Bullock with water-skins & Bhisti. Jaipur
Bullocks and bhistees served an important role in transporting fresh water to city residents.
Ensuring fresh water supply to the residents in a desert region was always difficult.
Bullocks and bhistees served an important role in transporting fresh water to city residents.
Ensuring fresh water supply to the residents in a desert region was always difficult.
Kanpur, known as Cawnpore before 1948, is one of the larger cities in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Once mainly a cantonment town, and scene of much fighting in 1857, today it is an important industrial center.
Postcards celebrated infrastructure that made a real difference to residents, in this case a water pipeline critical to the growth and population of the Punjabi hillstation of Murree in the early 20th century.
The pipeline track is also called the
A less-typical image of an "Indian well," with a rugged sloping foreground that reminds the viewer how far beneath water could lie and the messiness of its extraction.
[Original caption] Woman Water Carrier. It is no unusual sight in India to see women performing manual labour, and in some cases they perform harder tasks than the men.
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.
One of the most popular subjects of early postcards was the water-carrier, shown here together with a buffalo. Perhaps Hobson Jobson's definition for what it spells as "Bheesty" helps to explain why (1903, p.
Another small masterpiece of postcard design by M.V. Dhurandhar - the canopied tree, the rope diagonal and man supporting himself with it while drawing the eye down to the title.
This card was postmarked Oct.