Sketch of the day

Green.

Shades of green.

Movie- Visaranai

Vikas suggested this movie. 

Migrants from Tamil Nadu get locked up in Andhra Pradesh. They are presented at the court and what happens at the court is the rest of the movie. This reminded me of Rajamane's story. 

These are the stories that need to be presented in front of the crowd to initiate the dialogue. Hope Telugu Film Industry pull up its socks and creates movies reflecting the society. 

Interview with the  novelist Chandran


https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/regional/visaranai-oscar-2017-nomination-regional-language-tamil-auto-man-book-inspiration-lock-up-3055301/

Life in lockdown- Day 64 May 28.2020

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/delhi-farmer-buys-plane-tickets-to-send-10-workers-to-their-homes-in-bihar/story-zgT37jbr4wnzEkjJQYe5fI.html


I have read a lot of heart-wrenching stories and inspiring stories. Acknowledging the realities, I thought I'll share the positive stories to reinstate on humanity and hope.

https://artseverywhere.ca/2020/05/14/prison-writing-archive/

Memories- A meet after long time

8 years ago, I went to a movie with Swathi and her friends. Her friends included Celine and Mugdha. Elizabeth missed to join us. I heard a lot about them and met them for the first time back then. After meeting them over a movie, became facebook friends and never met them again.

It was during Elizabeth's engagement, I met Mugdha again. Met her after 8 years! We picked up the conversation from the time we met. There was no air of awkwardness at all. Our conversations went on from what we did after 2012 till 2020.

Thanks Elsa for sharing this picture.

Pandemic Ripples

Due to COVID-19, the country got lockdown and many people lost their jobs, few people left their jobs and returned their home. Today, I visited a few homes along with Dyu. We spoke on how the pandemic affected their livelihood. 'My salary got cut to half. I am thinking if I should continue the job or try another one,' said a father. 

'I am not going to return to that place again' said my neighbour who returned from Madurai. 

On being asked about what he is going to do, he said, "Either I will do construction work or will work at some shop" said the neighbor, father of two children, who went to Madurai for a consistent income. 

Migrancy always happens in the hope of a better livelihood. It's going to take a long time before the urban places are filled with migrants again. It's time we build a better economy on good foundation.

Nice Story- Dhangar and their life.

http://peepli.org/stories/the-man-who-cried-wolf/

This article is about Dhangar, the nomadic tribe from Maharashtra. I know Raebari tribe from Rajasthan. Learnt about the lifestyle and livelihood of nomadic tribe and their hardships while herding the sheep.

Nice Podcast- Interview with Sudheendra Fadnis

https://anchor.fm/mahboob-hussain5/episodes/Interview-with-Sudheendra-Fadnis--Technical-Writer--A-Voracious-Reader-eedr8s/a-a2969cp



Informative podcast on books and reading. I know Sudheendra from Hyderbad Book Club. He is voracious readers with diverse interests.
 

Education - Rules and reality

In film schools,  various cinematic rules are taught in cinematography so that, students can master and blend the rules rather than be constrained by the rules. 

In the same way, teachers need to master the textbooks and it's designing in order to blend and bring new teachings rather than being constrained by the textbook. Textbook dependence is one major issue in language teaching. One needs to master the process of designing the book, in order to understand the objectives of it and tweak the process of facilitating resources in language teaching. 

Story - Loving Laili

I read this story from, 'Indian Fairy Tales' compiled by Joseph Jacob.

The story of Laili loving Majnun beyond all the circumstances. The story is not as simple as I put it. It reflects our society, the relations, the trust and above all, how we look at others.

http://www.authorama.com/indian-fairy-tales-9.html

Quotes from 'Escaping Tradition' by David Gribble.

"I remember the forgiveness of all the punishment. Ironically, punishments are given to teach. Forgiveness taught me more than what punishment failed to teach me."

"I had scorned to co-operate with the system but, it seemed to make sense to want to cooperate with people."

"It was far more effective than a caning would have been."

"Some teachers apparently think it better to give  wrong information than  ti admit that you don’t know."

