The "Gharry" Our Local Chariot in Which We Often Tour the Town
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.
Color
A Trysting Place
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.
Converted and unconverted Pariah
The word "Pariah" owes its origin to the Pariah caste of the Hindu society of India.
Too hot to write this week, the sun has dried up all the ink.
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
A Rodiya Woman Carrying Water, Ceylon
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.
Bangalore. The Jumma Masjid Old Poor House Road.
[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.
Calcutta
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.
Cemetery, Meerutt (India)
British cemeteries in South Asia are among the quietest and saddest of places, especially when one walks through them and notes how many people died young, and how many of these were infants.
Dhobi (Washerman)
A postmarked version in India from August 16, 1905 of Dhobi Washerman and sent to Mr. u [sp?], 16 Mt. Ararat Rd., Richmond, Surrey [England]." The writing is hard to make out exactly, but it seems to say: "This is Mr. Dierius' Your card Dhobi.
Dhobi (Washerman)
Another evocative card by M.V. Dhurandhar injects personality into the roving washerman. In the background is an edifice of the "new" Bombay while in the foreground we see the age-old profession of washermen cleaning the resident's laundry.
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