"Hotel in the Camp"
The Karachi Congress party meeting, held six days after Bhagat Singh was executed on March 23, 1931, was a tense affair.
Men
Indian Baker and Opium Smokers
A unusual two-image postcard, almost the only one from that most prolific of publishers, Moorli Dhur & Sons. It shows two men on their sides, one of whom is smoking an opium pipe. Such scenes are almost never shown in postcards (exception: an opium
A Group of Punjabi Mohamedan Women & Men
One wonders where this photograph was taken, possibly in the Murree hills but it could have been elsewhere too.
Toddy Drawers
The process begins with collecting sap from coconut or palm flowers as these men are doing. Fresh sap, known as 'Neera,' is initially sweet, lukewarm, and non-alcoholic and collected in small pots attached beneath sliced unopened palm flowers.
Monkey Performance
For all the popularity of monkey performers, their depiction on postcards, especially with a crowd watching (example without a crowd) is unusual.
Leopoldo Dagradi
Leopoldo Dagradi (1871-1928) was an Italian operatic tenor who studied at the Regio Conservatorio of Milan, receiving his diploma in 1898. His professional journey began in 1900; this card, autographed by him, would have been given away when he was
Opium Shop
Although opium was a major crop in the rise of the East India Company, and India the major producer of opium sent to China, with production carefully taxed and recorded, barely a handful of postcards seem to acknowledge the crop and its manufacture.
A Lady in Dandy
While the word "dandy" suggests being fashionable, and may be a secondary meaning, the word is said to actually come from "dandi" or the Hindi/Urdu word for stick, which are used to distribute the woman's weight across them men's shoulders.
Another
Taziahs in the Mohurruan at Peshawar
Not too far back, the local Hindu, Sikh and Christian communities would participate in the Shia Taziah processions in Peshawar.
Hillman Carrying Wood
Many postcards speak to the physical labor that allowed residents of hillstations to warm their homes and cook their food, often leading men and women with permanently bent backs.
