SCENE 9. INT/EXT/PHALKE STUDIO GODHRA/FULL MOON NIGHT/1896
SCENE 9 / IN / EX / PHALKE STUDIO /GODHRA
FULL MOON NIGHT / 1896
Phalke and Kamala are asleep.
Suddenly, the silence is broken by a sound.
Phalke awakes. The noise seems to be coming from the upper floor. He picks up the
lantern and makes his way up the stairs. He comes to a closed door, and pushes it. It
creaks open slowly, and in the light of his lamp he sees that his books have vanished.
In the lamp’s light, a rat looks up at him mockingly, wiping its whiskers, burping after his
feast of books.
Tiny fragments of paper with letters on them are caught up in a whirlwind. The tiny
shards fuse together into a whole book, and fly out the window.
Phalke is mesmerized.
SCENE 10 / IN/EX / SPACE STUDIO FROM PHALKE FOOTAGE
DAY / 1917
Phalke dips his fountain pen into an ink pot with a picture of a swan on it.
He releases the tank and the pen sucks up the black ink.
Phalke sits with his pen poised over the paper, thinks for a while, and then starts writing.
PHALKE
I had already taken the advance for the books from some British customers, and they
wanted their deliveries, but the books had vanished. Why would anybody steal the books,
and who would believe me when I said that a rat had devoured them?
So to be on safe side I went to the police
SCENE 11 / IN / POLICE STATION / GODHRA
DAY / 1896
A lion-like policeman with a red beard seems unsympathetic to Phalke’s plight
POLICEMAN
We have checked every literate person. We can’t trace your so-called stolen books. And
we can’t raid the English.
By the way, do you recognize these photos?
PHALKE
I took them.
POLICE MAN
These boys went missing shortly after, and your photographs helped us to trace them.
Here is your prize money.
There is a murmur, like that of angry bees, from behind him.
He turns and sees that a crowd is gathering.
At the front of the hissing crowd stand the missing boys, staring at him like zombies with
their blind, white, pupil-less eyes.
POLICE MAN (CONT’D)
But these people think that you’re a sorcerer, Mr. Kelpha, and that your camera is the evil
eye.
By the way, what does Kelpha mean, Mr. Phalke?
PHALKE
It is the negative of my own name
Phalke walks out without a backward glance. The crowd watches him go, their eyes
boring into his receding back.
SCENE 12 / IN/EX / PHOTO STUDIO / GODHRA
DAY / 1896
Kamala is unpacking the glass bottles of developing chemicals that her husband had
ordered, waiting for him to come home.
Someone raps on the door.
KAMALA
Who is it?
PHALKE
Open up. It’s me
Kamala unbolts the door from inside.
Phalke enters and sits. She brings in water, and helps him wash his feet and face.
KAMALA
Did they find the thief?
PHALKE
No, instead, they turned on me.
KAMALA
Why?
Phalke sits to eat. She serves him.
PHALKE
Some boys had run away from home. My photographs helped in tracing them.
KAMALA
Then your magic came in handy, after all
PHALKE
You don’t understand.
They are accusing me of having unnatural powers
They went looking for the actual places of the back drops against which I had
photographed the boys, and found them still frozen in the same pose in which I had
snapped them, as though under a spell.... you are right, let’s go from here. Start packing.
KAMALA
Don’t be disheartened. Here’s a letter for you, from Nadkarni in Bombay, and a parcel.
Kamala finishes unpacking the parcel, examining the bottles of hypo, silver nitrate,
potassium nitrate, instruction booklets, addresses, Kodak labels, and Eastman’s face on
other products.
Phalke reads the letter.
LETTER
Your post cards are selling like crackers, especially the sexy poses of the white women.
Rail shail bhool jao. Sapere ki photo dekh kar been baj gai. Tumhare sher aur panditji ka
kissa shandar tha. Tum kya mujhe itna bevakoof samajhte ho?
Bechari Kamala bhabhi tumhari kalpana shakti ke samne, bechari. Thhad thada rahi hogi.
Tumhare chemicals aur film bhej raha hoon.
Ravi Varma ka Nal Damayanti dekha, ek videshi painting ki nakal hai. Khud milaker
dekh lo. Farq sirf itna hai vahan kapde utarti hai, yahan hum unhe kapde pehnate hain.
Vah raja saheb sach kaha, hindusthani nakal ka vaner shresht hai aur akbaar padhte ho ki
nahin? Tumhare raja sahib ke preyasi angoothi chaat kar chali gayi. Raja sahab ne inn
dinon painting chhod rakhi hai.
Phalke and Kamala compare the two versions of the Nal painting.
SCENE 13 / IN /EX / DARK ROOM / PHOTO STUDIO / GODHRA
NIGHT / 1896
Reading the instructions by candlelight, Phalke mixes photo chemicals in the tray.
One by one the photos emerge, ghost-like.
Sometimes, a photograph from the camera indica comes alive, and talks to him.
Phalke listens, head buried beneath a large black cloth, bent over the camera on a tripod.
He wipes his hands, comes out and shuts the door behind him, waiting for the prints to
dry.
Outside, Kamala is asleep, dreaming like a fairy.
He looks at her, a smile flickers on her face.
After a moment of absolute silence, he hears a sound from the direction of the dark room.
He goes to the door and stands there, listening.
