Banyan Tree, Madras
A postcard which represents something of the uneasy relationships during the colonial period. The ancient banyan tree is hemmed in by fencing and benches. Two bearded British men are enjoying a drink under its shade.
A postcard which represents something of the uneasy relationships during the colonial period. The ancient banyan tree is hemmed in by fencing and benches. Two bearded British men are enjoying a drink under its shade.
A carefully staged scene in which the cloth backdrop helps focus us on the individuality of the men.
The Mexican Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz (1914-1998) served as his country's Ambassador to India in the 1960s, and just before he died left behind a memoir of the country, In Light of India (1995) which has a beautiful description of Humayun's
In the book Carl Hagenbeck's Empire of Entertainments by Eric Ames (2008) he describes the importance of this exotic showman and his family who helped turn "India" into a touring spectacle following an 1898 exhibition in Berlin, even if most of the
This ghat was one of the most common photographic and postcard images, and renamed in 2012 as Chotulal's Ghat. It apparently dates back to the 18th century.
A "Greetings from India" postcard composed of many images, each of which were also separate postcards, within stenciled letters. On the back the owner wrote "What do you think of the square tacks?"
"Another sign of the transition from the wet to the dry season was to be seen in the immense number of jute-stem stacks standing on every field and lawn," wrote Nirad Chaudhry in his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. "After the bark which yields
A striking collotype published in many versions by Clifton & Co. The Arhai-Din-Ka-Jhopra was built in the 13th century by the first Muslim Sultan in India, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak, and before him by Abu Bar of Herat, Afghanistan.
Bullocks that ferried water were called "water bullocks." This colored image by Clifton & Company, one of the earliest mass publishers of postcards in Mumbai (Bombay) was fairly popular, perhaps because of its rich colors.
In Ali Raza's excellent book Revolutionary Pasts Communist Internationalism in Colonial India (Tulika Books, 2022) there is this note from a police report in 1926: "A public meeting was held . . . under the auspices of the Nau Jawan Bharat Sabha to