Figure 1.--We notice three children of an unidentified Indian family. The portrait is undated, but looks rather like the 1940s to us. It would seem to be a rather prosperous, Westernized middle-class family. Note the boy and the younger girl wears Western dress. The teenage girl wears a traditional sari. The boys wear a white shirt abd short pants with white socks and leather shoes. The leather shoes in particular show a degree of affluence and Westernization. The younger girl wears a diaphonous dress. It is not styled like a sari, but the fabric is similar.

We notice three children of an unidentified Indian family. The children look to be about 8-15 years old. The portrait is undated, but looks rather like the 1940s to us. Notice the boy's glasses. We think that they rule out the 1950s and the other clothes rule out the 30s. It would seem to be a rather prosperous, Westernized middle-class family. Note the boy and the younger girl wears Western dress. The teenage girl wears a traditional sari. The boys wear a white shirt and short pants with white socks and leather shoes. The long-sleeve shirt is interesting. Most areas of India have warm climates. The leather shoes in particular show a degree of affluence and Westernization. The younger girl wears a diaphonous dress. It is not styled like a sari, but the fabric is similar. It is interesting to see the degree of westernization here, but even with a Westernized family the older girl wears traditional clothing. We are not sure if that is because she liked to dress up in a beautiful sari, but usually wore Western clothes. A reader writes, "I suspect that the family is more than middle class with those clothes because at the time, India had very few wealthy and even fewer middle class as we would know them in the United StatesS. A professional such as a doctor or a lawyer could earn the equivalent of a major corporate executive at the time with many servants, at least that is what my friends who were born in India have stated." We are not sure it is accurate to say that there were fewer middle-class people than upper-class people. We do believe that the middle-class was much smaller than in Europe and America. We do think that our reader is correct that the family probably was affluent. We also believe that they were probably Hundu Brahmins.

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Created: 3:24 AM 11/4/2011
Last updated: 3:24 AM 11/4/2011