‘Pictorial postcards are history’

Islamabad : The Asian Study Group, in collaboration with Serena Hotel, hosted a delightful evening with historian and writer Fakir Syed Aijazuddin who did a presentation based on his latest book, Forgotten Images: Postcards of Pre-Pakistan, 1890-1947.

British High Commissioner Jane Marriott said many might know Aijazuddin in his professional capacity as a chartered accountant, but he had had a varied career - as an author, a writer, a member of the Academic Council of the Pakistan Administrative Staff College, Lahore, and latterly as principal of Aitcheson College, Lahore.

Aijazuddin delivered a multimedia presentation to a packed audience of diplomats and other residents, offering a second life to largely forgotten images of a fascinating pre-Partition time.

He said currently, pictorial postcards were history, but their historicity remained.

“Although replaced, postcards provide us and future generations of Pakistanis with an invaluable record of buildings, landscapes, events and people,” he said.

He said the postcards, overtaken by instant electronic communications, had lost their appeal but they had become of increasing interest to collectors and historians as a pictorial record of the recent past.

He said the postcards presented in the current volume illustrated provincial capitals - Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta - as well as other prominent cities and areas

in each province of pre-Pakistan, as they existed before 1947.

“From the late 19th century onward, postcards become a popular - even fashionable - form of communication. Traditional letter writing, which had the advantage of confidentiality, gradually gave way to the shorter, pithy message which could be scribbled on a postcard. In time, postal services universally standardised the format and by reducing rates made the use of postcards affordable.”

Aijazuddin said initially, Germany led the field in the manufacture of postcards, until the First World War of 1914-18, after which British and local presses filled the vacuum.