Kashmir, Rangoon, Inle Lakes

A tour of Kashmir and Kabul (Afghanistan) in 1928, showing camel racing, hunting with elephants, and yogic fire swinging

The freedom of movement across colonial territory, places now afflicted by war, brings great poignancy to this amateur travelogue. By car (it seems) from Kashmir to Kabul and on to Burma, people of different class, race and pre- and post-industrial cultures rub alongside each other. The filmmaker's fascination is with local customs - including camel racing and an upside-down yogi, swinging over a lit fire.

The film was shot by Frederick Marshman Bailey, an officer in British intelligence officer with a personal and professional interest in the region from Afghanistan and India's North West Frontier all the way to Tibet. Bailey was also a keen photographer and collector of birds and butterflies, whose collections and papers are now in the Natural History Museum and the British Library, as well as the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Preti Taneja