Of Learning science the other way

So here I was enjoying the extended weekend on the eve of India’s 64th Independence Day. As usual, just like any other Sunday, the TV was switched on right from the early morning Rangoli belting out classic deshbhakti songs followed by back to back new movies. One of these was the much publicized world TV premier of the James Cameroon magnum opus – Avatar. I am a big lover of Hollywood cinema be it of any genre. However, even if I say so I would still go in for movies of any language or genre as far as they convey a message, a moral which is thought provoking. Big budget entertainers are always welcome though, since that’s what you look forward too, some respite from the daily, stressful life. Coming back to Hollywood genre movies, I love the science fiction stuff movies more because along with some kickass action, they always manage to instigate that curiosity factor into me. I still remember, my childhood days when English movies were making big inroads into the mainstream movie market in India. This was the period of the 90’s when movies such as The Terminator franchise, Independence Day, Hollow Man, The Abyss, The Matrix Trilogy, Jurassic Park, Armageddon etc. made big bucks in an upcoming market like India which opened its economy to the world in 1991. ‘Globalization’ was the buzz word and it opened the floodgates for information and broadcasting media. A slew of international channels such as the Star Network, the BBC and other channels made a beeline to consolidate their position in one of the most rapidly growing markets of the world. It was one of the big turning points in Independent India’s history. There was a big audience for these movies ranging from all age groups and genders. But the major market was the upcoming middle class who were awed by Western Science. I still remember, as a kid, when I was catching ‘The Abyss’ on Star Movies, my father told me that he saw it for the first time in Dolby Digital at Regal when he got his first salary. 

I was a school going kid in those days and there are many from my generation who grew up watching these movies in awe. I still remember seeing the dinosaurs in Jurassic park and going ‘whoa, that so cool!’ I had learnt about dinosaurs in science text books but never thought that manifestations of scientific concepts would be so magnificent. A lot of people especially from the 90’s generation would agree to the fact that such magnificent demonstration of scientific concepts stroked the imaginations of the budding minds. I still remember that our science teachers would give us examples from these sci-fi movies to explain concepts. I think it was a wonderful way to drill down boring, hard-to-imagine concepts into the brains of children who are the next generation of scientists and engineers and doctors. To develop a scientific temper is one of the fundamental duties in our democracy. It is this scientific temper that helps to keep the masses away from blind faith. And this scientific temperament should be inculcated in every generation because it cannot be just forced on. So creating teachers, who are not only qualified to teach professional science, but also believe in the power of science to enlighten the society, becomes extremely important. I know that many of us had our share of teachers, who taught only for the sake of teaching. But there was always a section of passionate science teachers which we all remember and will remember to tell about them to the next generation. These teachers always looked for opportunities which can be explored to drive home the scientific message. Hollywood movies were one of the major channels which were explored. That’s because it always brought our imagination to reality. Dinosaurs were understood nicely because the students were able to see them in their full glory. Space was never so awesome when movies like Apollo 13 ignited young minds to explore the realm of astronomy and astrophysics. It was such movies, which for the first time, movies like Independence Day, taught us to think that there can be a possibility of life elsewhere other than this planet. 


