1881

Factory Act. fixed working hours for children below 12 dangerous machines fenced.

Vernacular Press Act repealed.

Census System introduced in India

A curtain- huge seven story mansion of Bombay, streets, railway lines, ships and factories.

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Sarasvati:

It is raining in Bombay and the streets are full of black flowers running here and there in dhotis and pants and sarees. The water bounces off the petals, runs down them, onto the ground. Sometimes a flower parts and you see a human face, but most of the time, the rain is hard, and no one's face is seen.

Dhundhi falls ill that monsoon, his face is pink with a cold that will not go, his nose is red, his eyes are always watering and his head is so hot, you'd think someone had tried to cook him. His mother gives him all manner of medicine, but to no avail. That is when his Kaka swings his bottle with the sugar pills

Sarasvati: Dhundi's kaka worked in the railways in the day, but in the evenings, he became a doctor. He had a cupboard full of 300 bottle with little white pills that were sweet.. and all kinds of liquids in a dusty cupboard in his living room. He had hardly any patients. So he was most delighted when Baba

Mandakini:

Dhundhi

Sarasvati:

He was most delighted when Dhundhi fell ill. That evening, when Dhundhi got up, sneezing and coughing, he saw that his Kaka was standing over his head. Small white pellets were being bounced about in a small transparent glass tube.

Dhundi shook his head. His worried mother who was standing behind said" Dhundi, do as Kaka says, this medicine cannot harm you"

Dhundhi looked at her, she looked doubtful herself. He shook his head again.

Kaka made a funny noise at the back of his throat, which meant, " Just listen to me!"

(Neelkanth is giggling.)

Neelkanth:

Like how??

Sarasvati Bai purses her lips and pushes the muscles of her throat till an odd sound, like of a turkey clearing his throat, emerges.

All the children laugh, Neelkanth gets a extended fit of giggles.

Sarasvati Bai:

" Just listen to me!"

and so Dhundi swallowed the medicine. And it was sweet.

His kaka then grandly said

Water has memory, Dwarkabai. That is how this medicine works, by remembering poisons that were once given to this water. I dilute the water endlessly after giving it poison, but it does not forget... and with a memory of that poison, it enters your body, smells out the places were it sees the same poison, and demolishes it.

Dwarkabai:

You are making it sound like Abhimanyu, bhau!

Mahadev: Abhimanyu got stuck in the chakravyuh, trying to remember, he did not actually remember everything. Then he died.

Mandakini:

Did Baba recover?

Sarasvati bai:

Yes he did.. ( looking at Mahadev).. but he was not sure, was he going to recover anyway- or was it that the waters had actually got a memory?

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1881 Ravi Varma spends time in Baroda. He is invited to attend the investiture ceremony of Sayaji, who is finally getting his rightful powers as a king. T Madhava Rao is Dewan at the Baroda court. As state guest of Baroda, Ravi Varma paints prolifically. He gets an order of five Puranic and religious pictures, including Nala and Damayanti.

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Annasaheb is eating jamuns backstage, on his Ayurvedic doctor's advice, when some young boys from the troupe come in to worriedly confer with him. He listens as they report how he is being criticised by the purists, for mixing the time of the ragas, for letting them being sung in such short forms, for making men sing in such high female voices. As he listens, he eats up larger quantities of the fruit. The boys report later that when he laughed carelessly at the end of their complaint, they saw that legendary mouth open into a foul looking purple cave.

His hand just waves the critic away in a sweep and he turns to his faithful barber " Sing that song again, re!" A song of the Parsee theatre starts, well learnt by the shaukeen barber and Annasaheb goes into ecstacy. " I say we render this tune for when Subhadra wanders alone in the palace garden.. and make it come closer to Raag Kalavati" he clapped his hands. "Next time, don't tell me what serious looking old men say" he tells the boys. " Tell me how many mouths repeat the songs that are sung on stage. Then I'll know how many are coming to see the play again"

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