Just Like Master

The 1900s

Photographer: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan

The Hawkers, The Shoe repairers, The Milkman, The Band Baja guy,
The Bombai mithai-wala and others are all part of the series "Vanishing Tribes"
by the photographer Selvaprakash. Documented vendors who sell merchandise 

that can be easily transported, selling while moving. It is about the manual skill, 

labour and handmade crafts which are vanishing from peoples life. The way it is 

photographed has a re-take look of an anthropological stereotypical aesthetics of 

the compositions along with a very dramatic contemporary staged setup. 

It reminds us of the documentation of the Colonial Postcards and Photographs.

The stereotyping notions which were built by the early colonial photographs and postcards during the early 1900s still remain beneath, The Independent India. It surfaces from time to time as a hangover. The early postcards reflected how Indians were often stereotyped based on ethnicity, gender, religion, or caste. Stereotyping in popular culture removes the identity of the individual and it becomes a generalised idea. But it also has a language in which we see that the detailing has been subtracted to make it look simple for mass understanding. The simplicity of this abstraction, which gives a totally different perspective without the claim of authentication, but in the process, it becomes a stereotypical thought. The conflict and contradiction of this language make it an interesting debate. 

 

This language that began as a documentation practice, converted into popular culture in the times to come. It has also transformed and evolved from the first reference to ‘now’, in which the image changes its origin and becomes a separate identity not relating to the original thought. It is interesting to superimpose the origin and the now but then the thought occurs, was there an origin to begin with?

 
From the postcard collection of Martin Henry, Designed by Anchita Kaul

Colonial postcards of Bangalore.
By Suresh Jayaram

 The relationship between City and Cantonment was strange. It was neither one of friendship nor enmity. The English were not very interested in matters relating to the city. They managed to obtain the ‘ayahs’ ‘grooms’ ‘butler’ and ‘clerks’ they needed in the cantonment itself. Enough revenues were generated there to maintain their territories. We must admit that they kept their area clean and beautiful. Broad streets lined with trees, the large compounds of the military and civil officers, colourful gardens around each home, English women pushing children in prams: we must admit that in addition to the strange appearance of the foreign environment, Cantonment was also beautiful. The spaciousness, wealth of colour, peace, restfulness and beauty: none of this belonged to us, it was produced by the unconscious, alignment labour of our people for the foreigners. If we could forget this, we might enjoy it, but not even a moment’s interaction with the english allowed you to forget that fact. Even the most ordinary Englishmen had the superior air of the British empire.

A.N. Murthy Rao, ‘Bengaluru’, Samagra Lalitha Prabandhagalu, 1999

Postcards were introduced in India in the late 19th century (1879), with the insignia of Queen Victoria, it was priced at a quarter anna and was called the "East India PostCard." In the early decades of the 20th century, postcards were at the height of their popularity and were an innovative and affordable form of communicating. The proliferation of printing was an important factor that popularised this mass produced product that circulated in and outside India and established an image of colonial India. It has been estimated that in Britain alone approximately six billion postcards passed through the British postal system between 1902 and 1910. 

 

From the postcard collection of Martin Henry, Designed by Anchita Kaul

The postcards from Bangalore can be seen through the colonial lens of anthropology and the desire to connect with family and friends back home with images that capture a slice of the city, people, landscape, urban cityscape, colonial buildings and its famous gardens.

The Postcards from India in general and specifically from Bangalore are often seen as nostalgic colonial momentos brought from old book shops, antique markets and specialised dealers who have amassed collections, and are sold to collectors with interest in colonial visual history and representation. They are not so much ‘a window into the past’, but a set of discursive coordinates that articulated the social and cultural geography of the city and its inhabitants, for a global and predominantly European audience.

Just like master 

From the postcard collection of Martin Henry, Designed by Anchita Kaul

(The Masters series, published by Higginbotham & Co., staged scenes where Indian servants mimicked their British masters. Here, Indians are shown taking liberties with their employers’ possessions, luxuries, and comforts, thus playing on the insecurities and anxieties of a ruling class. )

With reference to the exhibition at London's SOAS university (2018) by Stephan Putnam Huges and Emily Rose Stevenson, the curators categorised the postcards into Picturesque images of India, racial stereotypes, urbanization and daily life under the British rule. The most popular depictions were historical architecture and colonial buildings, and vignettes from everyday reality from the privileged colonial lives and quaint street scenes.

