THE CLASS OF 83 MOVIE REVIEW

 

The Class of 83: The Punishers of Mumbai Police is directed by Anurag Kashyap adapted from S Hussain Zaidi's book on Mumbai crime and Underworld. This book is a critique on the encounter specialists of the Mumbai Police Force.

Vijay Singh, an honest police officer is the Dean of the Officer's Training School in Nashik. He has been given punishment posting there. He is haunted by a failed operation against a gangster Kalsekar and secondly by the death of his wife, Sudha. Both these events have scared him emotionally. He chooses five underperforming students for this operation who are well known for their friendship, truth and loyalty namely Pramod Shukla, Vishnu Varde, Aslam Khan, Lakshman Jadhav and Janardan Surve. Along with them, the training inspector Mangesh Dixit and DCP Raghav Desai are aware of this plan. Raghav Desai helps him to form an off-the-records team specializing in encounter killings. Some time later, rivalry over encounter credits and lure for money tears the team apart.

This movie gives a feel of 1980s Mumbai as we can see cars like Fiat and Ambassador, BEST buses, mills, newspaper office and printing area. Vijay Singh is shown using a machine gun to kill the gangster. Vijay Singh is shown as a brooding mentor who is constantly battling his inner demons. He does not speak much but his eyes convey every dialogue. In the end, the gangster is killed and the four officers are held guilty in the court and get sentenced for a few years.

'A SUITABLE BOY' Movie Review

 

'A Suitable Boy' book was published in 1993 by Vikram Seth. It's setup is of 1950s when India got free from British rule recently. It showed how people were trying to adjust in the new environment. The people were stuck between twin forces i.e. tradition and modernity which were opposite to each other. This showed a world full of people looking inward and outward, having one foot in the past and one in the present.

Andrew Davies has done the screenplay adaptation of A Suitable Boy. He previously has done many adaptations including Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' (2016) and Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables' (2017). These adaptations have been done for BBC so the characters are shown speaking English.

The story revolves around Lata, a college student. Her mother wishes her to marry a suitable boy. She also has three suitors namely Amit, Haresh Khanna, and Kabir Durrani. The other side of the story revolves around her brother-in-law, Maan, who has an affair with an older Muslim woman Saeeda. We can see caste and religion based politics, capitalism, socialism, industrialization, fall of grace of the landed gentry, and other sundry concerns of young India. This series doesn't show India directly as a land of heat, dust, strange odors and snake charmers but gives a hint about all these indirectly. When we watch the series, we can relate it to Jane Austen's heroines as Lata shuttles between her suitors. Whereas Maan is stuck between love and infatuation. Lata is at first shown averse to the idea of marriage but then grows to consider it after feeling the need of a companion.

(THE WORD SUITABLE IN BLUE CONTAINS LINK OF THE TRAILER. YOU CAN CLICK ON THE LIN TO WATCH THE TRAILER)

MOVIE REVIEW OF 'CHHALAANG'

 

The movie Chhalaang is produced by Luv Ranjan starring Nushrat Bharucha and Rajkumar Rao. Neelima (Neelu), a computer teacher is shown striking a blow for women rights, gender equality and sports in this movie. The film is set in a small town of Haryana. Mahendra's (Montu) father is a respected lawyer in this town who uses his influence to get a job for his son. Initially, he is shown as a slacker who eats samosas and drinks tea in the PT period rather than doing his actual job. He became a PT teacher because he couldn't become anything else in his life. (Personally, I also have heard this thing especially for teachers that "when you are not able to do any other job or you are bored at home, you become a teacher." I don't think this is the reality as when I was a child, I always dreamt of becoming a teacher and I finally I fulfilled my dream. So, people should stop thinking this as not anyone becomes a teacher easily. We face many hurdles.) Montu likes to spend the day in the company of his Guru, Professor Shukla who teaches Hindi. They both keep eating samosa and drink tea. In the evening, Montu accompanies his childhood friend Dimpy and both of them keep consuming alcohol in large amounts.

             Montu's life takes a turn when Neelu joins school as a computer teacher. At the same time, Inder Mohan Singh, another sports teacher gets appointed as Montu's senior. Inder and Neelu both know each other from the past and Montu has a crush on Neelu. Montu gets hurt when he comes to know that they both knew each other. He feels jealous and claims that he is a better sports teacher than Inder and challenges him for a competition. The winner would stay while the loser will resign. Now when the selection begins, Montu's younger brother is chosen in Inder's team. Montu is forced to choose the studious students including the girls. Neelu forces him to select girls as well. In the end, Montu's team wins despite the heavy odds.

         Inder is shown as a highly disciplined and motivated sports teacher who takes his job seriously. He is arrogant but later accepts defeat with grace. The message is conveyed in a playful, non-preachy manner that sports are as much important for the growth of children as studies and this should be inculcated right from the initial years.