War movies such as Top Gun, Behind Enemy Lines and Pearl Harbor brought history to life. Subjects such as Physics are generally not so popular even amongst the young scientific student community, just because the physical significance is not understood easily. For instance, centripetal force - the force is felt when a body moves around a central point in circular motion with a specific velocity. It is a force whose direction is towards the centre. Its formula is F=m(v)squared/r. We have all known this and have also written about this in our exams. However, this is not education. This is not learning. This is reciting. The ability to reproduce answers in exams cannot guarantee complete understanding of a concept. However, I still remember my high school Physics professor who made this so simple and more importantly generated interest in Physics. He cited examples from movies like Top Gun where Tom ‘Maverick’ Cruise flew his F14 in a 270 degree spin. A movie called as Behind Enemy Lines was one of my favorites which have Owen Wilson who plays an American naval pilot – Chris Burnett. There is a scene where the hero is flying a F18 Falcon and is trying to dodge incoming missiles. While doing so the plane goes supersonic. Back then, no one in my class ever knew about the actual meaning of the word ‘Supersonic’. As usual, we just knew the definition that, supersonic means at the speed of sound. We just know this. But during one of the classes, our Physics professor showed us what supersonic means. He explained us that, there’s a whole range of instruments on the control panel of a fighter aircraft. Out of these there is an altimeter right which is present right beneath the control yoke. The time difference between the pilot reading the altitude in the altimeter and getting back to his linear line of sight is very less; but good enough for the aircraft to travel 30 kilometers in the straight line. We were fascinated by this explanation. It was a rough estimate, but fair enough to explain us the physical significance of what supersonic means. This way Physics never remained just a subject, but I started generating interest in it. What better way learning to enjoy a thing you thought was a burden before! When you start to enjoy what you are supposed to do – be it Physics or cricket in student life or a job for living in adult life, things become easier and more fun. Sachin Tendulkar would not have been Sachin Tendulkar if he would have never enjoyed cricket. For a sportsperson of his caliber, cricket is still enjoyment after spending his almost entire life for it. It’s a very simple formula – Interest + Efforts + Proficiency + Enjoyment = Success.

Interest is the core value of Learning

Such a formula cannot be found in any of the textbooks – neither in science textbooks nor in teaching manuals. This is something which is supposed to be at the core of every learning and can be applied not only to science but to any subjects. A teacher should be one who can instigate this interest about a subject into the mind of a student who is open to learning. School is the right time when you can mould these young minds into any shape. Just like a potter who moulds a blob of mud into a pot of a particular shape and size, we can mould them easily when they are young. This newly sprouted interest when given proper and timely nourishment will grow and continue to grow and prosper into a huge tree of knowledge. And trees never cease to give back to others. When we create these kinds of scientifically tempered minds we can expect them rightfully to deliver back to the society in a constructive way. Minds of such great capacities are behind creating huge educational institutions in every field – right from science and technology to establishing research and development departments in archeology and literature. Still there is a lot of work to be done especially in developing countries like India where we have scope for creating professional educational institutions in neglected fields like sports (excluding cricket), civic administration, politics, environmental sciences, theatre etc. For these things to happen you need to give ample time. It’s not 2 minute noodles stuff. So we should start early from home to reach the destination in time. Remember the world starts with I and ends with I. 


And we do not need to do a fast for this at India Gate.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM OF SOME OF GULZAR’S WORKS - II

From where we left last time, we continue to journey through the fascinating world of poetic masterpieces from the pen of Gulzar. Another milestone movie without which Gulzar would not have been him what he is now is Aandhi. Based on Indira Gandhi’s character, the lead role, Aarti was played by Suchitra Sen and the male lead was J.K, a doctor played by Sanjeev Kumar. The film chronicles the rise of feminine power. Aarti, a daughter of a politician is a married to a doctor much against the will of her father. After the novelty of marriage is lost, she feels that she is compromising on her political career. Small tussles erupt between the politically ambitious wife and the much simpler doctor husband. The struggle to keep the balance between the political ambition and the personal life ultimately leads to the separation of both. Aarti pursues her political career and becomes a likely candidate for the post of a minister. But as fate would have chosen, the doctor, who is know a famous doctor, is appointed as Aarti Devi’s personal doctor. However, this relation is not known to the outside world, other than their tight circle of friends and family. As old age creeps up, the hero and the heroine are brought together by the growing urge of companionship. But the coming together is not easy as both the characters are confronted by each other’s ideological clashes. Aarti does not want her political career to be stigmatized as a ‘separated woman’- a situation very much prominent in the 70's Indian society. They say life is a great tutor and this is again proved here as both of them work out their way together out of the situation. While the movie was a bit controversial due to the political backdrop of Indian politics, Gulzar was at his best as usual – with some fine poetry highlighting the grief and loneliness with songs such as 'Tere bina zindagi se koi shikva…' just immaculate!