"I remember plenty more about what teachers did, but! & just do not remember them teaching me anything."

"I did learn a little science, which was strange because it was hardly taught at Eton when I was there."

 "My failures and difficulties with learning perhaps had more influence on my later ideas than my success did."

Britain's Got Talent 2020 Souparnika Nair 10 Year Old Singer Full Auditi...

Diversity in book

https://youtu.be/nVrwiKEqHTc

As writers, we need to be good readers all the time.

As I got introduced to different genres, I was inclined to nonfiction and always challenged about Swathi's choice of fiction. Back then, it was fiction vs nonfiction.

Later, I understood the value of diversity.

TED Talk- Aishwarya Rajesh

https://youtu.be/zls4a7I_qaM

Aishwarya Rajesh has terrific stories and journey to share but, the talk would have been crafted well witha central idea.

From now on, I'll try to emphasize on beginning and ending of the TED talks to observe the trend of Indian TEDxTalks.

Beginning- Thinking loud. Vague Start

Ending- Expressing Gratitude. 

Movie- Paatal Lok

Paatal Lok is a suspense thriller series that narrates the nasty reality of media and the whole system we live in. Woven with the depiction of gender relations, oppression, the series can be a trigger for a dialogue.  As all the OTT platform content's thumb rule, it also has an interesting screenplay.  

Jaideep Ahlawat played the cop role really well.Thanks Azith for the suggestion. Enjoyed the series. 

Thoughts- Rural or Urban stories

I asked a writer,'Are there any books written in a rural context? for the children.' 'Most of the books,' I mentioned 'are written in an urban context.'

Spending a year in rural schools, I discovered that only a few publications like Pratham, Tulika, and a few other houses come out with books with a rural context.

'If you write for rural context, you miss out on urban people.' If you write for urban people, you miss out on rural people. Anyway, everyone needs to progress to the urban scenario' she mentioned.  Do we all need to progress to the urban scenario? Does knowledge of rural stories are not worth to read?

Nice articles- Inequality, Education, Pandemic.

All the articles, I am reading now, talks about the benefits of investment in public infrastructre. i.e Public health and education.  It's important we work on the inequality issue and cater all the sections of the society.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-has-to-come-to-terms-with-inequality-thomas-piketty/article31636033.ece?fbclid=IwAR0EoZrqle6kbV-uKKVoH7MCpHmzl5YnXuFzNhv0yEWNhId-t-8o3IxHs10

https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/education-should-not-be-india-s-top-priority-in-this-hour-of-crisis-11589991627666.html

Stories at Sirohi- Regular Day

I miss children as I read my diary entry of August 22nd 2019. Those were the times where I was panicking when I hit the wall in teaching the children the language. Children trusted me and wanted to learn. They were ready to listen to me. I was being restless on what to do and where to reach out for the resources. It was one of the days, where I couldn't sleep thinking about all the children and their words. 

Karan from Class 6 and Raju from Class 7 was eager to learn. They used to learn when given attention and time. Dealing with class of 28, I had a hard time in giving attention to each and every student

Diary Entry:

22. Aug

Woke up at 3.15 am,  clueless of what to do. Started the book, “What did you ask at school today?”

Went to school and gathered the prints of the cat mat books. Delighted to see kids performing Mangal Mangal song.

Further, went on to teach Karan the phonics method. He was sincere in learning. Quite a learner if given individual attention. But cannot afford to give individual attention to everyone. It is an art to give the kids their attention yet not spending much time on it. They need to be valued and they need to get that trust that I value them.

Further, I went on killing the time and seeing the 8^th class kids learning ‘Praying Hands’ Everyone are silent. They pay attention but not with me. Need to focus.

Music- Making difference through their voices.

Shreya composed and penned down a song, 'She.' As a part of N.Studio project, she has done it. Shreya brought a flavor by her voice. She sung it beautifully.

Sharayu recently sang a cover of 'Laali Laali' from the movie Indira. Lullaby that put me to sleep last night.

Today, Teju shared a cover of , 'Raat Hamaari Toh' from the movie, Parineeta. 