The contentious relationship between the Memsahibs, sahibs who served their life of leisure and employed the “natives,” the locals, as Maalis, Dhobhis, Pankhavalas, bearers, ayahas, cooks and domestic helpers. A certain series that looks like a retake on the natives depicting them in the poses of the masters in studio settings look humorous at first sight but are racist narratives of the colonial establishment who believed that the local depiction of "British anxieties'' and "insecurities"about what the "servant" would do when the "master" was not around.

Bangalore Hunt Postcards

Bangalore Hunt, From the postcard collection of Martin Henry, Designed by Anchita Kaul

The satirical "Bangalore hunt" referred to the hound hunts of the British; this postcard might be a staged depiction of women picking head lice from each other sitting in row. These postcards reinforced colonial depictions of stereotyping India and Indians. As we decolonize these postcards, the visual culture of representation from the colonial experience and postcolonial critique has been the subject of sustained critical analysis. These postcards deal with cross-cultural encounters of representation of images, spaces and built structures, on the visual cultures of British India. Most of them continued the aesthetic and politics of representations of colonial photography by British photographers whose depictions are problematic and raise several questions about the Colonial representation of "other" in India through these ubiquitous postcards.

Miṣanarigaḷu - The FIRANGI Phantoms -2

1897 | 1900

Dancing Girls

Dancing Girls, Bangalore, 1900

Source: Lamb’s photo album, Box 624 C, Edith A. Lamb,
Mysore South India 7 August 1901.

© The Methodist Church/TMCP.

Wesleyan Mission Girls’ Boarding School, Bangalore, 1901

Source: Lamb’s photo album, Box 624 C, Edith A. Lamb, Mysore South India 7 August 1901 

© The Methodist Church/TMCP.

Excerpts from- Seeing like the Missionary: An Iconography of Education in Mysore, 1840–1920

Article by Janaki Nayar

The DPI chose to rely on the decision of the London Mission in its entirety,

by quoting:

We have made it our unvarying rule not to receive dancing girls, as we believe their presence injurious both in lowering the moral tone of the schools and also in prejudicing respectable Hindus against them. At the same time, we find it most difficult to exclude them, as teachers and peons can get these girls more easily than others, and indeed are probably pressed by interested parties to receive them.

The government’s decision to keep the Devadasi children out of girls’ schools Prevailed. Neither the missionaries nor the government officials recognized the ironies of this foundational ‘brain drain’. Only within the realm of the aesthetic could the Devadasi now stage her return.

The principal educational missions in Mysore in the nineteenth century were the Wesleyan Methodist Missionaries Society and the LMS. School-building activities in the Kannada-speaking region began as early as 1812, the LMS establishing their presence in Belgaum, Bellary, Bangalore and Mysore and the Wesleyans working in Bangalore, Mysore and Gubbe. In 1840, two missionary wives, Mrs Sewell and Mrs Rice, started a school for ‘Hindu’ girls in Bangalore, the first in Mysore state.

Older Students of the Siddhi Katte School Run by the Wesleyans

Source: Lamb’s photo album, Box 624 C, Edith A. Lamb, Mysore South India 7 August 1901.

© The Methodist Church/TMCP.

Mitralaya Girls High School

Artist: Anil Kumar

Mitralaya, the first boarding school for girls and also the first Kannada and English medium school in Bangalore started by missionary Benjamin Rice and his wife Jane Rice, back in 1842.

In 1840, the wife of Rev James Sewell, with the help of Benjamin and Jane Rice, started the first Kannada day-school for girls in the Pete area. Two years later, Jane herself started the first Kannada boarding school for local girls. “It was called the London Mission Girls Boarding School and was located close to the Yelahanka Gate of the fort, which is near the Mysore Bank Circle today ,“ said Prasad. The school was moved to its current location on Mission Road and was renamed Mitralaya Girls High School after independence. It is now managed by the Church of South India Trust Association.

Few ghost stories around this school:

While girls played hopscotch and running and catching on the compound of this school, ghosts too seemed to be having their bit of fun amongst the students. One day while Rani was looking for her friends during a game of hide and seek during lunch break, she thought she spotted someone behind the big tamarind tree near the classrooms. On walking stealthily to catch her friend, she saw not the friend but a cat playing tricks with her. Rani stared at the cat wide eyed as it changed its avatar from cat to a bird then to a frog and before it could take the avatar of the principal, Rani sprinted away to call all her friends and show them what she had found. They believe that these strange events happen because the School is built on a cemetery and the souls of the dead come alive as ghosts at night.

