We headed straight for the Mumbai workshop.
We did not take a break and headed straight for the Mumbai workshop.
Rachana Sansad is a very well known college for its architecture department, it hs recently started acourse in 'Fine Arts' and was in the process of building its academics. Our main contact was Nikhil, an ex student of the Baroda Fine Arts known for his avante garde 'Raja' series.
Most of the methodologies applied in Nasik were repeated here. Except, the workshop was incorporated in the curriculum. For the next fifteen days it was all about Phalke and his times. This time we were a little 'high tech'.. projecting the Phalke book and other course materials directly from our webiste for information dissemination. With that we could zoom into the pages and focus on keywords and images. Tiny little words and images suddenlys tarted looking significant as we moved in and out, over the pages packed with creative connections.
On the sixth day, we started our field work.. visiting J J School of Art, Kipling's house, V.T., Museums, momnuments, and started making notes.
On the seventh day, we hired a bus and started for Lonavala, looking for Raja Ravi Verma's litho press.. On the way, we were reading the text from Volger's Writer's Journey. A text book on screenplay writing based on the concept from Joseph Campbell's writing on Mythological Patterns and Structures. On our Journey we were trying to delude ourselves , seeing whether the same stages from the writer's journey were applicable to our trip.
Lonavala Printing Press
We were not allowed to enter the old litho press of Ravi Varma. But we broke into it somehow, as an adventure. The whoel place was scattered with bits and pieces of old litho stones, paints, advertisements, text books, cinema tickets. Some of the images looked straight out of the Phalke book. As we were lost in the age of Lithography, the security attendant entered and we were driven out. This seemed straight out of a chapter from the Writer's Journey.
In the Mumbai chapter, we were trying to know about Phalke at the J J School of Arts, hsi father at Wilson College as a Sanskrit teacher, Phalke's association with the Ravi Varma Press and the Making of Raja Harishchandra.
We continued reading the Writer's Journey as we climbed the hill to reach the Karla caves, and there we read the play Raja Harishchandra. We were imagining Phalke as a young man and Ravi Varma's Litho expert German technician Sclescher roaming around there, hunting and photographing.
Around the ninth day, we started telling stories and on the 14th day, we had our final reading session.
