A moneylender strutting through the public square, carrying the ominous red books he uses to chase debtors through the courts, the vibrant city his backdrop.
Although it is a single fakir at the doorway who is the subject of the postcard's title, it is the colors of the entrance to the Golden Temple in Amritsar that catch our eye.
A key figure in the Raj was the punkha boy or man, who pulled the string that moved a fan in a bar or in the sleeping quarters to keep their employers cool.
This artist-signed postcard includes a red French stamp, cancelled in 1930, in a slightly tilted position that might have meant, if the sender was adhering to The Language of Stamps, "Have you Forgotten Me?"
[Original caption] An inhabitant of North-West India unsurpassed as a hill fighter. Although Mahomedans, the Pathans rebelled against the Mogul Emperors round about the sixteenth century and were in consequence forced to keep to the hills. [end]