Mills and Boons

 
Artist: Archana Hande

In the cantonment area there are many girls hostels within the missionary complex. Girls who stayed in the hostel had an independent life but were looked after by the missionary nuns. Many books were exchanged with these girls and nuns – like mills and boons.

Across two roads was Hutchins road, where a very well known library made its home. The mind and heart of young girls would travel across the street to this library to borrow the collection of “Mills and Boon.” It was a treat to the inquisitiveness these hostelites held in and they would devour pages of these books while reading under lamps late at night and giggling away while flipping through the coloured pages Mills and Boons offered. The young nuns often borrowed these books to read and had mixed emotions but who could stop a girls from having some fun!

Victoria Hospital

Victoria Hospital, Bangalore – Wiele's Studio

The century-old premier Medical Institutions of India was laid on 22nd June 1897 to help patients during the plague, by her highness Kempananjammani Avaru, the then maharani regent of Mysore. It commemorated the completion of 60 years of the reign of Queen Victoria in India and Lord Curzon, the then viceroy of India formally inaugurated it on 8th December 1900. It started as a health care centre with 140 beds.

It is one of the haunted places today, as we hear few ghost stories:

It was just another night. The dark clouds were looming all over and apart from the cries of pain from the patient ward, there was a strange eeriness through the corridors of Victoria hospital. One of the patients got up and screeched looking out of the window. A white ghostly figure was crawling through the thick branches of the tree on the hospital compound wall. The nurses ran to the patient only to find food missing from the ward and the patients intact in their beds.

The ghost still visits this century old hospital near the city market. He is probably the fun hungry kind most people have come to believe now

When the Goddesses come to meet the masses.

Photographer: Clare Arni, Design by Shree Tej

Mother Mary's descends in her chariot pulled by her devotees in Shivajinagar, this is a secular festival that emerges from the oldest church in Bangalore at Blackpalli (Shivajinagar), of Kannika Matha Koil (1658)- the Temple of the Virgin Mother which was upgraded by the Pope as the St. Mary's Basilica. This locality and the dense Commercial streets with their mosques and temples call out to the customers and devotees alike. During the busy Christmas time, small cribs of Baby Jesus in the manger are sold to decorate homes that have a decorated Christmas tree that is clothed in white surgical cotton to remind us of the white Christmas, back home.

 

Martin Henry Postcard Collection, Bengaluru.

Date and place unknown.Muthyalamma temple has a chariot festival

Artist: Archana Hande,  Maryamma, Ulsoor

From the bylanes of Shivajinagar, the multicolored gopuram of Muthyalamma temple has a chariot festival that comes onto Sepping road and brings people from far and near. One among the many primordial 'Devis' of Bengaluru, guardians to the devotees, these formidable and bloodthirsty goddesses are armed with tridents, swords and fearful eyes that destroy all forms of evil, especially the diseases like smallpox, the deadly plague and now the Corona. The Goddesses have to be celebrated and given offerings of animal sacrifice, lemons, neem leaves, curd, salt and peppercorns and devotees appease her by piercing the bodies and walking on smouldering coals. Men and transgender evoke the goddesses by transforming themselves into divine humans, smeared in turmeric and clothed in bitter antiseptic neem leaves and healing lemons. The Goddesses Muthyalamma and her many sisters take to the streets to greet the devotees in elaborate chariots to meet them. It is here that faith heals the sick and answers your 101 prayers for every need and greed.

Miṣanarigaḷu - The FIRANGI Phantoms -1

1840–1920

Usage of photography and iconography by missionaries 

Martin Henry Postcard Collection, Bengaluru. Date and place unknown.

Plauge Hospital and Travelling tent for medical help during the plauge by the missionaries.  

 

Excerpts from- Seeing like the Missionary: 

An Iconography of Education in Mysore, 1840–1920, 

Article by Janaki Nayar 

Missionaries working in Mysore, as elsewhere in India, took enthusiastically to the new art of photography from the 1840s, to record their ‘views’ of the society they undertook to transform. The use of the camera and the photographer's evidentiary superiority to document, record, celebrate and annotate educational progress, improvement and enlightenment. By exploring a range of photographs focused on their educational endeavours, plague relief camps and hospitals Especially in southern India. There was an emerging field of power around the camera. 

