ANDHER NAGRI- IN NAUTANKI STYLE – a review

ANDHER NAGRI- IN NAUTANKI STYLE – a review

16th August was an evening well spent. Amidst tumbrels, kettle-drums, dholak and, the masterly rendering of the verses by the actors( Uttam Rai as ‘Sufi’ in particular) made the NCZCC auditorium come alive with the staging of the nautanki ‘Andher Nagri’. The nautanki art form is one of the forms of folk-theater in our country. The ‘Swarg Repertory’ has staged many plays in this form not only all over the country, but, even abroad at the World Theater Festival 2004.
The play ‘Andher Nagri’ by Bhartendu Harishchandra was adopted in the nautanki form by the Director, Atul Yaduvanshi, not only because of his fervour for re-establishing the folk-art but also to attack the systemic degradation our society is undergoing. It begins with the entry of a saint with his two disciples in the town of ‘Andher Nagri’ ruled by the ‘Chaupat raja’ where everything was available in a penny- ‘tak ser bhaji, tak ser khaja’. The timelessness of the play is seen in the portrayal of the market where representatives of many religions, regions and professions are seen. The contemporary is referred in phrases like- “Aayaa viklang varsh/ Kaat angutha liya tab” in a new definition of modern Eklavya. The saint decides to leave the place immediately on learning of its strange ways but one of his disciples, Gobardhan (aptly played by Gaurav Bajaj), chooses staying back. His greed gets the better of him. When a woman’s goat gets killed by a wall that fell and, she seeks justice, a farcical court drama begins. Nor the culprits could be identified, nor the woman be compensated for her loss but since justice had to be shown to have been done, poor Gobardhan is sentenced to death because the noose could fit his neck. The timely appearance of his guru saves him, who by his wit, makes the King hang himself.
The music, light and stage decoration were all perfect. The wailing of the woman whose goat had died and, her dress were the only weak spots.
The play with its attack on the system and pelf, closes on a positive note with the end of the whimsical and arbitrary authority and, a clarion call for all of us to wake from our slumber.

Can we learn something from him ?

Two days back i was caught in the rain and had to take shelter at a roadside shop along with many others . A richshaw-wala , instead, preffered to use the raining drops to wash/clean his rickshaw. I tried to catch the act on my cell-phone. The picture is not very clear, but says a lot.

The whole merit system fails on use of unfair means at board exams

This article of mine appeared in The Economic Times on 28 May 2008.- The link is -
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2008-05-28/news/27729482_1_board-exams-engineering-colleges-middle-class
Come March every year and India’s education authorities devise newer schemes for controlling the perennial menace of the usage of unfair means in board exams. In fact, the problem is not India-specific , it pervades the whole of south Asia and China. There needs to be a comprehensive policy to deal with it. The alarming rise in the incidence of cheating in exams around the late 70s coincided with the growth of the middle class and its desire to get admission in medical/engineering colleges — most of which used to give admission on the basis of board-exams marks. The UP board’s brochure of 1992 exams proclaims that its high school pass percentage of 14.70 was the lowest in its history and the intermediate pass percentage of 30.38 was the lowest since 1969. The 1992 exams, it may be noted, were held under the very strict Anti- Copying Ordinance of 1992. The document, Challenges of Education, (circulated in the course of the formation of the National Policy of Education 1986) also stated that the exams and grades have generally lost their reliability. Realising the falsity of the boardexam scores, most good institutions have started admitting students on the basis of tests, but, the mindset of the society, in holding these scores as a measurement of a student’s calibre and the potential of his success in the job-market , remains.
The lure of high scores in the board exams can be understood by viewing the job-market . The board exam results are the basis of many large-scale recruitment by the government. Recruitment of Parateachers (Shiksha Mitra, Shiksha Karmi etc.) in many states, on the basis of merit, based on marks scored in classes 10 and 12 is one example. Uttar Pradesh, for instance, has 1,88,000 Shiksha Mitras at present and the number is to steadily grow because every new primary school has to have one Shiksha Mitra. The UP government has also recruited permanent primary school teachers under the Vishist B.T.C. scheme (numbering about 1, 20,000) on the basis of merit, based not on any test but, on board exams and B.Ed. marks. Thus, in such a scenario, boardexam marks can make or mar the life of many and therefore, they are to be had howsoever. The irony, that many thus selected primary-school teachers had been cheaters in exams, cannot be missed. Another important cause of student’s resorting to cheating in exams is the total absence of teaching in many of the secondary/intermediate colleges. In fact these colleges don’t have students but only examinees.
Cheating in schools with better academic environment has a different reason. The social pressure of expectations for results drives students to employ all means to score in exams. “Contemporary instructional processes contribute at best to lower order cognition, memorisation, and fragile learning; together they make a grand nexus for large scale failing in examinations . The competition for scoring percentage of marks creates unusual stress in the students,” says a CABE report. Coaching institutes and self-financed colleges promote use of unfair means for their own ends. A good result guarantees more clients next year. Lastly, there can’t be denying the fact that an impression is rife in the society that cheating is a fact in all facets of life and those who don’t cheat are tagged as fools for not understanding the system. What is a good student expected to do when he sees the mass around him copying and scoring as much as him, if not higher? Usage of unfair means in the boardexams undermines integrity and fairness at all levels. The whole merit system of the society is corroded. Each succeeding generation of examinees is weaker than its predecessor resulting in worse professionals, rather, society as a whole. In view of the above, well planned and holistic measures are imperative. Some of them can be listed as follows:

* Recruitment for all government jobs should be on the basis of tests and not on board-exam marks, thus reducing the premium on board-exams .

* Board exams should test understanding, not knowledge of rote. Objective tests make examining easier but make cheating easier as well. CABE Report 2005 says our exams are designed to examine the fragile learning due to memorising huge stock of information. It recommends sustainable learning.

* Semester or term system can be adopted in classes 9-12 . They will lessen the burden on students and examining boards, ensure continuous evaluation and teaching, and reduce dependence on coaching and guide-books as compared to the combined and accumulative course.

* The National Policy of Education 1986 had also advocated the awarding of grades not on the basis of one annual test, but, on the basis of periodical tests.

* The board-exams should frame questions requiring long answers and text books can be allowed in the exams. This will test higher order cognition and ensure ‘sustainable learning’ .

* CABE Report has dwelt on the importance of academic supervision to ensure quality secondary education. If the teachers are made to teach in the schools, there would be no reason to use coercive action against examinees during exams.

Measures to check cheating shall be successful only if they target the cause. And, there is no doubt that it has to be checked in order to have a healthy and vibrant society. 

I read this poem below in the school magazine of my son. It was written by one of the teachers there. The poem is self-speaking , hence requires no paraphrasing.--

पश्चाताप

माँ-माँ कहते रहते तुम
पर कर न पाती तुमसे बात
मन की बातें सुनने का भी
समय नही था मेरे पास ।

जब कागज पर रंग भरकर
दिखलाते तुम फूल और चिडिया
तब मैं कहती वक्त नहीं है
बेटा अभी ज़रा ठहर जा ।

माथे पर चुम्बन दे देती
कम्बल में चुपचाप सुलाकर
पर पास तुम्हारें रुक न पाती
सुना न पाती लोरी गाकर ।

कर्तब्य कर दिए सब पूरे
सुख सुविधाए तुमको देकर
पर बचपन में संग तुम्हारें
खेल सकी क्या जी भरकर ?

जीवन कितना छोटा हैं
और गति इतनी तेज़
बड़े हो गए इतने तुम
और साल गुज़र गए कितने एक ।

ना तुम मेरे पास हो अब
ना कागज़ पर सूरज , बादल ,
बस यादें आँखें नम करती
जब छुडाती थी तुमसे आँचल।

अब समय बहुत हैं मेरे पास
दिन काटे नहीं हैं कटते
काश !सालो पीछॆ जाकर
मैं वो सब करती, जो तुम कहते।

-- अलका अग्रवाल

THIS IS THE MIGHTY GANGES IN THE LAND OF SANGAM WHERE IT MEETS RIVER YAMUNA. THE WHITENESS IS OF SAND NOT OF WATER. THE SNAP WAS TAKEN YESTERDAY( 20-05-09) FROM A TRAIN WHILE PASSING OVER THE PHAPHAMU BRIDGE IN ALLAHABAD.
यह तस्वीर है गंगा माई की जो मैंने कल २०-०५-०९ को फाफामऊ पुल
से ली। ये सफेदी पावन जल की नही है , ये गरम रेत है। क्या संगम क्षेत्र को रेगिस्तान बनने में अब अधिक वक्त नहीं है ?

