This does not seem like a fancy Indus river steamer. It is after the heyday of the Indus steamer business that actually never really displaced the boatmen's traffic along the Indus and other river systems in Punjab, UP and Sindh.
There are few intimations of relations between Europeans and Indians on postcards – or other media for that matter – making this postcard a startling exception. “Stay quiet about it,” says the sweeper in Hindu-Urdu. “Sure,” replies the soldier.
Hobson Jobson (1903) the great dictionary of Indian words in English, defines "Dhoby, Dobie s. A washerman; H. dhobi [from dhona, Skt. [Sanskrit] dhav, 'to wash.'] In colloquial Anglo-Indian use all over India. A common H. [Hindustani] proverb runs:
A 1945 calendar postcard by the Anglo-Indian animator and cartoonist Merton Lacey featuring Allied troops in India fighting the Japanese in Indo-China during World War II.
An extremely rare early postcard by an little-known lithographer, W. Cooper, in Bombay. It looks to crude to have been made at The Ravi Varma Press. Cooper seemed to prefer risque images.
The word "Pariah" owes its origin to the Pariah caste of the Hindu society of India.
Moorli Dhur & Sons, at Ambala, a railway junction 130 miles away from Lahore, dominated the Punjab postcard market by 1910. Perhaps because of its distribution clout, it published a humorous series on different aspects of life for colonial foot
Plate & Co., like many Ceylon-based firms, published semi-nude postcards of women, more common here than even in South India, including this card with a nicely placed purple stamp.
[Original caption] The Jummas Masjid, Old Poor House Road. Jumma Masjid means "Friday Mosque" they say, and so it is not surprising that more than one Indian temple bears the name.
A fourth card in Rossler’s 1897 lithographic series of Calcutta features a fakir, the male counterpoint to the nautch dancer. Above the fakir is his spiritual guide along lifelong wanderings, Lord Shiva.