Evangelising was, however, early on, allied with education as a way for missionaries to make their way into a complex, hierarchical society with learning traditions of its own. How did the missionary ‘see’ the Indian classroom, and invite the viewer of their photographs to participate in its narrative of ‘improvement’? What was the place of the photograph at a time when meticulous written records were kept of victories and reverses in the mission field of education? 

 Pial or Verandah School

Source: Clare Arni/Martin Henry Postcard Collection, Bengaluru.

Note: Date and place unknown.

Wesleyan Mission Girls’ Boarding School, Bangalore, 1901

Source: Lamb’s photo album, Box 624 C, Edith A. Lamb, Mysore South India 7 August 1901 

© The Methodist Church/TMCP.

Revealing the work of the photograph in aiding missionary work must perforce begin with the more instrumentalist uses of this new art, as technologies of recording par excellence, before turning to the possible ways of looking at photographs, whether by those contemporaries of the missionaries who were physically distanced from the location, and were yet linked to their work in India, or when they formed part of the contemporary historian’s archive. Here one may exploit photography’s ‘inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation and fantasy’ instead of its truth-telling capacity. I am precisely posing a dynamic and perhaps even antagonistic relationship between the copious written and the sparser visual record of educational changes in Mysore in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This investigation of the visual field in the service of education also allows us also to speculate about the specific aesthetic achievements of missionary photography, with its own pedagogic goals.

Missionary societies admittedly placed greater value on the written word than on the sketch or the photograph, particularly in the period up to 1914. Portraits in writing were produced with ‘the speed and truth of the photograph’.

The painstaking record-keeping and the photographs helped uncover not only moments when they converged and complemented each other but also when they revealed those gaps and differences or contradictions in the missionary enterprise.

 There is no doubt that many of the photographs came to be used for propagandistic work in the metropole, of which the missionary postcard and the souvenir are good examples, often coming much later than when the image was first produced. Little is known of the relationship between those who posed for or depicted in the photographs and their role in their framing; Their very heterogeneity could reveal an interest in preservation, forms and sources of manipulation of the image, and also the circumstances under which such photographs were taken.

Source: Clare Arni/Martin Henry Postcard Collection, Bengaluru.

Note: Date and place unknown.

Missionary knowledge production was unlike the ethnographic survey and report and the

mission photograph was rarely displayed in exhibitions or museums. Christraud M. Geary reminds us that only a proportion of photographs were intended for stylized or public circulation (notoriously the postcard), though researchers today have access to many personal photographs that were never intended for more widespread viewing. The relationship of power between photographer and the photographed subject could, therefore, be profoundly unidirectional, as in the former case, or more of a negotiation, less posed or stylistic, even effective, as in the personal album.

 

The Cantonment - The End of the beginning -2

1791 | 1926 | 1935 | 1952 

What to say, bugger!

Parade Ground Bangalore Cantonment

The first use of "Anglo-Indian" was to describe all British people who lived in India. People of mixed British and Indian descent were referred to as "Eurasians". Now terminology has changed, and the latter group is now called "Anglo-Indians" In the Government of India Act of 1935, an Anglo-Indian was formally identified as “a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is a native of India.” The key points of that definition were retained when Anglo-Indians were listed as an official minority group in India’s constitution in 1950. Between 1952 and 2020, two seats were reserved in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India, for members of the Anglo-Indian community. These two members were nominated by the President of India on the advice of the Government of India. In January 2020, the Anglo-Indian reserved seats in the Parliament and State Legislatures of India were discontinued by the 126th Constitutional Amendment Bill of 2019, when enacted as the 104th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019.

The last remnants of the Anglo Indian community and their culture are still visible in pockets of Bangalore; they evoke nostalgic and romantic associations of the quaint Cantonment that was established by the British in the early 1800s. For many who have studied in the many Bangalore schools in these areas, we have friends who have invited us home for their much-awaited Christmas Parties and served us a buffet of the most delicious food-Yellow rice and Meatball curry, cutlets, devil's chutney, roasted duck, pork ham roast, with the accompaniment of apple chutney and brinjal pickles and papadams. All this was served with sweet wine and an array of desserts of Kal-Kals and the rum-drenched Christmas pudding - fruit cake. Burp!

