasin, in his Simla The Summer Capital of British India (2011) has a nice quote about Shimla during the Raj and afterwards: "With this detached atmosphere from the rest of India, it is no wonder that the blame for the disasters of the Afghan