1901
Wandering heartbroken after the death of his first wife, Kamala, a paranoid Dada meets one of Lumiere's forty magicians, Carl Hertz, in Baroda, learns Chemistry, Magic and Mechanics. Phalke becomes Kelpha, a name inverse.
Phalke roams from camp to camp with photographs of his wife and child, looking for their bodies.
Wandering desolate after their death, a paranoid Dada meets Nicepherone Niepece, one of the Lumiere Brothers' 40 magicians.
They become popular figures in north and central India.
They play trick slides.
A large mirror in a carved frame is on the stage.
Phalke is invited onstage, where he is asked to walk around the mirror and examine it to his satisfaction.
Niepce asks him to don a hooded red robe.
He then positions him some ten feet from the mirror, where the vivid red reflection is clearly visible to the audience.
The theatre is darkened, except for a brightening light that comes from within the mirror itself.
As Phalke waves his robed arms around and bows to his bowing reflection, his reflection begins to show signs of disobedience.
It crosses its arms over its chest and starts waving them about.
Suddenly, the reflection grimaces, removes a knife and stabs itself in the chest.
The reflection collapses onto the reflected floor- it is he himself.
Now a ghost-like white form rises from the dead reflection and hovers in the mirror.
All at once, a ghost emerges from the glass.
It looks towards the startled, terrified spectators.
The masterful illusion mystifies even professional magicians who agree only that the mirror was a trick cabinet with black lined doors in the rear and an assistant hidden inside.
The lights were probably concealed between the glass and the lightly silvered back.
As the lights grew brighter, the mirror grew transparent, and a red-robed assistant showed himself in the glass.
The ghost was more difficult to explain, despite a big tradition of stage ghosts.
It was said that concealed magic lanterns produced the phantom, but no other magician was able to imitate the effect.
Even in these early years, there was something uncanny about the illusions.
But some said that Nicepherone was not a showman at all, but had sold his soul to the devil in return for unholy powers.
As the guru and disciple traveled across the country, Nicepherone made him paint the backdrops with his chemical jugglery.
On a darkened stage, a large black canvas was illuminated by limelight.
As he made passes with his right hand, the canvas gradually and mysteriously gave birth to a brighter and brighter painting, Raja Ravi Varma reproduction.
Phalke receives a letter saying that he as won the Silver medal in an exhibition in BOmbay or his half-tone blocks of Raja Ravi Varma paintings.
At the awards ceremony, Phalke meets Raja Ravi Varma again, who introduces him to Professor Bhandarkar.
Bhandarkar offers Phalke a job as a draughtsman with the Archaeological Site of India.
At the same gathering, a man called Shankar Vasudev Karandikar becomes curious about Phalke and asks how he can contact him.
Phalke is a changed man when he returns home to Baroda.
The family welcomes the prodigal back with love.
After hearing his story, they arrange his marriage to the daughter of Shanker Vasudev Karandikar.
Phalke used to know his son during his theatre days.
So Phalke marries Saraswati.
She is 13, he is 32.
But the face of his first wife haunts him.
And this time he doesn't dare take out his camera and photograph his wife.
That first night, they share the room with Phalke's brother and sister-in-law.
POONA AND TRAVELLING FOR THE ASI
In Poona, Phalke's job requires him to travel across the country, leaving his young wife behind.
His job is to make sketches of excavated sites, drawings that will later help him to design sets for his films.
For him, it is still a state of recourse.
He still has not been able to reconcile the memories of his first wife, Kamala, with th reality of his second wife, Saraswati.
But in Professor Bhandarkar, he sees a father figure, and they spend hours together.
They discuss Lord Curzon and his new policies.
During a trip to the Karla caves, Phalke again meets Raja Ravi Varma, who has set up a printing press near Lonavala.
On Prof. Bhandarkar's advice, and inspired by the Swadeshi movement, Phalke also decides to set up a printing press at Lonavala, to make reproductions of Raja Ravi Verma paintings.
One day the police stop and question him.
They are suspicious of his terracotta figurines and human bones.
Photos by wire
Radiotelegram
Abanindranath's image of Mother India
Victoria Dies
After all why do people all over the world go(in such large numbers) to watch the circus every night? And if not with their minds and their memories, then with their perked up ears, and occasionally grazed knees and elbows, try to remember that difficult time from their childhoods when we were all struggling to make a place for ourselves under this sun.. In the transformation of the fourlegged child in the infancy of his creation to the adult human being standing upright, the most pressing and difficult issue was the problem of balance. This echo of the personal life of some child is really the resonating echo of his entire race and its changing form/shapes of its shadows over the centuries.
F Kaf.
But when the winter storms and dark nights made out-of-doors pursuits impossible, and evangelical consciences eschewed light entertainment, the educational lecturer came into his own. He might demonstrate the wonders of electricity with mysterious apparatuses and many coils of wire, or the marvels of modern chemistry with the aid of laughing gas and a few willing people.. or the sinister and baffling power of hypnotism??
Early critcs were quick to note the young magician's interests in uncanny effects, as in his popular Phantom Portrait. On a darkened stage, a large blank canvas was illuminated by limelight.
As Eisenhein made passes with his right hand, the white canvas gradually and mysteriously gave birth to a brighter and brighter painting. Now, it is well known among magicians and mediums that a canvas of unbleached muslin may be painted with chemical solutions that appear invisible when dry. As Eisenheim made passes with his right hand, the white canvas gradually and mysteriously gave birth to a brighter and brighter painting. Now, it is well known among magicians and mediums that a canvas of unbleached muslin may be painted with chemical solutions that appear invisible when dry; if sulphate of iron is used for blue, nitrate .. for yellow, and copper sulphate for brown....
The reformist leader Mahadev Govind Ranade dies. Tagore establishes the Brahmacharya Ashram, the nucleus of the Vishwabharti University of Shantiniketan. Fakir Mohan Senapati publishes his Oriya historical novel, Lachama. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar sets up the first music school, the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya in Lahore. Edward 7 is crowned following the death of Queen Victoria. the North West Frontier Province is created. Ramananda Chattopadhaya starts editing Prahasi, a high- profile, extensively illustrated Bengali literary monthly which pioneers the popular mix of book excerpts, poetry and one-act plays alongside reviews and essays(occasionally on film); its serialised fiction includes Rabindranath Tagore's Gora ( 1907-1909).
Hiralal Sen's Royal Bioscope establishes films exhibition alongside the commercial theatre in Calcutta, filming extracts from plays. Bhatavdekar films the landing of Sir M.M.Bhownuggree and the arrival ( returning from Cambridge University) of Sir Wrangler Mr. R.P.Paranjype.
1901 in ravi verma's diaries [1] onwards...
The brothers go to see the play Romeo and Juliet in Hindustani. they browse at Taraporevala Bookshop. They work at various images simultaneously in their studio.
That year they take up an important assignement in Udaipur, where they asked to make large copies of traditional miniature paintings of the King's ancestors.
The arrival of the half tone in printing.. will create a popular taste in shadows, perspective, Indian gods in western modes of representation. Good reproductions were to become all important. The earliest monochrome half tone plates were Sashi Hesh's Puranic illustration in Pradip(1901) and Ravi Varma's Sita in Prabasi. Varma's Woman Playing the Sarasvat in Prabasi (1902) using the "Ray Tint Process", captured for the first time the softer tones of an oil painting, which pleased the famous artist. --- Save Dada shoots the reception to greet Wrangler Paranjyape
