1876

Dada: Six year old Dhundiraj

Babaraya: You!

Dada: Six year old Dhundiraj is being trained for a career as a Sanskrit scholar. He is learning the grammar of an ancient language, and its verses.

One day, he goes to swim in the Ganga Godavari. He chops the waters with his arms and legs that are gathering strength

Prabhakar smiles

Prabhakar: He laughs as he hears the water break away from him and fly, in pieces, across the surface of the river. The sun warms his skin.

Saraswati: He is a frog in a large river, exulting in the small, sharp sound of his presence.

Dada: That is when he sees her.. the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, far more beautiful than his mother, glowing with the jewllery that covers her, sitting calmly over the snapping jaws of a river crocodile. Water surfing.

Dada closes his eyes. Dada: I will see her again in the kingdom of Kolhapur, when this skin had started closing over my eyes in protest of my having seen to much, of having asked too much of my eyes. Then Ganga will float again on a river of my mind.

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Your tata and I were bathing in the river.

The father recites purush shastra, and the son repeats. We hold our noses and plunge into the water, the river flowing over their heads. When father emerges, child is out of sight. Father anxiously looks for him, calls. Terror. Then suddenly son emerges at a distance. Father is angry. Walks out of the water. Son runs after him. Father pleads with him not to touch him.

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Image of Bhairava from Vidarbha, 19th century

Shri Trymbakeshwar Jyotirlinga

What do the learned books say about the mystery of the jyotirlinga? Because the word 'jyotirlinga' talks of light, and the word linga expresses both creation and destruction. Because the word 'linga' has two roots, one is drawing,form, and the other is movement. From the invisible, to a sense of the immanent, to the visible. In other words, for the darkness to open out of itself the multifarious forms of the visible world.

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As soon as the five forhead like crowns were removed from the face of the Jyotirlinga, the lamps sprung to light. The light started radiating outwards. The doors of the temple began to open. Several invisible hands began ringing the temple bells. His little sister ran after Dhunidraj in that courtyard surrounded by freshly limed walls. Dhundiraj entered the temple and stood there, quietly. Kamala was standing a little distance away, with her family. He picked up a piece of coal and said, Come, let me show you how I make a horse. They both ran into the silence of the temple. He drew the horse without lifting his hand even once. He stepped back from the wall to look at the horse he had made. Behind him, Kamala looked on with astonished eyes.

When they turned back, his sister was complaining to Shivram. Sister: Look, Kaka has blackened the wall again. I really dislike this, this is not a school yard!

Dhundi got scared and said, I won't do it again. But Kaka said, It is beautiful

and it seemed like a the moment had opened itself out into a surprise that he knew was always there but did not know it could reveal itself.

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Lord Lytton

Famine between 1976-78. Bombay affected seriously

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At the same time Lytton introduced a Custom duty on textile goods exported to England.

Dramatic Performances Act, 1876. Restriction on subversive, anti state content in performance April 8, 1876. Bell gets the patent for the telephone. Patent list from the newspaper "Scientific American" where it is listed at Telegraphy

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Ravi Varma gets a prize again at the Madras Fine Arts Exhibition. This time it is for his painting

Shakuntala Patralekhan.

Shakuntala is a comely, full bodied, attractive young woman, lying on the grass in the reverie of writing to her kingly lover. The pastoral elements, so beloved of the British, come alive in this piece. The painting is bought by Lord Buckingham, Governor of Madras.