IS SPRING FAR BEHIND?

My springtime has not been very long back. It has been only thirteen years since I passed out of the University, and eighteen, since I passed out of my teens. It isn’t such a long time - or is it! – looking at the Valentine brouhaha. Spring(basant) in our culture has its associations with love and merry-making, culminating in the festival of Holi. It evokes memories of my student-days when individual emotions could be privately celebrated without caring a fig about the moral police if only one could somehow manage to dodge the family members.
The relative closeness between the two genders in terms of physical space was still less and girls pillion-riding with a non-relative did raise eye-brows. But falling in (puppy) love, which happened ever so often, was fun. The mere presence of someone from the opposite gender permeated the atmosphere with a certain indescribable excitement. All those formative years spent in a single-gender missionary school made the opposite sex seem so strange. The identity revealing cell-phones and the caller i.d.’s were still a few years away , and one could have the pleasure of hearing one’s flame’s voice over the basic phone without getting identified. Being identified involved the risk of rejection by one’s secret love, and so, remaining incognito could let one have that ray of hope alive forever. That split second exchange of a furtive glance, the stammering first conversation, those unsaid rendezvous of the neighborhood grocery shop, the university library and the lane near her house. The goose-flesh one had when she got touched accidentally while handing over a book or a pen. Those ingenious tricks to somehow get acquainted to her and begging help from one’s sister, friend’s sister and class-mates for this favour. Those deliberate checking of the bicycle chains and petrol in the scooter while waiting for her to pass by was permeated with a sensibility and an emotion of which romance is made of. Do today’s valentines riding the fast lane of life , fraught with increasing calls of competition , casual inter-personal relations , decreasing spans of attention and, when genders are not so strangers to each others, possess the same degree of romance as we did, I wonder!
The present generation might be having its own definitions of romance which, of course, they have every right to. But , perhaps, the celebrations should not be limited to a single day. Shouldn’t the emotion of love, which is ever-present in all of us, be celebrated every day, and can’t we profess that Valentines day is but an occasional episode in the general drama of spring?

SMOKING GUN Someone's Gotta Do It

Publication: Times Of India Mumbai; Date:2008 Sep 11; Section:Editorial; Page Number 18
Link-
 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/SMOKING-GUN-Someones-Gotta-Do-It/articleshow/3468647.cms?

SMOKING GUN

Someone's Gotta Do It

Skand Shukla

This entire hullabaloo about smoking is so painful. The statutory warning on cigarette packets sets my heart afire. The frequency of inhalation increases to exhale the anger within. As if we smokers smoke merely for the sake of it. As if the world would become a better place if all of us stopped smoking once and for all. I exhort the smokers of the world to unite, as we have nothing to lose but our lungs. Only united can we ward off the prospects of a smokeless world. Only united can we plead our case, enlighten non-smokers and make them see the fire of service burning within us. Has anyone wondered how our roads are made, our electricity lines put up, and our irrigation canals laid out? It's we, the unobtrusive social servants, who make this possible. It's we who choke our lungs with nicotine and provide revenue for the society to move. It's we who knowingly and willingly die a slow death to make civilisation live. While governments across the world are concerned about rising unemployment, we are the ones whose smoke sustains so many — tobacco cultivators, cigarette makers, admen, dentists, cancer specialists... the number is legion.

I must concede, however, that we smokers have private ends to serve too. We inhale to fight pollution. Surprised! Well one needn't be, for it is based on a simple medical philosophy. Aren't we given weakened doses of viruses to make us immune to various diseases? The same belief governs us smokers. We inhale small amounts of tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide and what not to fight environmental pollution. Has anyone given a thought as to how our distaff side would have felt liberated had there been no smoke? Non-smokers seem to be patently anti-feminist. As the two genders smoke together, their mingling smoke-rings signal the burning away of gender differences and their coming together. Enveloped in the smokescreens they feel empowered to conquer the evil world. People seeking a curb on smoking forget its importance in community life. The mere threat of losing the 'hukka-pani' relationship has brought the mightiest to his knees. Non-smokers should become aware of our contribution to the world. Damned be the definition of a cigar as a roll of tobacco with fire at one end and a fool at the other. A generous fool should be more welcome than self-centred wisdom.