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

Suhas Parve

Late evening, Sarasvati is writing in the book, Quite unaware even of her, back to her, Prabhkar is sitting like an adult, in Phalke's chair, telling the story. The others are not around.

Prabhakar: He jumps into the water like a frog. He laughs as he hears the water break and fly away.

Saraswati writes: He is a frog in a large river, the sun warms his skin.

That is when he sees her.. the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, far more beautiful than even his mother, resplendent with jewellery like you have never seen on this earth, pearls like falling drops of milk, gold from the heels of the sun. She was smiling where she sat on the back of a river crocodile. His jaws were snapping, hers were laughing as she felt the breeze in her open hair, and the waters lapped at her toes. She dug her knee into the flank of her crocodile and he raced. He saw her, the most beautiful doll he had ever seen, in the distance and then, she disappeared.. Dhundi had been watching with his mouth open like a river frogs'.. now he ducked and went underwater. He sank, further and further into the water, he stood stock still, watching the reeds move, staring, willing them to become e the crocodile's tail, so he could see her again.

Prabhakar closes his eyes, very much like his father does.

Prabhakar: One day he will see her again. When his skin is hanging over his eyes like a curtain, her sight will lift the curtain, and Ganga will ride the river of his mind.

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Dada is on the same chair, he is looking at a strip of film, from one of his own films. He runs it on the table, with a glass counter and a light source below. In that small rectangle, a large river seems to move from within, we can see the current. Two devis, the river goddesses, appear on it.

Dada:

Your tata and I were bathing in the river once. In this very river. See..

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.

Sarasvati Bai writes out a section of the Purush Shastra, carefully copying it.

Sarasvati Bai thinks: This language is unknown to me, the alphabets are alien.

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तू दिन भर इसी शिला के पास रहेगा कहीं जायेगा नहीं. क्यों, तू राजी है? दिन भर तुझे एक ही बात सोचनी होगी. तू अपने घर के विषय के बारे में सोचेगा. अपने घर के सभी लोगों के चहरे याद करेगा. सगे सम्बन्धी. मित्र आदि को नहीं. उन सबका स्मरण कर अपनी कल्पना में घरवालों के साथ सम्बन्ध स्थापित करने की चेष्टा करना. ठीक है. कल फिर यहीं पहुँच जाना फिर बात होगी

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Image of Bhairava from Vidarbha, 19th century

Shri Trymbakeshwar Jyotirlinga

Dada dictates:

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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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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They fly over fields, hills with trees on them, and then over a low meadow. Dada points excitedly:

Dada:

Shakuntala Patralekhan.

A full bodied maiden lies on green grass, by the statue of an overwatching Englishman. One of her legs lifts at the knee, her foot strokes the air, her hand stays poised over a sheet of paper. Her neck has turned back in thought, her eyes bend down, her lips swing up. Her pupils, now at the bottom of those rolled back eyes, seem to be staring sightlessly at Dada. Dada looks back before leaving the window.

Dada:

The Governor of Madras himself bought the painting from the Madras Fine Arts Exhibition.

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हरा पानी छँटता है, पहले सूजे हुवे हरे पाँव दिखते हेँ, फिर एकजापानी बाबाके चहरे पर लगी छोटी मोती सी आँखें तुम्हें चौंका देती हैं, पानी में यून ही रुकी हुवी साँस फूलने लगती है और त्यों ही उसकी पीठ से लगा उसका पत्थर का घर भी नीचे उतरता है.. कुछ समय बालक और कुश्यप एक दूसरे के पास लहराते हैं, फिर बालक अपने हाथ पैरों की डालओं को ज़ोर देता हुवा पानी की सतह तोड़ अपने घर की ओर दौड़ता है.

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in the studio- Phalke reading the Natya Shastra commentaries that are getting published ( are they?) discussing with actors