RIP Dev Anand

I never write such posts. But he’s one actor who’s presence was quite significant through the years of my childhood, and so hearing about his death not only made me sad but also made me pushed me to pen down a few words. A friend of mine was the first to inform me of the news last night. Truthfully, I’d not paid attention to any interviews, movies, news stories about this evergreen romantic hero in the past year, but there’s hardly been a week that’s passed without me listening to a playlist of songs from his movies alone.

The first hindi song that I ever learned to sing in my life was khoya khoya chand.Hearing my uncle humming this song, I quickly picked the tune and lyrics of the song, and also learned to play the notes on his Casio. And there began my fetish for some of the funnest songs from Dev Anand’s movies. Looking back at my cassette collection, I think I own the most number of cassettes titled ‘ Dev Anand songs’ than any of my friends, or family members.

It was back in 1998 when I saw my first black n white movie ever – Tere Ghar ke Saamne. Sony channel had a Dev Anand film festival that year, and although I seldom watched movies back then, this was one rare occassion when I was thankfully allowed to watch as much TV as I wanted to. Some of the other movies I saw during that festival were CID, Kaala Paani, Hum Dono, Guide, Paying Guest, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, and Jewel Thief.

I instantly  fell in love with the young, tall Dev Anand. I was mesmerized by not just his looks, but also his style of dressing, walking, and talking. I admired the chemistry he shared with all the leading women in his films, specially in the songs. How can one not help but smile while watching achaji main hari, or dekho rootha na karo, or abhi na jao chodkar?

He lived 88 glorious years, so rather than mourning his death it’s wiser to celebrate his contribution to the industry. And what better way to do this than listen to some timeless classics? Here’s a link to a playlist I created of my favorite songs from his movies, in addition to the ones linked in this post. Enjoy!

2011

And just like that, one more year’s almost gone by. At the beginning of this one I’d made a grocery list of resolutions here. Knowing that no drastic change will occur in the next one month, I decided to do an early post about what i did and did not achieve this year.

Accomplished

• Eight is the number of hours I want to sleep each night, and the number of glasses of water I want to drink each day
• Eat a fruit each night with dinner.
• Read at least one book each month. Also return library books on time, to avoid unwanted fees!
• Keep in touch with friends, family. Email/call/chat. Also, do a better job of remembering birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates.
• Visit at least 2 new states
• Make important decisions and stand by them for life
• Write for 30 mins in the night, for at least thrice a week.
• No shopping till June.

Not Accomplished

• Practice music daily
• Save at least 50 dollars each month.
• Write down my accounts weekly
• Do not eat sweets or sugar, except during birthday parties. For desperate times, honey’s the way to go.
• Work out five days a week.
• Lose 20 lbs by December 2011.
• Use less of gmail, gtalk, online chatting and skyping services during the weekdays.
• Brush my teeth before bed.
• Count up to 10 before I talk.

I would have been more content if the list had been swapped. But I chose the latter ones knowing how tough they would be for me to keep up, and did work towards achieving them as much as possible. Music, weight loss, finances have and will forever continue to be priorities in my life and a year is never going to be enough time to reach the level I yearn to be at. No more thoughts on that.

Most importantly as the year is coming to an end, if there was one thing that I could point to and feel joyous about then it would be the people I  continue to have as friends and family. Through endless conversations – painful, thought provoking, funny, senseless ones I’ve grown to love them more and cherish their presence in my life. There are way too many to be tagged here, but you all know who you are On that note, adios!

Why read?

Lately, thanks to my courses, I’ve been compelled to think about everything that goes into structuring an educational system. Of course, what came to my mind first was the CBSE system which I’m most familiar with. One that pushes students to mug and reiterate facts blindly, rather than understand and explain concepts.I don’t look down upon this system, nor do I think I know enough to find faults in it. In fact,I think that the training that’s given through this system plays a pivotal role in the success of most Indian students who venture out into their own fields of interest after high school. It is because we’re accustomed to that pressure, because the basic facts across subjects are drilled into our heads for life, and because this has been done with minimal dependency on calculators and other devices that I think I’ve been able to ease my way into other educational systems. Even if I don’t remember the content of what was taught in school, I acquired some really good study skills in school that I think I wouldn’t have gotten from anywhere else. And of course the importance of an education (in my case to get a job asap) was loud and clear at a very early stage in life.

Every day, as I sit to teach my students I feel guilty of depriving them of such an intense level of training. I wonder if they are aware of the fruits that their labor for perhaps the next 10 years will yield. Granted that the population I work with can do much better without the pressure. Success for them case is toned down several levels, and adding more pressure could be potentially harmful (drop out rates are still pretty high for students with disabilities). Still, is it right for me to simply quit and stoop down to a level where learning is easy so as to ensure that interest in study is maintained, or should I instead stress them out initially and then hand out easy work to show them the joy involved in hard work? Heart says latter, mind says former. 

On the first day of class, I flicked a colleagues idea for an opening activity that clearly communicated that their time in my room was mostly work sometimes play sort of a deal. I read a book to the kids after which we discussed it. Accuracy of their answers didn’t matter as much as getting them to a point of trying to answer without fearing failure. This went quite well as we all entered a comfort level quite quickly. History of working with some of them in the past year also helped. And then  we began a discussion on the significance of the reading class. (Boring eh? Surprisingly not!)

Question: Why do we need to read?

Answers: Errr…. Uhmm,..Ultimately dead silence.

Question: Let me rephrase that one for you. How will knowing how to read help you?

Answer: I can answer all your questions. I can score more.

Question: And how will that help you? I can give you more marks for just verbally answering my questions, why read?

Answer: Silence. Because we are asked to do that in school?

Question: I am glad you are asked to do so! But why do your teachers, parents, stress on reading? How will it affect your future?

Answer: We will get more marks and go to middle school. Then high school.

Question: Awesome! And do you think you’ll read more in middle school? High school? Why is that important?

Answer: No. I mean yes we will read. I don’t know why it’s important.

I will cut the dialogue here even thought I find it of utmost interest that these students don’t even know the purpose of going to school or reading. This is not true of any one population, but it’s pretty much the way things work across the board, irrespective of the age/race/socioeconomic status. Eventually with a lot of scaffolding on my part I was able to convey to the kids that reading is a part of our lives and will remain so till death. It’s pivotal to know this to be able to do your groceries, laundry, to find a job, to teach your future generations anything. The importance of reading cannot be diminished under any circumstance, specially in today’s day and age!

It was a little too intense for day 1, but it made a difference in their attitudes the next time they walked in. It probably would have reinforced my point further if I had written down their responses and posted it on a wall. Anyhow, this brings me back to my point of comparing CBSE to any other systems of education. The pressure that was created in my mind from the tremendous portions to study subconsciously helped me understand the importance of education. That I constantly feared failing and related that to not getting a job or studying further in life, was probably the primary reason I slogged in school. Nobody spent time to hold explicit discussions on the importance of education. Had someone done that  there might have added a more meaningful layer to school life. with my students though, I always find myself wondering what the best route is — pressurizing them till they give up resisting work and just yield to my directions and instructions, or holding conversations such as the one mentioned above. Perhaps, like me, everyone realizes the importance of education only after high school. Or do they?

Am I thinking too much?

 

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