Coolies

Although posed in the photographer's studio, it shows how young girls carried suitcases and bedding on behalf of visitors to the hillstation. Thomas Paar was an Austrian photographer based in Darjeeling, and his "studio was the site of some of the most glamourous performances for the camera ever created in the Himalayas.” (Clare Harris, Photography and Tibet, Reaktion Books, London, 2016, p. 39)