1880

From PhalkeFactory

Lord Rippon- Viceroy of India


Annasaheb Kirloskar's sangeet "Shakuntal" introduces natya sangeet. Parsee Theatre to have its own immense curtains- a river, a hill behind, upon it a house and a road leading down with tamarind trees on either side.

Kirloskarnatak 14869.jpg

The theatres in the city were magic boxes that lay between the streets, the offices and the houses where people lived their everyday lives. People sat facing large curtains which would part to transport them into spectacle and fantasy. Spectacles were the very stuff of the city.. and all the new one- the theatre, the circus, were enclosed, roofed.

Sometimes a seated child would look away from the stage and stare at the high ceilings, and see for himself, how the box was a world unto itself, with its very own sky. Children loved the worlds in these boxes the most, they were magnificently different from the greyer world the adults had made outside, they were full of hyperbole and colour. Ramakrishna Paramhansa, not surprisingly, would love one such viewing of the theatre too.

Backdrops across painting and theatre

Backdrops opened new worlds that could change rapidly within the space of a show. Huge paintings- 14 or 18 feet high and 26- 28 feet wide, could make any world come alive.

Painted backdrop.jpg Backdrop 3.jpgBackdrop 4.jpg

Swan.jpeg

A lonely street where lovers meet under a smouldering afternoon sun

Factories belch smoke the colour of a deep evening sky, the back of a train in the distance, leaving its own trail of smoke, an Parsee gentleman races on his humpbacked tricycle, the wheels have painted clocks on them. Time and speed are money his painted image seems to say.

Unknown to him, his daughter steals out- there she is behind a pillar, no, she is under the shade of the lone tree in the city, meeting her down-on-luck lover.

Tram lines .JPG

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painted backdrops, 19th and early 20th century theatre in India

The first Big Top was brought to India in 1880 by an Englishman Willaim Chirney, who offered 500 gold coins to any Indian who could hassle a horse the way he did. The Raja of Kurdwad's stable hand, Vishnupant Chhatre, took up the challenge, and thus was born Chhatre's Circus, the precusor of other "Indian" circuses: Deval, Parashuram, Lion, Karlekar, Shellar, Rayman, Malabar and Whiteways..

Women-circus-performers.jpg

The roof of the circus tent was the sky of the world that you entered. Here anything could and must happen. An ill dressed magician had sold you a ticket at the gate. Limbs turned to jelly inside shimmering costumes, big animals danced and performed for the little ones, clowns were cursed with large boils on their noses for always telling lies. Men fell down like bears and laughed, their paws in the air. Bears wore frilly skirts and over them,bright blouses held together with strings.

The big top.jpg

Sometimes, the city itself became the theatre, and its sky, the roof of that theatre. To be a ruler also demanded its own public spectacles. Watchmakers delicately strained their eyes in lamplight to make a round and noisy sun that was levered up, slowly, with intricate scaffoldings, to take its place as the man made star over the city sky. It sang the passing of the hours in popular British tunes of the day.


The Big Clock

When the University Library and Clock Tower were inaugrated by the Governor of Bombay, Sir Richard Temple, on February 27, 1880, neither the clock nor the joy bells were in place. They were installed two years later. The contract for the tower clock had been given to Lund and Blockley, at British firm in London that dated back to 1725. In 1879, Mr. George Lund, a member of the Lund family that had been well-known for generations in London with the working of previous metals, jewellery and clocks, came to Bombay under contract from the government to erect the University clock. Unique in design and of intricate worksmanship, it had been constructed in England from Mr. Lund's blueprints. In Bombay it was installed in the fifth storey of the Rajabai Tower, under the personal supervision of Mr. Lund himself. It consisted of the clock dials, twleve and a half feet in diameter, and the carillon machinery consisting of 16 bells and eighing 12 tons. The told cost of the clock and bells was Rs. 30,000.

The musical chimes changed automatically four times a day. The repertoire consisted of 16 different tunes, among them were Handel's symphony, the National Anthem(of that period), the Blue Bells of Scotland, Rule Britannia, Home Sweet Home and Auld Lang Syne. There were tuned to the key of C.

With the university clock in place, Mr. Lund "was prevailed upon" to set up shop in Bombay. Which he did at Sassoon Institute Building, Esplanade Road where a firm of the same name still operates. Turret clocks soon cropped up all over India- in the Kolhapur new palace,the Limbidi Durbar Hall, the Baroda Chimanbai Memorial Tower, the new G.I.P. Railway Terminus among others. But perhaps next to the Univeristy clock, the one that drew most attention was set up in their shop window itself. This was a "wonderful clock" that gave the time of all nations and was made by Mr. Lund himself.

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An 1870 image of the Big Clock, the scaffoldings still in place


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1880 (MDCCCLXXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar).

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January - April

May - August

September - December

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