in bits and pieces
Gandhi at the hospital of Dr. Shamboo Nath Peshin
3rd August, 1947
Nehru in Srinagar with Sheikh Mohd Abdullah (members of NC) and Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Habba Kadal
1932
Hari Singh with trout.
From Aurel Stein, Eugen Hultzsch, John Marshal, Alfred Stratton to George Grierson, all of them were helped in their studies of Kashmir by a man in Srinagar named Pandit Mukund Ram Shastri. In early 1900s, 23 of the 29 books of “Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies” were brought out by Research Department of Jammu and Kashmir under his editorship. Books that are still read and shared in academic circles. And yet, if you Google Image Search, you will find no photograph of Mukund Ram Shastri. You can easily find Stein, Hultzsch, Marshal, Stratton and George Grierson, but no Mukund Ram Shastri. Given here is a photograph of Mahamahopadhyaya Pandit Mukund Ram Shastri, found in the biography of Stratton, ‘Letters from India, by Alfred William Stratton, with a memoir by his wife Anna Booth Stratton and an introductory note by Professor Bloomfield’ (1908).
Photographs of Kashmir by M.S. Randhawa for his ‘Farmers of India’ series. These are from Volume 1 (1959) that covered Northern India.
[Photographer: Hari Krishna Gorkha]
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| A Kashmiri Muslim mother with child |
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| A Kashmiri Muslim Girl |
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| Kashmiri woman pounding rice |
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| A village family taking tea |
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| A village family enjoying Gae’r (Singadas/ water chestnuts) |
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| An elderly Kashmiri Muslim couple |
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| Kashmiri Muslim village children |
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| A Kashmiri farmer ploughing his fields |
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| Thrashing Paddy |
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| A typical Village |
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| Houses in a prosperous village |
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| A Kashmiri Pandit farmers’s house |
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| A corner of the Reading Room in the Women’s College at Srinagar. 1956 |
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| Goddess of Dance, Indrani 7th Century, Kashmir Sri Pratap Museum This Goddess of Dance, Indrani 7th Century, Kashmir Sri Pratap Museum This one was came from Badamibagh in 1926. About 20 other were found in Pandrethan between 1923 and 1933 while digging of military barracks were going on in the area. More than 500 relics were found. Now not much remains. |
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| Kashmiri Dancing Girl at Shalimar photograph by Herford Tynes Cowling, for National Geographic Magazine, October 1929. |
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| Vyjayanthimala in Amrapali inserted into a comic panel based on story of Hamsavali from Somadeva’s Kathasaritsagara. Somadeva, son of Brahman Rama, composed the Kathasaritasagara (between 1063 and 1081) for Queen Suryavati, daughter of Indu, the king of Trigarta (Jalandhar). She was the wife of King Anantadeva, who ruled Kashmir in the eleventh century. The story of Suryavati, Ananta, Kalsa and Harsha is perhaps the gruesomest tale from Rajatarangini that ends with Anata killing himself by sitting on a dagger and Suryavati going ablaze. |
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2017
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| Back waters of Dal Lake by Bill Strong. October 1975 |
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| ‘On road to Gulmarg’ by Bill Strong. January 1976 |
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| ‘View from Shankaracharya Hill ‘ by Bill Strong. January 1976 |
Checkout his complete Kashmir Album over at Flickr here
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| Bijbehara bridge, 1870 Photographer: Unknown. (Probably Bourne) [Update: Photographer: Francis Frith. An album dating around 1850s to 1870s. via: Victoria and Albert Museum.] |
About the Bijbihara Bridge, Pandit Anand Koul in his book ‘Geography of The Jammu and Kashmir State’ (1925)’ given the date of erection of the bridge as 1631 and name of builder as Mughal Prince Dara Shikoh. In additional remarks he states that the bridge was originally a little higher up.
Traditional mud, stone, brick and timber houses in Srinagar, Kashmir, 1989.
photo © Randolph Langenbach.
Via:
Update 8th July, 2017:
Inder Kaw: […]this is very much our house and my father Pt. Hari Krishen Kaw standing at the entrance door after he returned from California in 1988. He is holding a cane and right leg slighted due to his surgery here in San Jose after an accident. In 1990 I met a Cal Berkeley Professor Randolph Langenbach (Also my facebook friend now) in Late Kulbhushan Gupta,s house in Oakland on a Christmas Party. After introduction and pleasantries, he inquired where I originally hailed from. Upon hearing Srinagar, he informed me about his spending two years there as Consultant on environment to Jammu and Kashmir Government and that his speciality was earthquake proof housing. He thought Kasmirian and El-Salvadorian housing were the best earthquake proof housings in the world. He explained something to do with Daji-Deewari, Viram (The long staff) and ductility etc. Upon parting he asked for my address so he would send me his research paper on the subject, he published.Three days later, a tight vanilla envelope arrived by mail and upon pulling the journal slowly from the envelope, the first thing what appeared on the glossy cover of the journal was “American preservation technology journal”, further thrust pulling the magazine out revealed the whole glossy cover page with journal name and this particular picture on the front page. […]
And BTW the house in question has been demolished by people who bought from us and a brand new structure erected taller than 4 stories house we lived in, informs my nephew Avinash Kachroo.
Avinash Kachroo The particular building of the group which formed the original household and works of Pt. Sahajram Kaw’s sons pictured here ceased to stand when I visited the very spot from where the picture was taken, in 2015 – effecting whatever little closure I needed on Kashmir (having born and raised out of Kashmir). The front building long dispossessed still stood, though extremely dilapidated.
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| Duck vendor Bus stand market, Anantnag District, Kashmir. July 9-11, 1969. |
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| Pajama string seller End of First Bridge Bazaar, Srinagar, Kashmir. June 30-July 1, 1969. By Richard Neil Lerner.
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Photographs of Kashmir in 1969 by anthropologist Richard Neil Lerner. Via: Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, check for more.
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| The Mission Hospital, Srinagar. From ‘Thirty years in Kashmir’ (1913) by Arthur Neve.
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