Gulzar’s style of writing reflected his sense of immense maturity in every aspect of literature. He wrote love songs, songs of grief, songs of loneliness, songs of free and wandering spirit, songs of humanity and compassion. There was a song for everyone – the lover, the child, the common man, the woman, the pacifist, the grief stricken. Every one of us identified ourselves with his poetry. He even made films with a social cause. One of his most noted films on society was the Vinod Khanna – Meena Kumari starrer ‘Mere Apne’ which is a satire on the changing social structure of the 70’s when families became smaller and smaller with both the parents working. Aanandi, played by Meena Kumari, has been a widow for most of her life. Out of no where, Arun Gupta played by noted Marathi actor Ramesh Deo, appears and claims to be a distant relative. He literally begs Aanandi to come and stay with his family in the city. The changing family required someone to take care of the child at home, for which senior members of the family were used. Used because they were treated just as a commodity – a person who has to provide babysitting services and in return will get a two time meal and a house to stay. Aanandi soon realizes that she is not welcomed in the Gupta family and that she is no more than a maid supposed to do household chores. She is thrown out of the house and is befriended by a child beggar who gives her shelter. She starts observing the changing lifestyle and with time how family values have vanished. This changing family structure has been supported with another backdrop of the changing society when she sees Shyam played by Vinod Khanna, an educated youth engaging in gang wars with his old college mate Chainu played by Shatrughan Sinha and wasting life’s most productive years. Her good nature earns the sobriquet of Nani Ma as she tries to inculcate goodwill among these wasted youth. The film ends with the death of Nani Ma who is shot in a gunfight between these gangs. 

Gulzar edifices the turbulent 70’s with this satirical song aptly titled – ‘Haal chaal thik thaak hai’. Lines in this number such as – 'Gol Gol roti ka pahiyaa chala..peeche peeche Gandhi ka rupaiyya chala’ gives us an idea of the great socio-political unrest of the 70’s. This was the period of the Emergency and chaos threw the life of the common man out of track. Among these tough times, saner minds like Gulzar always made a contribution to the society in their own ways. While on one side, there were regular rich girl-good boy movies, Gulzar’s work always stood out – often highlighting the neglected subjects of the society. 

For now, it’s a wrap here. 

CRITICAL ACCLAIM OF SOME OF GULZAR’S WORKS - I

So this morning started off pretty nicely. As usual, the peace and quiet of the morning snowballed into a mad rush for office. In the background, the radio was belting out nice Marathi numbers – not the recent, larger-than-life ones, but the old ones written and sung by maestros. Anyways I was contemplating about my to-do list today after checking up office mails. Suddenly then surrealistic words from the radio woven into melodious music stopped me into my tracks. The RJ announced the word ‘Gulzar’ and it was enough for me to give my usual dingy bus a miss.

Just listening to back to back awesome numbers penned down by this legendary lyricist, poet, director, storywriter – whatever you call him, leaves you with a soothing feeling that takes you away from the nonsense noise which is prevalent everywhere you go. Be it newspapers or today’s hip radio stations or any sort of electronic media – the mad din is everywhere. In such times, the songs of Gulzar gain even more importance for a mind who seeks inner peace. That’s because, any song of Gulzar you take, it always has two qualities – beautiful and more importantly ‘meaningful’ poetry and some awesome music from none other than RD Burman who plays another vital role because it’s the collaboration of beats and words that touches the minds of the listener. Words and music when go hand in hand, they create an altogether different confluence.

Over the years, I have grown up listening to Gulzar’s songs – be it ‘Is mod se jaate hain’ from Aandhi or ‘Tujhse naaraz nahi zindagi’ from Masoom to the most recent one ‘Dil toh baccha hai ji’ from Ishqiya. The master of words just never ceases to astound us. Some of the finest poetry which he has penned goes like this –

         Ek akeli chattri mein jab aadhe aadhe bheeg rahe the

         Aadhe sukhe aadhe gile, sukha toh main le aayi

        Gila man shayad, bistar ke paas pada hai..

        Woh bhijwa do..mera woh samaan lauta do..