I'm so happy to listen to all my friend's songs. Funnily, last week, I was conscious of my screen time and decided to cut down social media. All these three days, I only spent 5-7 minutes on social watching these people's videos. I'm downloading the audio and listening to it offline. The experience of listening to the songs without distraction is enriching. I'm enjoying the experience.

As I get onto social media, there are so many other things that distract me. Even though, I listen to the songs,  I am not satisfied by the experience. Now, as I listen to it without any distraction, I am able to appreciate it a lot.

Holidays with Harry- Writing and Editing

Harry is a huge support system for my writing. Over a call, we spoke about what's happening in our lives.

We spoke about how editing on paper makes the difference. I got my draft printed. There's a huge difference in editing the document online and offline. 'We cannot understand the flow through the screen medium somehow,' says Harry about editing.

He also shared one more suggestion. "Soon after the whole editing, read out the document loud. It gives you more sense." Thanks Harry. Will work on these processes.

Harry has been lighting Diya since long time. He's been doing it as token of appreciation to all the front line workers. He also put few candies for all the GHMC workers. Nice work Harry.

Sunset at Reodar

Music- Cover by Teju

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAYA1D1A6t7/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet


Beautifully sung by my friend, Teju. This made my day. Check it out. 

The Last Dance- Series

Inspiring.

The Cat and the walk

I carried my water camper to the steps, having my mind somewhere else. Just like my thoughts. My eyes strayed sidewards while I walked straight. I found the cat, looking at the path that's between me and the gate. My reflex actions were so acute that I stopped and shrieked before I could spot the Cat properly.  I looked at the cat. And it walked past me as if, it had no role in what it has done. I stared at her, as it walked past. After further steps, it turned back and looked at me. 

I was done with the shriek, I looked without a reaction. I stared at it. It stared at me. It continued its steps seeing no reaction in me. It walked further and looked back. Well, here I am! Cat. I stared at her without any reaction. Few more steps, it looked back. We had the game of be-in-your-own-place, I'll-go-to my-place. And finally, it walked into trees, disappearing from the sight.

Never seen a heavy headed cat. Sigh. 

Story- The pink Liquid

My teacher walked in with a weird shaped colored bottle. I saw bottles being round and square but not rectangular with a flat base and coned by the end. My teacher pressed the top and the liquid came out.

How does the pink liquid come out? Why is the liquid pink in colour? My favourite colour. He took a drop of it. He rubbed the hands and demonstrated the way one should clean their hands with the liquid. Does this liquid create foam? Nah. There's no fun in cleaning the plates or hands with this,  if there's no foam to play with. I watched him rubbing his hands vigorously and went on with his monologue describing how it kills some invisible small organisms. 'Why did he come and disturb our music class?' I thought.

His movements were funny, his concentration in washing the hands vigorously was funny. Can I wash utensils with this liquid? I do not have this kind of liquid at home. Neither to wash hands nor utensils. My teacher got it. I imagined him washing utensils at my home using that pink liquid. Quiet funny. I couldn't let my laugh out.  Sam Bhaiya looked at me widening his eyes. Sam Bhaiya looked at me widening his eyes. I got everyone's attention. I bit my tongue reaming silent wishing there's an invisible cloak to hide from all those glaring glares. I looked at sam Bhaiya if he was angry. He is not. He got this smile that slipped from his lips and eye.

He also laughed. He is with me. I thought and I left home wondering how the liquid is made of pink, how does that work you press and thing come out. Interesting.

I camae home. we played, jumped, got over,. Mid all the over my hands, Come and eat, said Mom. 'Okay' I went to clean my hands. I realised, we haven't got any pink liquid, nor the soap to rub, I washed my hands with waters.


'Get the soap' from shop shouted mom.
Soap costs 10 rs now. 'Give me money.' I screamed.
' Clean with the ash. It's the best soap.' My mom shouted back. 'Okayy.' I said knowing that we can't afford a soap a month. It has to come for 45 days. I wonder how costly the pink liquid would be.