Dreams have always been a fascinating area of concern. From Freud to Nolan, people can just never get enough of fiddling with dreams! This movie has generated many kinds of noises around it. The blogger will keep this feedback short and crisp.
It’s a well-conceived movie woven around the concepts of ‘shared dreaming’ and ‘dream extractors’. We don’t know how much of it is true, but everyone will have their concerns! It’s a leap of faith to share your dreams. And dreams have the ability to become your personality, to define you. The power of the sub-conscious mind is a risky terrain, not to be treaded by the faint-hearted!
This film deserves a watch, not just for the stirring concept, but the ability of the director to keep you engrossed with the characters [all convincingly acted] and their mind games, across various levels of DREAMs!!!
The Salaam Baalak Trustis an NGO working for the rehabilitation of orphans and juveniles. The blogger visited their centre in Paharganj area of New Delhi. This one is housed in a rented space on the 3rd floor of a DDA building. This building also has other offices of similar organizations. This particular centre has 40 boys in the age group of 6-14 years. They come from variedly underprivileged backgrounds and their upbringing is undertaken by the SBT.
The children live in-house in a dorm. There is a computer centre equipped with 14 PCs and classes are regularly held for the children. There are various educational posters adorning the walls. There is an entire show-case dedicated to the various achievements of these kids. There is also a shot of the child who had a role in the ROAD MOVIE, along with its lead actor Abhay Deol and the director Satish Kaushik. One of their star children [now an adult] Vicky Roy has achieved accolades for his photography. He even had a show in New York. That poster is up too, to serve as an inspiration to the children.
The main drive behind the initiative is to make available to these children most of the available faculties for an all-round development. Their background should not be a hindrance for a brighter and better future! When this blogger went there, with a group of ladies, the children performed various dance pieces. 2 of them even sung songs for us! One of the dance items was a very well-choreographed and fairly rehearsed piece on the song ‘BUM BUM BOLE’ from the hit flick Taare Zameen Par.
Many years ago, this blogger was a part of a short X’mas skit done for a group of children from SBT. They must be all grown ups now, but it felt nice to renew the connection with SBT. Hopefully, there will be better associations in the future.
Smt. DAYA BAI is a fairly well-known social worker having a long-standing association with tribal people in Madhya Pradesh [now Chhattisgarh], India. Her journey to reach where she is currently, was not an easy one, in the least. It has been an exploration of her inner self, her search for ‘light’, the true path, her calling. Almost70, she humbly admits, she’s still looking for the purpose of her life. That is an astonishing admission from someone with a body of work like hers. But then, it is the journey which adds meaning to life, and not the destination itself!
On the 10th of July 2010, she graced the weekly meeting of SPICMACAY and shared her experiences with us. It was inspiring to hear about the dual pursuit driving it. One being the welfare of tribals, and the other, her continual search for a purpose. It is the latter search which has shaped most of her life experiences. As a septuagenarian, there is undoubtedly a lot she has been through. It is her journey, and never-say-die attitude that made this interaction most memorable.
Despite hailing from a well-to-do family in Kerala, she was not spoilt. She has a twin sister and at the age of 3, she moved from Cochin to the state of Travancore. She was there till the age of 15-16. In her house, inhabited by members of a large extended family, she saw untouchability being practiced. That difference between ‘us and them’ was what struck her, and it was her trigger, the starting point. Five of her aunts were nuns, and that inspired her. She went to the convent too, but did not become a sister.
As a child, she heard a song in Malayalam on the life of priests [missionaries] in north India. “I wanted to be like that, carefree and devoted.” Then she told her family about it, but had health problems. Hence, she made herself “tough”, and then applied and got through the training centre in Hazaribagh, Bihar. When in the campus, she saw tribals doing menial/servant jobs. This shattered her dream and broke her into tears. Then she realized, this was not her vocation!
During the period of her training at the seminary, a sense of sensitivity emerged. On Christmas, hordes of tribal people came from far off for the Midnight Mass. Seeing them, she couldn’t stay in the convent! After the next day’s prayer, she took a resolution – to finish her course, and at the end of it, if she had even a bit doubt, then she won’t take the promotion.
And that’s how it was to be. She finished her course and moved out, did odd jobs to get an experience on the field, and to find the ‘purpose of her life’. She did a BSc from Ranchi. There was one Austrian Sister running a school-cum-training centre for tribals in Chhattisgarh, and she went to her. But, she was given a job in another school. In search of light, she worked across places, including at MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY during the cyclone. So, basically, being in the social work line, she applied for MSW at Nirmala Niketan, Mumbai, while she was on field in Bangladesh.
Her application was immediately accepted due to her vast on-the-job experience. But the course, fashioned largely on European and other non-Indian lines, with its strictly academic focus, did not appeal to her. Here too, she considered herself a misfit! Somehow managing to finish the first year, she left on her journey again, this time working in Maharashtra and Haryana. Eight years down the line, after two syllabi revisions Field Work was introduced in the course. And then she returned to do her 2nd year!
It was during the field work for this course that she went to Chhinwada, to do her study with the people of Gond tribe. After random unwelcome experiences, she finally established a bond with the people, due to assistance during childbirth to a tribal woman. Apart from being a voracious reader, she’d previously done a course in nursing too! After having submitted her final paper, she came back to this place. But her attire drove the women away. They weren’t used to draping their saree around a petticoat, unlike her!
But Daya Bai-ji had her trust in God. The village could be reached only by walking a stretch of 23kms through the jungle. People of the Bhil, Saam and Gond tribe lived together in relative harmony and no one was literate. The World Bank had forcefully made them take loans through the local banks for ‘development’. Cheating was rampant in this and the Gondwana tribe had become dehumanized. She was shocked out of her senses when one tribe/ village senior referred to themselves as ‘jungle ke bandar’ [monkeys of the forest]. She was determined to bridge the gap between ‘us and them’.
