1899
Lord Curzon.[2]
Phalke is returning from Ratlam, filled with a strange sense of foreboding, and anxious to get home(check date).
Stopping by the crest of a hill, he is stunned by the tableau at his feet.
Vultures are wheeling in the sky.
Their hungry cries echo in a landscape of carts pulling the dead from Godhra.
"The plague came soon after you arrived with your camera, Baba," the driver spits, fear on his face.
In a frenzy, Phalke runs from cart to cart, snapping open the shrouds, praying that he will not find the faces he seeks.
Bewildered, he makes his way home.
An empty house yawns at him.
Three women in the white robes of widows whimper at the gate.
A dog appears at the door and runs back inside.
"Your camera imprisoned our soul. You've brought the black plague upon us," the neighbours wail.
A sound comes from his house.
Phalke rushes inside, calling for his wife and child.
The house has been ransacked.
The fire in the kitchen is cold.
Even the cupboards are empty.
Only a few of his photographs have survived.
He runs into the child's room.
It is dark.
He strikes a match.
Many matches later, he spots the bed.
A rat scuttles away.
On the bed is a slate with a child's drawing.
His child's last game.
By the flickering light of the match we see a stick man with a camera.
There is an interesting story where hearth becomes the theatre. The figures were manipulated from inside the chimmney in which the operator was cpncealed by a green baize. Al went well until a large bird tumbled down the chimmney and covered everything with soot, burst its way through the cloth curtain, flapped its great wings and clawed at everythign within reach. All the women shrieked and fled, being sure that the devil himself had come for them. Ultimately what I am seeking in the photograph of me is Death: strangley the only thing that i tolderate, that I liek, that is familiar to me when I am photographed, is the sound of the camera. The photographer's organ is not his eyes (which lens frees me), but his finger, what is linked to the trigger of his lens, to the metalllic shifitng of the plates. For me the noise of this is not ...?? Caeras, in short, are clocks for seeing.- and perhaps someone very old still hears in the photographic mechanism the living sound of the wood. The Astronomical Revolver- in which a circular Daguerrotype plate was rotated intermittently by clockwork through a modified form of Maltese Cross mechanism.
A rotating shutter of 12 apertures exposed the plate each time it was at rest, giving 48 exposures in 72 seconds. The bareel of the gun is a tube containting the photographic lens. Behind,and mounted on the butt, is a large cylindrical
Calcutta receives electricity supply , although earlier that year, the Maharaja of Bikaner had apparently been the first Indian to switch on an electric light bulb. Lord Curzon becomes Viceroy and Governor general of India. The seminal work of Urdu literature,Ruswa Mohammed Hadi Mirza's Umrao Jaan Ada is published. Performance of B.G.Deval's Marathi play, Sangeet Sharada, someties cited as the first ever reform 'social'.
H.S. Bhatavadekar films a wrestling match in Bombay's hanging gardens.
The Ravi Varma press is facing mounting debts for various reasons- the brothers' constant travels, the prevailing plague conditions and the difficulty of hiring labour, the death of their uncle making their brothers leave Bombay for two years.
A number of paintings are sold to Joshi for the sum of Rs. 22,000
First recording of Indian music by Gramaphone and Typewriter Ltd. in London in 1899. Voice of an Indian person
Kamala and baby and what Phalke sees
baby pulls at Kamala;s hair at her shoulder, she tries to eat it always. Young Dhundhi and Kamala both laugh. Baby takes her little palm and sleepily brushes it over her eyes. Baby makes so much noise lying by herself in the cradle- opens her mouth, sticks out her tongue, keeps a single note going, turns it, plays with her voice. Kamala has hung colorful woolen balls over her cradle, they move this way and that in the breeze, baby waves her hand at them and squeals excitedly sometimes.
Anjani Bai Malpekar gives her first public performance in Bombay, at the age of 16. She gives up active singing by 1904, plagued by a lot of harassment. She is also a beautiful woman and poses for many Ravi Varma portraits. ( difficult to date though- she is supped to have posed for lady in the moonlight, but that is said to be painted about a decade earlier. She is a Kalavant from Goa [3]
आँगन के फर्श पर डेढ़ साल की बच्ची को बैठा आई है.. नीचे को जाती हुवी सीडीयाँ हैं. सीडीयों के पार सड़क. हवा चल रही है, बच्ची के चहरे पर पढ़ती है तो वो साँस ऊपर खींच कर मुस्कुराती है. सड़क पर चलते पगड़ी डाले लोग जिन्हें बच्ची की आँखें काजल से झाँक कर देखती हैं. सड़क वाले बोलते हैं, बातें करते हैं. छोटे चहरे पर सड़क पर उनका यून आकस्मात पढ़ने की खुशी है. फिर, माँ के लौटते कदम, बच्ची उसकी तरफ सर घुमाती है. माँ झुक कर बेटी का चहरा सूती की टोपी के धागों में पकड़ लेती है. बच्ची की आँखें सकपकती है.
बालकनी के जंगले से लगी कुर्सी पर बैठी काकी की गोद में शिशु बैचैन है, जैसे रोने की तैयारी में हो. काका बाहर आता है और धीमे सुर में गिलगिल करते हुए शिशु की और बढ़ता है तो बच्चा सर घुमाता है। दुबला सा आदमी है काका, सर पर सफ़ेद बाल छितरे हुए हैं . गीली आँखें हैं, होंठ चहरे में छिप जाते हैं, तब मुस्कुराते हैं . उसकी लम्बी उंगलियाँ बच्चे के आर पार पंखों का एक घेरा बनाती हैं। बच्चे का पेट काका की हथेली से सट जाता है जैसे घोंसले से घिरा हुआ चूजा। यह चलती हुई गोदी है, काका चिकनाए हुवे फर्श पर तलबे घिस घिस कर पाँव चलाते हैं, टुकुर टुकुर बोलते मुस्कुराते हैं, काका की तैरती नैय्या पर शिशु राजा बन जाता है.