This one from the 1986 movie Ijaazat, fetched him the National Award. What I really love about his songs is that they talk about the daily life which for most of us, seems to be quite melancholy and mechanic. In the mad rush of life, we tend to lose out on the small things. These small things, knowingly or unknowingly have some effect on our lives, on our personalities, on what we are truly and what we become ultimately. Gulzar puts a finger exactly on these small things. For instance, this one from the Amol Palekar starrer original Golmaal essentially summarizes the Eternal truth which the Buddha practised –

       Aaanewala pal jaanewala hai

      Ho sake toh isme zindagi beeta do..pal jo yeh jaanewala hai

Other soulful renditions such as O Majhi Re from the 1975 movie Khushboo or Tujhse naaraz nahi from the 1983 Shekhar Kapur directed classic ‘Masoom’ are some of the tracks which are still played almost every alternate night on popular radio stations. While Tujhse Naaraz.. describes the inner struggle of a father who is trying to bond with his now orphaned kid, born out of a love affair and not from a legitimate marriage, O Majhi Re captures the wanderlust present in every one of us with words like –

      O Majhi Re..apna kinara..nadiya ki dhaara hai..

The O Majhi Re is such an excellent song that till date serious playback singers cannot resist from singing or mixing this one with other folk songs. This is what exactly Shaan did last week on the MTV Coke Studio Season 1 and I think it was a pretty good attempt. Kudos for that!

In Masoom, Gulzar very poignantly describes the struggle of the father played by Nasseruddin Shah where he is constantly demanding answers from life whether the joy of spending good time with his kid is moral or the social stigma of accepting the responsibility of this love child is immoral. This constant burden of leaving a child to live a life on his own is subtly woven into words such as –

        Jeene ke liye socha hi na tha, dard sambhalane honge

        Muskuraoon to, muskurance ke karz utaarne honge

        Muskuraoon kabhi toh lagta hai

        Jaise hoton pe karz rakhaa hai

              

It’s a daunting task to cover all the aspects of such great minds like Gulzar in couple of paragraphs. For more poignant and at times hard-hitting poetries, see you in the next part of Gulzar’s work.

Saare zameen par

It was a rainy August morning today, when I started from my home towards the office. As usual the bus was late, thanks to their filthy conditions and the crater-marked roads. Just when I thought I would be terribly late for office, the bus arrived and I along with everyone in the line boarded the bus cursing the local municipal corporation.

It was just another day until we got stuck in traffic. Traffic snarls are common in India, especially in metros like Mumbai. After a lot of honking and the bus muscling its way through the traffic, I happened to learn the reason for the traffic – adhoc parking of the cars by the parents who came in to drop their kiddos to school. God! I was like, if Dad dropped me to school, it used to be one of the most privileged days, when the ride to school on the scooter was super cool! I am sure most of you guys will also agree on the fact that school days were the best days.

Certainly things have changed a lot over the last 12-15 years. The way a child was being brought up into a family and the kind of education he received both at the family level and the school level was more natural than how it is done today - synthetic. Earlier it was more of an orthodox kind of teaching where a child was supposed to go through the grind of homework, a lot of reading, writing, memorizing; where he or she was expected to be good at every subject – be it Algebra or languages; or where the child was taught in a more ideal way; ideal in the ‘purist’ sense of education. Of course, drawing comparisons between how a child should be raised as a whole would not make any sense since the concept of ‘family’ as an institution has gone a tremendous change. However, the aim of education should not change, irrespective of the changes in the surroundings – financially, academically or emotionally.

There is a reason for this though. The term ‘Education’ primarily should focus on nurturing the child such that he or she should grow in all directions – mentally, physically, socially, academically and behavior-wise. Ideally, he or she should contribute back to the society in whatever way possible. When I mention society, it can be the smallest unit also – the family. The problem with today’s education system is that this motto of cultivating a student into a responsible citizen of the Nation is lost totally. Education today has a very simple formula –

Education for Money and Money for Education

Whatever level of education you consider – right from getting admitted to a school or going for higher education courses with the likes of IITs and IIMs, money has been a major factor to decide the quality of education being imparted to the students. Conversely, it has also influenced the student’s point of view towards looking at the education system. Let’s focus our attention to the schooling period of a child, because they say that the SSC and the HSC examinations are the turning points of a student’s career.  A career where you can get a fat pay salary and then get ‘settled’ in life. That is what is drilled in the minds of young generation. Well nothing wrong in that, but again the purists argue back that, in most cases the individual progresses only financially. The remaining faculties especially the attitude to look back upon the society largely remains under developed.

