MIFF 2010 Diary: The Magic of Shambarik Karolika article
In today’s day and age of digital razzmatazz and special effects, a simple story begins unfolding before your eyes in an effortless manner. The story of the life of Shri Krishna, the Hindu God according to mythology. With each frame, you are drawn deeper into it. Eventually when Krishna attains victory over the demon king Kansa, you are gawping at the screen. By the end of it, you are left marveling at the beauty of such engaging simplicity! Or rather the complexity that goes into making things so simple! After all, it was not a modern day animation film but a story told through Shambarik Kharolika, an art form of the pre cinema era.
A show of Shambarik Kharolika(Magic Lantern) was organised by NFAI on Day 3 of MIFF. Those who missed the last show at IFFI, Goa made a point to catch it at MIFF. All this art form needs is a source of light (known as the Magic lantern) and a few hand painted glass slides to create a visual delight on screen. A world of magic is created through these 4 inches glass slides as a story is told. Tick-tock, tick-tock move the hand held slides in front of the light and you see the water level of the river receding on the screen as Vasudev( Krishna’s father) wades into the river with the baby. The mesmerized audience clapped at every feat that was achieved through the timely movement of the slides.
There was running commentary throughout the story. An ensemble consisting of a vocalist, harmonium and tabla players to aid the story provided a unique entertainment. Shambarik Kharolika was the result of the fantastic imagination of Mahadeo Gopal Patwardhan and Madanrao Madhavrao Pitale around 1885. The duo created the illusion of moving images on screen much before Edison or the Lumiere Brothers would have dreamt of it. Shambarik means magic and Kharolika means lantern, hence the magic lantern show.
The show was done using these devices which are now more than a hundred year old. The Patwardhans had presented all the available material to the National Film Archives of India(NFAI), Pune for preservation, research and further development. The director of NFAI, Vijay Jadhav played the Tabla himself at which Kuldeep Sinha, Festival Director of MIFF commented-“It shows that government organizations don't have just bureaucrats, they sometimes have artists as well.” Rasika Ajorikar sang the Bhajans while Kaustubh Joshi accompanied her on Harmonium. Urmila Joshi was the narrator of the story.
Everyone flocked to catch a glimpse of the colourful artistic slides after the show was over. The artistes demonstrated how the feather fans waved or the elephants danced on the screen as the audience looked in awe and surprise. As a respite from our technologically complex world, it’s so refreshing to go back to our roots and see how it (read Cinema) all started.
