It’s been four years in the making, but Vibhu Puri’s debut feature Hawaizaada, inspired by nineteenth-century aviator Shivkar Talpade, is landing in cinemas at the right or the wrong time, depending on which side of the debate about ancient Indian science you are on.
Hawaizaada stars Ayushmann Khurana as Talpade, who some people believe built an aircraft that undertook the world's first unmanned flight somewhere in Maharashtra in 1895. Talpade is regarded by some as a forgotten hero who could have beaten the American Wright brothers, who got their Wright Flyer off the ground in 1903. Designs of Talpade's aircraft still exist, but it isn't clear whether he was out to fly a plane or a kite. There is little evidence that he launched his contraption in the air.
Moreover, Talpade’s mentor, Subbaraya Shastri, is one of the proponents of the theory that Hindu scriptures contained actual scientific achievements, rather than allegories. On Sunday, a paper at the Indian Science Congress in Mumbai claimed that an ancient Indian text, the Vaimanika Sastra, sketched out details about flying machines in ancient India [full text here]. But that text may actually have been composed by Subbaraya Shastri. The publication of the Vaimanika Sastra in 1973 was later debunked by professors at the Indian Institute of Science. They speculated that Shastri composed portions of the text and drawings of planes between 1900 and 1919. The IISc analysis goes on to mention that “one late Dr Talpade (of Bombay) tried to make models under the guidance of Shastriji, but that he was not successful in making any of them fly”.
04/01/15 Scroll.in
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Hawaizaada stars Ayushmann Khurana as Talpade, who some people believe built an aircraft that undertook the world's first unmanned flight somewhere in Maharashtra in 1895. Talpade is regarded by some as a forgotten hero who could have beaten the American Wright brothers, who got their Wright Flyer off the ground in 1903. Designs of Talpade's aircraft still exist, but it isn't clear whether he was out to fly a plane or a kite. There is little evidence that he launched his contraption in the air.
Moreover, Talpade’s mentor, Subbaraya Shastri, is one of the proponents of the theory that Hindu scriptures contained actual scientific achievements, rather than allegories. On Sunday, a paper at the Indian Science Congress in Mumbai claimed that an ancient Indian text, the Vaimanika Sastra, sketched out details about flying machines in ancient India [full text here]. But that text may actually have been composed by Subbaraya Shastri. The publication of the Vaimanika Sastra in 1973 was later debunked by professors at the Indian Institute of Science. They speculated that Shastri composed portions of the text and drawings of planes between 1900 and 1919. The IISc analysis goes on to mention that “one late Dr Talpade (of Bombay) tried to make models under the guidance of Shastriji, but that he was not successful in making any of them fly”.
04/01/15 Scroll.in
