Old india – History is always mysterious and intriguing. A civilization doesn’t prosper if it doesn’t take cues from the history.
The historical mishaps teach us to take extra precaution and failures teach us to mend our ways towards advancing the civilization. There is more to history than the anecdotes given in the school textbooks and only when you backpack around the remnants of the bygone past, you explore them on a different plane. Technology wasn’t as advanced in the yesteryear but still some photography enthusiasts sealed some precious moments of history in the camera. All thanks to them, that we can catch a glimpse of our rich history and not to mention, they are quite the visual treat.
Here are some pictures of 1900 century Old india that we bet you haven’t seen in your lifetime:
Old india pictures –
1 – Raja Deendayal’s photography:
Recently, BBC released photographs clicked by the renowned photographer of 19th century Raja Deen Dayal who started his career in 1870s as a court photographer. He fared in every venture of his which really leave us in awe, especially the pomp and grandeur of the royal palaces which was Deen Dayal’s forte. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts holds at least 3000 plates of his photography in Delhi.
He clicked the pictures of the palaces that belonged to the bigwigs of 19th century colonial India and in this picture we can see the interiors of the palace owned by Indian king Nizam Mabub Ali Khan.
This photo too was clicked by the 19th century famous photographe Raja Deen Dayal who was appointed as the royal family photographer in the year 1894, he was a legendary photographer whose stint lasted for 1844 to 1905. In this picture we can see the king of Hyderabad Nizam Mabub Ali posing with his tiger kins.
2 – Famines of India photograph:
This picture is from the Orissa famine which lasted from 1866 to 67. The coastal district of Balasore was highly impacted from the famine and thousands of people were starved to death. The famine even spread in the nearby northern state Bihar along with the inland cities of Hyderabad and the present state of Andhra Pradesh and Mysore in the Karnataka state. The total span was 180,000 square miles.
3 – The legendary woman of India:
This woman called Charlotte Ellaby arrived in Mumbai in the year 1884 after being appointed as a junior medical officer and went on to make history with her philanthropic works. She was the first one to achieve a medical degree at par with the male doctors. She was the first to set up a separate ophthalmic section for the unprivileged and she even travelled to Hyderabad for other medical missions.
4 – The sepoy photograph of India:
This photo is of the Sikh infantry of the late 1800/early 1900 period in India.
5 – The Municipal building of Bombay:
This is how the municipal building looked like in the 19th century Bombay, now known as Mumbai.
6 – The Parsee woman and her son:
The Parsee people, who were refugees are now the citizens of India. You will see more of them in Mumbai. They were displaced from their homeland and sought to stay in Mumbai.
