1909

Mahadev, the second son, is born. Dada enters into partnership with Seth Purushottam Das Mavji to open his Laxmi Printing Press in Dadar, Bombay. Leaves for Germany seeking higher technology in printing and on his return, prints "Swarnamala", a Marathi monthly, the first to use three colour process. Gets additional work from the Times of India.

But before we talk about Painter's prolific record as a studio painter, we must remember that both he and Anandrao began their careers as painters of stage curtains and designers of theatrical decor in well known companies of the time. In Bombay, in 1909-10, Keshavrao Bhosale ( actor producer) commissioned Anandrao to paint the "scenery" of his major productions. During this time, Baburao was running a photography studio in Anandbaug. The two joined hands and successfully completed the commission. :

Peary reaches the North Pole

The Indian Councils Act, 1909 ( Minto Morley Reforms) is announced, introducing elections while trying to split the nationalist movement along communal lines by introducing seperate electorates. Ananda Coomaraswamy publishes Essays in Nationalist Idealism. The Amateur Dramatics Association is started in Bangalore, associated with playwright T.P.Kailasam and stage actor-director Ballari Raghava, bringing modernism to Kannada theatre. Performance in Bengal of Dwijendralal Roy's historical, Shah Jehan. Together with Rana Pratapsingha (1904), Durgadas ( 1906), Noor Jehan ( 1907) and Mewar Patan ( 1908), Shah Jehan anchors the stage historical in communal and nationalist politics.

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1909 in phalke's journey

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Murder of Mr. Jackson, Collector of Nasik

The atmosphere of Nasik was no doubt exceptionally favourable for such morbid growths. For Nasik is no ordinary provincial town of India. It is one of the great strongholds of Hinduism. Its population is only about 25,000, but of these about 9,000 belong to the Brahmanical caste, though only about 1,000 are Chitpavan Brahmans, the rest being mainly Deshastha Brahmans, another great sept of the Deccanee sacerdotal caste. It is a city of peculiar sanctity with the Hindus. The sacred Godavery--so sacred that it is called there the _Ganga_--i.e. the Ganges--flows through it, and its bathing _ghats_ which line the river banks and its ancient temples and innumerable shrines attract a constant flow of pilgrims from all parts of India. Indeed, many of the great Hindu houses of India maintain there a family priest to look after their spiritual interests. Nasik was, moreover, a city beloved of the Peshwas, and, next to Poona preserves, perhaps, more intimate associations with the great days of the Mahratta Empire than any other city of the Deccan. But though no doubt these facts might account for a certain latent bitterness against the alien rulers who dashed the cup of victory away from the lips of the Mahrattas, just as the latter were establishing their ascendency on the crumbling ruins of the Moghul Empire, they do not suffice to account for the attitude of the people generally in presence of such a crime as the assassination of Mr. Jackson. For if murder is a heinous crime by whomsoever it may be committed, it ranks amongst Hindus as specially heinous when committed by a Brahman. How is it that in this instance, instead of outcasting the murderer, many Brahmans continued more or less secretly to glorify his crime as "the striking down of the flag from the fort"? How is it that, when there was ample evidence to show that murder had been in the air of Nasik for several months before the perpetration of the deed, not a single warning, not a single hint, ever reached Mr. Jackson, except from the police, whose advice, unfortunately, his blindly trustful nature led him to ignore to the very end? How is it that, even after its perpetration, though there was much genuine sympathy with the victim and many eloquent speeches were delivered to express righteous abhorrence of the crime, no practical help was afforded to the authorities in pursuing the ramifications of the conspiracy which had "brought disgrace on the holy city of Nasik"?

All this opens up wide fields for speculation, but there is one point which a statement solemnly made by the murderer of Mr. Jackson has placed beyond the uncertainties of speculation. In reply to the magistrate who asked him why he committed the murder, Kanhere said:--

  I read of many instances of oppression in the _Kesari_, the
  _Rashtramat_ and the _Kal_ and other newspapers. I think
  that by killing _sahibs_ [Englishmen] we people can get justice.
  I never got injustice myself nor did any one I know. I now
  regret killing Mr. Jackson. I killed a good man causelessly.

Can anything be much more eloquent and convincing than the terrible pathos of this confession?[6] The three papers named by Kanhere were Tilak's organs. It was no personal experience or knowledge of his own that had driven Kanhere to his frenzied deed, but the slow persistent poison dropped into his ear by the Tilak Press. Though it was Kanhere's hand that struck down "a good man causelessly," was not Tilak rather than Kanhere the real author of the murder? It was merely the story of the Poona murders of 1897 over again.

Other incidents besides the Nasik tragedy have occurred since Tilak's conviction to show how dangerous was the spirit which his doctrines had aroused. One of the, gravest, symptomatically, was the happily unsuccessful attempt to throw a bomb at the Viceroy and Lady Minto whilst they were driving through the streets of Ahmedabad during their visit to the Bombay Presidency last November. For that outrage constituted an ominous breach of all the old Hindu traditions which invest the personal representative of the Sovereign with a special sanctity.

But in spite of spasmodic outbreaks, of which we may not yet have seen the end, aggressive disloyalty in the Deccan has been at least temporarily set back since the downfall of Tilak. The firmer attitude adopted by the Government of India and such repressive measures as the Press Act, combined with judicious reforms, have done much; but it was by the prosecution of Tilak that the forces of militant unrest lost their ablest and boldest leader--perhaps the only one who might have concentrated their direction, not only in the Deccan, but in the whole of India, in his own hands and given to the movement, with all its varied and often conflicting tendencies, an organization and unity which it still happily seems to lack. ( from Indian Unrest by Valentin Chirol, published 1910) 'Pandit' Jackson was going to the Native theatre when he was shot by a young Chitpavan from Aurangabad- Ananta Laxman Kanhere. ( akin to Lincoln? in Griffith's film)

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Marinetti declares movement is a aesthetic category ( Futurist Manifesto)

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Government of the Maharaja of Mysore declares abolition of the devdasi system. Temples were to not use their services any more

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All the same, when the lights come on in the streets in the evening and the reflection of the coconut fronds quivers on the mirror, I cannot bear to stand there ( Chitrakar)... Much of my childhood was cramped by this girdle of fear