Then, through a crack in the door, he peeps inside.
A little rat is licking the melted wax of the burning candle.
Then, like an acrobat, the rat jumps and lands with his feet on the rim of the hypo tray.
He starts drinking the chemicals of the tray, guzzling greedily to his heart’s content.
Phalke waits, holding his breath, watching.....his eyes curious.
After drinking a stomach full of hypo, the rat somersaults and lands on the table facing
the door.
Then he starts breathing in and out like in a yogic exercise.
Then Phalke sees something strange.
With every breath the rat takes, golden whiskers, like slender needles, begin to sprout
beneath his nose.
When he breathes out, the delicate needles of gold splinter and scatter across the table
top.
Then the rat notices Phalke watching him through the door. He stops, and runs away,
crashing into the candle which stands like a lamp post on the landscape of the table top.
The rat rights himself and skitters away.
Phalke enters the room, and touches the needles of golden hair. He smiles.
SCENE 14 / IN / EX / MARKET / GOLDSMITH’S SHOP / DAY
Phalke makes his way through a marketplace crowded with artisans and craftsmen
displaying their wares – silver ware, paintings, colorful wooden toys for children, and
wall hangings of embroidered cloth.
Finally, Phalke finds what he is looking for - a goldsmith’s shop.
Phalke takes out a cloth pouch from inside his shirt and empties it onto the glass topped
counter.
The rat’s golden whiskers tinkle delicately as they land.
The goldsmith lights a flame and fires the slender golden threads to check for purity.
The whiskers are pure gold.
The smith gathers all of them, and weighs them on a pair of tiny scales.
Then, the goldsmith pays Phalke, and he leaves.
SCENE 15 / IN / PHALKE PHOTO STUDIO / NIGHT
Phalke peeps into the darkroom through the gap in the door.
The rat is drinking from the tray of chemicals again.
He breathes in, and whiskers begin to sprout beneath his nose.
The tip of a single whisker begins to turn to liquid gold that drips onto the table top.
The molten metal swirls and fuses to form the shape of Ganapati.
It is a wonderful likeness of the elephant-headed god.
Phalke opens the door, and the rat scuttles away.
Wonder-struck, Phalke enters the room, picks up the sculpture and looks at it closely.
Phalke looks around, searching for the rat.
PHALKE
My lord, you seem to be the living embodiment of the divine sculptor himself
Suddenly, there is a noise from outside.
Frightened, the rat scampers up Phalke’s back and perches on his shoulder.
The knocking on the door becomes more aggressive, and in a flash, the rat disappears
inside Phalke’s coat.
Finding a tear in the lining, he wriggles frantically inside, scurrying into the small of
Phalke’s back.
The sensation causes Phalke to twist this way and that.
The knocking intensifies further; Phalke blows out the candle and goes out.
Petrified, Kamala is standing in the center of the room.
Three government officials have pushed their way into the house.
When Phalke comes out, Kamala takes shelter behind his back, as the officials begin to
up-end the contents of the room with their batons.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kamala notices a wriggling movement inside her husband’s
coat.
PHALKE
Is everything okay?
One of the officials, who seems to be a doctor, begins to examine Phalke. Then he turns
to Kamala. Phalke steps between them.
PHALKE (CONT'D)
Who are you?
OFFICIAL
We’re checking for plague. Do you have rats here? There’s a reward for every captured
rat.
The outlined shape on Phalke’s back begins to tremble.
PHALKE
No, there are no rats here, and nor is anybody ill
OFFICIAL
I’m sorry, but we’re just doing our duty. Watch out, we’re living in bad times
The officials leave.
Phalke re-enters the darkroom and picks up the statue of Ganapati.
Kamala sees it, and is astounded.
PHALKE
This is for you, to keep you safe when I am gone
SCENE 16 / EX / HILL VIEW OF THE GOLD CITY / GODHRA
EVENING / 1896
Sitting on Phalke’s shoulder, the rat is giving a discourse on the science of miracles.
At the foot of the hill, a golden city glitters. Phalke listens like a devotee.
RAT
Anybody can perform miracles who understands that the reality of the world is light. A
realized soul can restructure atoms of light in any shape. The tangible appearance of the
light atoms depends upon the desire and will power of he who conjures it, like long-dead
people appearing in his dream. I have clearly seen the absolute one-ness of the light
behind the painful multiplicity of the illusory world
A faint howling and screaming reaches us from the golden city below.
Slowly, a cloud of vultures start appearing in sky, swooping down towards the city
SCENE 17 / EX / TOWN SQUARE / GODHRA / DAY
A man hangs upside down in the view finder.
A hand outside the camera’s black cloth cover tells him to stay steady.
Inside the camera the man is upside down. Phalke snaps the shutter.
The lens opens like an eye and the plate moves upward.
The man in the frame feels dizzy, and falls down as if he has been flung aside.
He is dead.
Two men enter the frame and pull away the body.
Phalke emerges from beneath the black camera cloth and looks out.
The photographed man is being dragged away. The next man has taken his place.
People are being indexed and classified through their thumb prints, face measurement,
and recordings of voices for the Great India Project.
Suddenly, in a split second, a kite dives down towards the camera, lifts it up with its
claws, and flies away.
Phalke, balancing against the force of attack, looks up. He runs to follow the kite.