As the last reminder of the Anglo Indians and their culture, the monkey topped colonial homes with gardens that seem to be the last remnants of the colonial era. There have been several memories from this part that have been etched in our memories. From apple trees in the backyard, rose bushes on the lawns watered by Maalis. The Sahibs and Memsahibs who lived in another world, went to the club to play bridge and have the quintessential Gin and tonic. Horses and "Gaarys " carried them around the Cantonment to the Parade Cafe and the many other cabarets that dotted the areas. The "Ugly sweater" parties" and the sumptuous Potluck parties continue to remind us of the Jolly good days.

 

Artist: Archana Hande

Anglo Indian Lingo and Dingo Story,

Why Anglo Indians were called Dingo? Derogatory term for Anglo-Indians in particular, or Indians of mixed descent in general. Origin supposed to be from "dingo" Australian wild dog but more humorous origins exist is -- the people who 'dint go' to Australia after the independence were jokingly called 'dingos'. The Anglo Indians thought London was their home and when they were left behind by the British the 2nd option for them was Australia. Their desire to re-locate to Australia, actively seeking information about Australian culture or the Anglos who 'dint go'? is very well connected.

Patrick Wilson, the Cantonment boy, narrates the stories from his life that are vignettes of life in the bygone era. A faded sepia photograph in a dusty almirah smelling of mothballs and camphor. As told to Suresh Jayaram by Patrick Wilson:

Story - 1

There was a gentleman called Lal Kaka who loved the British so much that he was the chairman of the "Empire loyalist", a group of Bangalore citizens who worshipped the Sahibs. He was so faithful to the British Crown that he hoisted the Union Jack in his garden on Independence and Republic day without fail and played the "God save the Queen" on his gramophone, much after the British had left the country in1947. We were so naughty that we threw stones at his bungalow.

Story - 2

My grandmother was Mrs.Millicent Kohloff of Danish descent wrote a postcard to Mr.Narayan Rao, her "Verandah Tailor" who lived in No.3, Bread and Butter Street which had all the bakeries that sold all the goodies on Old Poor house in the Cantonment. I posted her postcard that requested him to come next week to stitch all her dresses. The women around in the area exchanged notes with each other about patterns and cuts of the "day frocks" and local gossip. Mr.Narayan faithfully came carrying his sewing machine on his shoulder and sat in the Verandah of our Bungalow stitching her dresses.

Story - 3

 

From the postcard collection of Martin Henry; Lalbagh

My mother Rita Wilson in the 1930s loved to go to the famous Lalbagh flower shows. She sent a postcard to Mr.David who had a garage of Horse-drawn carriages at the "Gharry House" down All Saint bakery three months in advance. The horse-drawn carriage came home on the designated day and took my family to Lalbagh, riding from Langford town and the steep uphill to the flower show for a picnic basket with Cucumber Sandwiches, cakes, and l cold lemonade on the lawns. We watched the beautiful flowers in bloom and heard the brass band playing at the Bandstand. 

From the postcard collection of Martin Henry,
Lalbagh Bandstand

Story - 4

I loved riding my cycle around town and watch the "Mud tank" full of lotuses and lilies when I was a child, I even saw young boys who couldn't swim drowning in these tanks, they used to get caught in the marshy waters and die, it was later made into the Hockey stadium.

The Sampangi Ramnagar kere was another large water body that supplied water to the Bangalore club and we saw bullock being washed; there were large coconut plantations and agriculture around the area, this became the Kanteerava Sports stadium. The Dhobhi ghat near the Garuda mall was very active with washermen washing and drying our clothes taken on donkeys, this was also drained to become the football stadium. We lost all the water bodies in the city, one by one to be developed into sports facilities.

 
From the postcard collection of Martin Henry designed by Anchita Kaul

Story - 5

Winston Churchill was posted in Bangalore when he was a young soldier and the United Service club, later known as the Bangalore Club, has a ledger that states he owned at the club a laundry bill of 13 rupees and 8 annas. Winston Churchill spent his leisurely time in Bangalore. Outside his routine military duty he was collecting butterflies, growing a variety of roses. it was exclusively created for British officers, and here as he owes the club 13 rupees for unpaid bills for his laundry, dated 1868 in the club's ledger. He rode his horse at the Military barracks in front of the Elgin floor mill on Hosur road. The horses were kept down the road behind the Johnson Market at the Arab lines. The riding was later shifted to the current Bangalore Turf Club.

