1899: Key Events

• 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 G. B. Deval’s Marathi play, Sangeet Sharada, sometimes cited as the first reform ‘social’.

• H.S. Bhatavdekar films a wrestling match in Bombay’s hanging gardens. Bhatavdekar was one of the first witnesses to the Lumiere Brothers film show in 1896 in Mumbai. He soon acquired a movie camera from London and a projector and went on to make some films on day-to-day life of the city as also some important events

(Lord and Lady Curzon on an elephant, Coronation Darbar in Delhi, 1903, News film by H. S. Bhatavdekar)