From a Flickr set by Paul Keller
Link to Article from The Deccan Herald
"Its beginning coincided with the birth of cinema in India -
in 1896 - when the Lumiere Brothers presented their
year-old invention for the first time to an astonished
audience in Bombay at the Watson Hotel. Tents followed
and after 1907 came the cinema houses. There are many
cinema houses of the early 20th century vintage.
But I doubt if any of them is exactly as it was originally built.
Original building
The Elgin (which takes its name from Lord Elgin who ruled India)
was built in 1896 - when India woke up to magical cinema -
brick by brick exactly as it was designed. Even today it follows
strict segregation of the sexes - booking, entrance and seating!*
Thus it becomes the oldest building remaining unchanged in
every aspect since 1896, now serving as a cinema house."
* Even as I post this, Frank Sinatra is on TV's Turner Classics
in 'The Joker Is Wild' (1957) and Mitzi Gaynor tells him that
in India the movie houses had segregated seating for the
Untouchable classes...
Question for you: What is the name of the hospital in Pune named after a British woman, from the days of the Raj? I read an article about it long ago. Seems that many rich local Indians wanted to pay the authorities to name it after themselves, but the British woman's memory was so special that the name was never changed.
ReplyDeleteQuestion for you: What is the name of the hospital in Pune named after a British woman, from the days of the Raj? I read an article about it long ago. Seems that many rich local Indians wanted to pay the authorities to name it after themselves, but the British woman's memory was so special that the name was never changed.
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