Bangalore Club Account book showing an unpaid bill of Rs 13 

Gin and Tonic & Dewars

"From the streets to the halls of power, Bangalore’s liquor industry has shaped the city’s destiny for more than a century" - Raghu Karnad 

  

Artist Paul Fernadise, Watercolour

Image courtsey: https://apaulogy.com

While in Bangalore today the micro breweries see tons of people with arms around one another singing and dancing while swaying drunk from side to side, back in the time of the colonial rule, beer from dewars was a “health drink” and was strictly medical strategy to provide the troops of the Civil & Military Station.

Indians were shooed away from the dewars and it was a hang out spot for only the british soldiers that trooped out of horse drawn carriages. The kitchen was run by Richard the mechanic anna. He was a mechanic repairing all motor vehicles around Dewars bar, but when the bar opened, he ran into the kitchen to use all the magic he had in his hands to cook the mouth watering bread-crumb coated fish fillets along with all the beer snacks Dewars is famous for.

Every Gin and Tonic has a colonial hangover. We can recollect its connection to the British troops in India who fought Tippu Sultan, and were also fighting the Indian Mosquitoes with Tonic water, a refreshing drink infused with Quinine from the Cinchona tree, a Malaria drug to save them from the dreaded Malaria. The indigenous peoples of South America already knew about the healing properties of cinchona bark, but it was their European conquerors who first used the bark to treat malaria. The Cinchona trees were introduced in 1859 in the Nilgiris, Annamalai's, and Darjeeling by the British and was also stockpiled the drug which was most often unavailable to the common Indians.

The Cantonment - The end of the beginning -1

1809

The Pete and The Cantonment historic colonial division of Bangalore.

Bangalore city map, circa 1924 from "Murray's 1924 Handbook",
with the Pete and Cantonment areas clearly visible.

Bangalore’s ‘Pete’ has a longer history than that of the Cantonment. During the British period, Bangalore was divided into the ‘Old town’ or the ‘native town, and the ‘Cantonment’. The ‘native town’, which is now thickly populated, was originally called Pete, which refers to an urban or commercial settlement.

It soon developed an economic vibrancy for the Mysore plateau along with Srirangapatna and Mysore, absorbing the manufactures of towns such as Channapatna, Doddaballapur, and Kanakapura. Over time, to the east of the Pete, the British Cantonment developed a special identity with wide tree-lined avenues, telegraph, telephone connections, and railway lines.

It seems the gruesome fourth Anglo Mysore war in the late 1700s led to the unfortunate defeat of the Tiger of Mysore, Tipu Sultan and his troops and the capture of Srirangapatna, by the British army. Marching their way victoriously, they declared the town to be their cantonment and established a large military establishment there. However, even after winning a war, they were defeated by the raging plight of mosquitoes in the region and fled to Bangalore to establish their cantonment. Cantonment was actually named ‘Civil and Military (C&M) Station’. The Station covering an area of twelve and a half square miles established by the British Military Garrison

The British morphed the city slowly and it emerged to be culturally and socio - economically demarcated; a traditional Indian city of the time on one side of the map and a city with a colonial attitude on the other. The Pete and Cantonment laid hold on the western and eastern zone of the city, respectively. The toll was charged for people from the city to enter Cantt, and vice versa.

Bangalore Hunt

Photographs from the archive of Stephen Simon Simmons,

Posted to Bangalore Cantonment, 1934

 

Artist: Ayisha Abraham
Bangalore Hunt
Photographs from the archive of Stephen Simon Simmons,
Posted to Bangalore Cantonment, 1934

These postcards are based on real-life events and characters, 
from fragments of memories from my past and from found 

media that have now become a part of our collective history.
- Ayisha Abraham, June, 2021

This work is derived from a small private archive of photographs and newspaper cuttings, annotations, letters and postcards that document the Bangalore Hunt from the early 1930’s. Stephen Simmons was posted with the British Army to Bangalore in 1934. He was stationed in the Cantonment area and in charge of the Hunt, which was meticulously planned and executed as a leisure time sport. The photographs are mostly of the dogs, horses and other small animals that were hunted. Picnic outings for families accompanied these hunts. These unusual photographs reveal the landscape and it’s expanse of fields and lakes as though it were a backdrop for an action-packed drama.

