Difference between revisions of "1881"

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Sarasvati:
  
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Phalke's Uncle went to work in the railways every day, and came back to his private practice of homeopathy. One corner of the front room in Dadar had shelves full of glass bottles with small sugar balls, and various liquid poisons.
+
It is raining in Bombay and the streets are full of large black flowers moving briskly on dhotis and pants and sarees. The water bounces off those thick petals, runs down them onto the ground. Sometimes a flowerhead moves and you see a face stuck like a lump in a plant's throat. But most of the time, the rain is hard, and no one's face is seen.
  
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Dhundiraj falls ill that summer, with something like a water poisoning.
+
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.
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He is unable to attend school. One morning he wakes up from a night of knotted dreams to see white pills being shaken by his bedside in a glass container with water.
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That is when his Kaka swings his bottle with the sugar pills
  
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+
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
  
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Mandakini:
  
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Phalke is not sure he wants to have this strange medicine.
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Dhundhi
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Dialogue between Phalke and the Uncle about homeopathy.
 
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His uncle tells him that water has a memory, this water that he is coating the sugar pills with, has been given the same poison that is attacking Dhundi's body. The water has been diluted again and again, till almost all trace of the poison is gone,  and when it enters Dhundi's body,  it will fight the body's poison with its own memory of that poison.
 
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"Like Abhimanyu's memory, from the liquid womb", his uncle exclaims
 
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Dhundi makes a wry face and thinks to himself " We know what happened to Abhimanyu"
 
  
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But strangely, he is soon cured of his illness. He cannot decide whether the illness just ran its natural course, or whether the pensive waters actually fought a war on his behalf.
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Sarasvati:
  
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----
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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  transparent glass tube.
  
−
A [[telephone exchange]] opens in Budapest. [[Nicola Tesla]] becomes its chief electrician.  
+
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. I give a water poison,and then keep diluting it, till the poison seems to be gone. Then I put these sugar pellets into the water, and carrying it
 +
 
 +
Manda: Like a medium, like the voice for a ghost..
 +
 
 +
Kaka:
 +
Carrying it, the sugar pills travel in your body, smell out the similar poison. Poison meets poison and is demolished by itself.
  
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1881
 
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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.
 
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T Madhava Rao is Dewan at the Baroda court.
 
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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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Subhadra was a character from Arjun Subhadra, which told the story of how Krishna enabled his sister to marry her choice of lover, Arjuna, and not the mean eyed Duryodhana who was eyeing her.
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Dwarkabai:
  
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Subhadra was played by fifteen year old Ganesh, fair skinned, light eyed, plump armed.
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You are making it sound mysterious like Abhimanyu's Chakravyuh, bhau!
  
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The character Subhadra was a princess,  well off enough to have a play composed on her, and as though in a  respectful and humble understanding of why she is one stage, the character has worn all manners of jewels to please the watching eyes. And she soprrows, how she sorrows in a high sad pitch,  holding out her arms from time to time in a gesture beseeching fate to heed her pleas and not get her married to Duryodhana.
+
Mandakini:
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The audience starts clapping spontaneously as her saree clad voice numbly runs up a ladder into the skies.
 
  
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Ganesh lets their applause recede a bit and then starts again, repeating the song and Subhadra's pain, both of which seem much loved.
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Did Baba become alright?
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Dressed in a Punheri saree in a resplendent blue, she sings standing before the an almost edible palace, a feast for the eyes. Pillars of pink trimmed with a delicate blue recede in the distance. The floor is tiled in mosaics of two alternating colours. A row of glass lamps break the space every few pillars.  Subhadra in her vestments looks like she might walk into that landscape, beyond the pillars behind her, any moment, to grieve her secret sorrow somewhere far from human eyes.
 
  
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In fact when the the curtain comes down, that is exactly what the audience feels she must have done.
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Sarasvati bai nods her head:
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Professor Keelhorn cannot stem the surprise he feels at what he had just seen, the grandeur of the backdrops, the energy of the singing, the story that is so evident from the arrangement of actors on stage, from their broad gestures, from the tone of the music. He feels happy. It has been a good evening.
 
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"Just one thing" he tells Sheila "that I would like to tell them. This one strange thing. If people like a piece of dialogue or song, the audience goes into thunderous applause- and then-  " he threw his hands up helplessly
 
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"these people just repeat that dialogue, or sing that song again.. I mean... don't they see it? It quite kills the growing emotion in the audience..it.. "he is at a loss to describe the mesh of things, detrimental things, that he felt sure it must be doing to the reception of the play.
 
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"Why would you want to isolate a part of the performance and repeat it like that- like it is something- something- mechanical"
 
  
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If he only looked closer, on the edges of the newspapers, already, machines were being advertised that were promising to give the consumer the power to do exactly that to the human voice- select a section, repeat it, by scratching a stylus over a disc.
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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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------------------------------------------------
 
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Indian 'art' music, classical music, is meant to be  particular about when it was sung. A particular raga at a particular time.
 
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Whose time should it keep in natya sangeet? The time of the performance, or the time within the performance- the time within the story of the play?
 
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And then to hear such abbreviated forms of the raga, not unfolding, just compressed to serve as a pleasurable interlude in a longer story..Not to mention that obscene pitch that sounds like it is coming from the netherworlds of the performer's anatomy.
 
  
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The critic in the audience, the conoisseur of classical music who has come to see how singers were taking to this new stage, fumes at this. This, for him, is the beginning of a grievous untidiness. One serious looking man is overheard grumbling loudly at a literary meeting.
+
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--------------------------------
 
  
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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. 
 
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He listens as they report what the old man has said, and 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.
 
  
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His hand just waves the critic away in a sweep and he turns to his faithful barber " Sing that song again, re!"
+
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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.
+
1881
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"Next time, don't tell me what serious looking old men say" he tells the boys.
+
[[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.  
−
" 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"
+
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.
 +
Do you know the story of Nala, the poet who learn how to count?
  
−
---------------
+
Not today, I will write it for you later sometime. Difficult for a man down on money to remember the lesson of this story. Difficult as counting the leaves on a tree. Difficult..
 +
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Latest revision as of 16:58, 29 February 2016

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.

Sarasvati:

It is raining in Bombay and the streets are full of large black flowers moving briskly on dhotis and pants and sarees. The water bounces off those thick petals, runs down them onto the ground. Sometimes a flowerhead moves and you see a face stuck like a lump in a plant's throat. 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 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. I give a water poison,and then keep diluting it, till the poison seems to be gone. Then I put these sugar pellets into the water, and carrying it

Manda: Like a medium, like the voice for a ghost..

Kaka: Carrying it, the sugar pills travel in your body, smell out the similar poison. Poison meets poison and is demolished by itself.


Dwarkabai:

You are making it sound mysterious like Abhimanyu's Chakravyuh, bhau!

Mandakini:

Did Baba become alright?

Sarasvati bai nods her head:

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?

Sore-throat-drawing.png Cadbury's Cocoa Absolutely Pure Cadbury's Cocoa is especially rich in flesh forming and strength maintaining principles.Cadbury's Cocoa is delicious, nutritious, digestible, comforting..suitable for all seasons of the year


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. Do you know the story of Nala, the poet who learn how to count?

Not today, I will write it for you later sometime. Difficult for a man down on money to remember the lesson of this story. Difficult as counting the leaves on a tree. Difficult..

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