he British assembled their lives in India in photo albums and shipped the precious tomes back home. The albums themselves are very similar: mostly pictures of places where their owners served, and a gallery of Indian servants in the back.
When their owners died, the albums lost their hearts. Within a generation many, like the Hawkshaw album, ended up in pawnshops.
A century later, their value is being rediscovered by the heirs to the people in the back of the albums. This audience is interested in seeing a familiar subcontinent long before an all-too-crowded present. This audience looks back at the colonial eye. | |