Shifting the ground to the sky in these postcards emphasis this surreal enactment of the Colonial sport.

The Paper Journeys of my Grandfather

I.S. Andrews (1890-1965)

2, Lloyd Road, Cooke Town, Bangalore 560005

Artist: Ayisha Abraham

The Paper Journeys of my Grandfather
I.S. Andrews (1890-1965)
2, Lloyd Road, Cooke Town, Bangalore 560005

These postcards are based on real-life events and characters, 

from fragments of memories from my past and from found 

media that have now become a part of our collective history. 

- Ayisha Abraham, June, 2021

My grandparents bought a Colonial Bungalow in Cooke Town in the 1950’s and retired from bustling Bombay to the then quiet Bangalore. My grandfather loved his solitude, read books and wrote articles. My grandmother in contrast enjoyed being social, making friends and nurturing relationships. My grandfather was born in 1889 and by the time he had retired he had traversed half a century as witness to British Rule in the subcontinent, industrialization, urbanization and India’s struggle for Independence. He had worked for the Madurai police, served in Mesopotamia during World War 1 and become a journalist with the Bombay Chronicle, a daily newspaper. By the end of his life he had left behind a trail of paper documents that chronicled this ‘Modern’ life. This detritus, scrap paper, paraphernalia, and trivia, were preserved by him and then safely locked away in a trunk by my grandmother in their Cooke Town house. This collection includes a pink paper pass from 1914 to enter a British war camp in Amara, Mesopotamia, an earlier police report of a brutal murder, an updated CV for further employment, numerous application forms of bureaucracies, certificates validating his skills and a detailed typewritten account of his early life with his father in the 19th century when bullock carts were the means of transport before the railways were built.

“In 1885 when my father took charge of the BI agency in Calingaptnam there was no railway between Calcutta and Madras. Construction of the East coast railway as it was then called, commenced later and although more or less half of it was completed and in operation around 1895, these 2 ports were not entirely connected up until about 1900. Those who lived in this coastal area, devoid of railways were naturally subjected to much inconvenience and hard ship and had to go without many commodities necessary for their comfort and welfare. Fortunately for them, long before the advent of the railway, the company had brought about a great improvement in living conditions, by establishing regular coastal steamer service, which enabled merchants to export and import much needed goods at the same time provide a very essential passenger service. The only other mode of travel was by bullock cart. My father once had an occasion to proceed to an inland town about 60 miles away and took my brother and myself with him. We travelled three nights by bullock cart, camping under trees by day.”

The Nighty Revolution

Artist: Surekha

In the 18th century, the nightgown made an appearance in India. “It travelled back with the Fishing Fleet, those ambitious young women from England who came out in droves to India to find husbands,” said Bidapa. It seems the dress came back as a fashion in India by Indian women who returned after working in the Middle East.

The Nightie made a grand appearance amongst the Indian Women in the 1970s. This free-flowing nightwear allowed for unconfined movement and became an epitome of functionality for women of all classes. Block-printed, dyed, collaged nighties made their way through household work, assisted women while shopping, in farms, at temples, and posed with confidence on bikes while dropping children off to school. The nightie adjusted and adapted itself to any occasion. It is a woman's best friend.

The humble nightie is now the great leveler of classes. Worn by women in India, it eliminates all kinds of hierarchy existing until now with women’s clothes. Nighties refute the difference between indoor and outdoor, night and day, market and temple, rich and the poor, even when all these social structures have by and large been very uneasy with a casual, spontaneous, and down-to-earth nightie.

However, this became a dress that refuted its initial definitions and parameters and became the unifying element capturing the diversity of India. In India, the nightie has a new post-colonial reincarnation: it is actually a triumph of Indian ingenuity. The Indian woman has repurposed a piece of clothing to make it fit her own needs and comfort. A shapeless garment, it is a women’s liberation – in a bag. It’s completely self-made and has evolved as a new Indian national dress. No other clothing, not even the sari, enjoys such pan-Indian appeal.

Artist: Archana Hande

As the Indian women assert their freedom to wear the Nightie, patriarchy raises its ugly head with rules and regulations. We see notices that curb this ubiquitous garment."Don't wear the Nightie during the day.No more dropping off the kids in your nightie to school, or when going to pray in the temple, shopping, or even their friends in the women's self-help groups. But the nighty is a revolution. “It is our national dress”.