While the present schooling system focuses more on the Methodist style of teaching – complete with audio-visual aids, and other fancy ways, the old school method of teaching was devised to let the child think individually by stimulating the curiosity to know about things around. More focus was given on getting the basics in line in whatever way. If multiplication tables were to be taught, the students didn’t just memorize them, they learnt that multiplication is simply cumulative addition of a particular number; when history was taught, the whole scenario of Shivaji’s fight against the mighty Mughals came to life; when Science was taught, the process of water evaporating into clouds and then coming back to the Earth in the form of rain was understood by most of us as the Water Cycle. Geography was imagining how the polar bears in Canada and Siberia survived the cold temperatures of below 0 degrees. All this happened because of the quality of teachers. It requires a lot of ability as a teacher, to bring all these subjects to life in front of students. And when this happens, the aim of getting marks for ranking #1 in exams vanishes. Education attains its true meaning of imparting knowledge to students and the teacher in return gets a lot of personal satisfaction. This kind of satisfaction, I’m sure, would be the highest kind of satisfaction any job can offer and it peaks when such a student attains excellence in a particular subject, then be it a 5^th standard school kid or a PhD guy. This kind of an attitude was very much evident amongst the teachers of the old school line of thought than in their newer counterparts.

It’s very difficult to state the qualities of an ideal teacher, but there are a few which can be counted. An ideal teacher is the one who takes care of the student mentally, emotionally and physically; who ensures that the purest form of knowledge is imparted which will help the student to live a healthy and prosperous life; the kind of knowledge which will make the student a better decision maker; the one who shapes you minds to be responsible citizens of the society; one who lifts the spirit of the student when he or she fails but at the same time takes care that the student is not carried away by the success achieved; one who enables the student to believe in their abilities and finally the one who believes that teaching is not merely a profession but a lifetime commitment to shape the young minds. As the Chinese say –

 ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’.

Education, in its purest form is supposed to assist a person take sensible decisions pertaining to his or her personal as well as social life. We can safely say that we are educated only when as individuals; we can take firm stands on any issues; when we can justify our stand with a logical and valid reason – a reason which will have profound impact on our life as well as the life of others.  

When a child grows, he is getting educated continuously through his or her surroundings – be it the family, the neighborhood, school, college, workplace etc. and this learning continues till the end. At every stage of life, some external agent keeps on shaping the mind of an individual. To start, family is the first learning stage followed by school and college. This is the formative period when the parents, teachers and friends play a vital role in deciding the character of a person he or she is going to be in the future. However, with the changing nature of the society, the family as a unit, the commercialization of educational institutions and other such factors a mad chaos has resulted. Amidst this chaos the true spirit of education has lost forever. The urge to compete with the advanced nations and so to imitate the Western education system has rendered a confused and chaotic state of education here in India. With private schools mushrooming at every nook and corner of the metros, they spend a lot on marketing their brand name in the form of colorful pamphlets with morning newspapers. Huge donations are demanded to get the kid admitted. Upon admission to the so-called best schools also, the kind of To-the-core teachers are very rare. Except few cases, the same is the scenario in colleges and premier educational institutions like the IITs and IIMs.

All this cacophony is present very much in every field – be it medical colleges or pure sciences. Even in this way, if we are producing professionals who are at par with their foreign counterparts, at an individual level, we are not producing good citizens. Not many can contribute back to the society and teaching is one of the noblest professions of giving back to the society. Although attempts are now made to revive the teaching profession by introducing the 6^th Pay Commission, care should be taken that the true essence of education is not lost. This realization should be the prerogative of the individual and not of some third person.

An individual is the basic unit of the society. When an individual is recognized as an educated individual by his degree certificates and not by the strength of his or her character, we can never expect the betterment of the society, especially when we are all going through these turbulent times of corruption and crimes. Education is a process, if we start shaping young minds now, only then we can at least expect a new generation of good citizens. This process should be such that the purist ideas of education are conveyed to the younger generation in ways which they understand the best. Only by bridging this generation gap, I believe, we can have a right to demand answers from the society. 

The Calm before the Storm

If you search for the meaning of Akhada you will mostly stumble upon something as –
 Akhada - (colloq.)-A school of Pehlwani (Indian wrestling)