She came back there for Christmas and started with doing labour and earning with them. Then, by trick, she saw the records on papers and told the people about how they were being cheated. This was in 1981, and she began her participation with spreading awareness about labour ill-practices. A school was set up and a well was dug. There were night classes held for adults, to whom the first word she taught was हक़ [haq, right]. Letting her creative juices flow, she taught Fundamental Rights by means of songs and stories. This launched her active phase and gradually the inferior feeling amongst the tribals started to reduce.
After laying the foundation, she moved on to tackling environmental problems like deforestation and hybrid seeds. Her current focus is on organic farming, planting trees, organic manure [humus], water harvesting by building bunds and diggings pits, etc. A believer in ‘practice what you preach’, she does not use tap water, for it always results in wastage. And, she left the use of soap and toothpaste right after her course at the seminary. She also established a now successful self-help group amongst the women there.
She has received many awards in recognition of her work and is well known in the Kerala press. But progress breeds enemies too. She has many blockages planted in her path, having been tortured by the police, her teeth-broken for filing an FIR and mocked at in the court during a trial. Currently she’s fighting a case against her, which has reared its head after three years. She has published a collection of her poetry and her biography has been penned and published in Malayalam.
By her own admission, she is still searching for the ‘purpose’ of her life. Her journey is an inspiration for everyone, to contribute their bit towards a fair and just society. And, the search continues….
How often is it, that we meet people who are classic examples of something?! They are the near-ideal types of a certain stereotype. And what’s better, they even actively justify their position! Consequently, they unabashedly admit to being stuck in a mould, and are very comfortable in their ‘frogs in a well’ condition. Today, this blogger happen to meet one such person!
When it comes to career choices, ‘tradition’ defined success as “qualifying IIT” and “clearing UPSC”. The former meant cracking the uber-tough IIT-JEE, ticket to India’s premier engineering institutes, and latter, becoming an administrator, a somewhat cushy job with official and unofficial perks! This ‘tradition’ still holds VERY true in most parts of this country. Boys [more than girls] are indoctrinated since their tender childhood days to have ‘IIT’ as their target. There are factories set up sleepy towns which unfailingly churn out ‘success stories’ of those who’ve ‘cracked’ it! There are, of course, those who inhabit the periphery and milk moolah from this mania.
Another national hobby is to appear for the awfully famous ‘UPSC’. These set of exams are a window to the almost-good life in INDIA!:P! Not to forget, it surreptitiously authorizes the grooms to demand a hefty dowry in the marriage market. People throng the ‘centres’ of ‘preparation’ in major metros. It has also given rise to a whole industry of ‘coaching classes’ which ‘excel’ in producing ‘toppers’. Everyone’s got their own claim-to-fame students whose passport-size photos are proudly pasted in news-paper advertisements once the final list is announced!
The IIT ‘preparation’ failures lose only about 2-3 years of their early adulthood. The ‘UPSC’ candidates have a bigger window. Their prime is spent in attempting the UPSCand other states’ exams right across till they cross the age limit or finish the stipulated number of attempts. Lucky are those who crack ‘it’ in their first or second attempts. The rest, are…well….just fooling themselves! These ‘traditional’ career choices draw hordes of students to them, in the greed of bettering their life conditions. Very few amongst these are those, who are truly passionate about engineering or being efficient administrators.
The personI met today, is a school teacher in a tier-two capital city. His son qualified for the JEE this year with a rank in the 4900s. He is jubilant! They intend to let him opt for any faculty in the IIT-D campus so that…here’s the big part…he can ‘prepare’ for UPSC!!! [yeah..RIGHT!]
When goaded by the blogger, that once in IIT, it’s a little difficult to devote time for UPSC preps, the teacher replied, “My son is a different kind of a guy. He can study for 17-18 hours. Sometimes, even more. Delhi has better options in terms of coaching classes. And he has very few needs. I am sure he’ll be able to manage. And this is what he wants to do, too.”
He went on to humbly rave about the students he had taught. Their success stories in the nationally dreaded ‘board exams’. How his son is highly ‘obedient’. His children do most of their communication to their mother. “A little bit of “fear” is necessary in the minds of students”. And then, very politely, he exhorted my kid-cousin to study hard, so that he can make it to IIT. [HAH! Like there is no better job to do!]By his own admission, “We still have a traditional mind-set”.
The resort to ‘tradition’ traces its roots to Indians being highly ‘security-conscious’. Risk avoidance is considered an art, taught right from child-birth. Though, a large section of the upper crust is now exposed to other available options,most of the rest still bask in their ability to fit in the mould. We are hence, mainly content consumers and don’t make much contribution in return. Stifling creativity to trade it for ‘assured-jobs’ has many side-effects. The preference for ‘traditional’ choices has spawned a whole murky network of ill-equipped colleges, astronomical tuition and donation fees and a whole range of wheeler-dealers posing as ‘consultants’ for facilitating admission in mofussil colleges.
As soon as the teacher left, this blogger couldn’t help blurting, “HE IS A MAD GUY! HE RUNS A SMALL-TIME FACTORY AND PRIDES IN THE FACT THAT HE IS PRODUCING ASSES!” when said in hindi, this sounds fairly polite!;-)! this, followed by the kid-cousin being assured that he should opt for what HE wants to do, and not what the other so-called well-wishers nee ‘failures’ want him to do. Poor kido, burdened under the unfulfilled dreams of others…not getting to live his own dream!
Disclaimer:this post does not intend to discredit those sincerely passionate students who opt for either of these career choices. it's meant...err...only for the dumb clones!