(To watch the trailer of this movie, click on the word Chhalaang written in blue in the first line)

MOVIE REVIEW OF 'THE WHITE TIGER'

 

The White Tiger is an adaptation of Aravind Adiga's novel 'The White Tiger' published in 2008. In this movie, we can see caste politics and the rich poor divide which is still prevailing in India from a long time. This movie shows that after all these years of independence, the mighty one's are still ruling. The movie shows that only way for the poor to survive is through crime and politics. Abject poverty and high society lifestyle, both can be seen here. There is a division between haves and have- not's.

              The character Balram Halwai studied a little during his childhood. He knew how to speak Hindi and his dream is to become the driver of Ashok. Ashok is the younger son of Zamindar who studied in America and has just returned. He is married to Pinky, an Indian girl, born and bought up in America. The elder son of Zamindar treats Balram like an animal (as he was of lower caste) but Ashok and Pinky treat him kindly. Once, Pinky was drunk and was driving when she ran the car over a child on road. But the blame had to be taken by Balram forcefully. Balram's inability to say NO further propels him to break the invisible chains around him. Ashok is shown doing too many deals against his wishes.

            We can see in the movie that Ashok's father and brother travel in the sleeper compartment on a train which no rich people will ever do so. The common man, the drivers, the relatives are shown speaking in English among themselves ( In practical world, the villagers are not able to speak Hindi properly due to their mother tongue influence then how can they speak in English?)

       Pinky, a modern girl, is not used to the patriarchal ways of her in-laws and rebels against them openly without any hesitation. This is when Ashok and Pinky decide to leave village and live in Delhi. Ashok is also caught between the two extremes and is unable to decide where he belongs. His character is shown helpless. At last, Balram murders Ashok and starts his own company (as he always dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur). This movie is made keeping in mind the Western audience which reinforces the stereotype of India being a poor, third world country and a land of snake charmers.

(TO WATCH THE TRAILER, CLICK ON THE LINK GIVEN IN THE FIRST LINE IN THE WORDS WHITE TIGER WRITTEN IN BLUE)

NAVODAYA BY GOPAL KHETANI

For the first time, I was interested in reading a Gujarati book titled NAVODAYA by Gopal Khetani. This book was launched a few days ago. I was one of the attendees where the author introduced his book and one of his former professor launched it. From that day, I was eager to read it so I ordered it on the same day. This book is published by Nexus Stories Publication, Surat, Gujarat. This novella is based on 'Vidur Niti' further explained "Dharma nu acharan kari niti purvak kamani karvi ea pan paramsiddhi che."

The story takes place in a village called Ranpur. The story is divided in 14 chapters. The protagonist is Arjan. Whole novella revolves around how he deals with the difficulties and successfully completes his doctorate studies and becomes a famous and successful doctor. Then something happens which changes his life and thought and he starts to think about serving in his village. His friends Jeetu and Dipak help him throughout his struggle. Other people of the village also help him selflessly and slowly and steadily he gets successful in opening a hospital in his village with all the amenities and facilities. This novella shows the struggle of parents who want their child to study further and become a doctor, struggle of a person who studies hard and works part time at a shop to manage his finances and finally becoming a successful doctor helping people of his village. We get to know about his childhood and young days, friendship, love and business. In the last chapter, Arjan gives a speech on his entire journey which we can imagine how difficult it was. He thanks everyone who were present there during his entire struggle.

Taare Zameen Par with connection to Dyslexia

"A child is a gift of God, a blessing from above, a picture of purity and innocence."

While attending today's online conference on Covid-19: Opportunity to learn, explore and experiment organised by ELTA Telangana, I came across a presentation on Dyslexia and I suddenly remembered about the movie Taare Zameen Par which also talks about the issue of Dyslexia. I got to know many new things which I thought should connect with the movie.

 Firstly we shall discuss about what is dyslexia. The disorder with specific difficulties in reading was identified by Oswald Berkhan in 1881 and the term 'dyslexia' was coined in 1887 by Rudolf Berlin, a German Ophthalmologist practising in Stuttgart, Germany. He used the term to refer to a case of a young boy who had a severe impairment in learning to read and write in spite of showing normal intellectual and physical abilities in all other aspects. Brain takes longer to make some connections and does it in more steps. It especially has trouble matching the letters you see on the page with the sounds those letters and combinations of letters make. (b-d) (top-pot) (mirror image of words) (animal- animl, anml, enaml).

There are 5 types of Dyslexia- Trauma dyslexia, Primary dyslexia, Developmental dyslexia, Visual dyslexia and Phonological dyslexia. There is no cure for it but students can succeed in school or later in life with the assistance of teachers, school accommodations and modifications, support of family and appropriate intervention and instruction.

Children with this kind of learning disabilities are not accepted by the society. They are left behind in academics, they cannot participate in school activities and they also don't have friends or may have 1 or 2 friends only. Dyslexia is a neurological disorder as the brain is not able to process the visual matter effectively. So the child experiences problems to interpret letters, shapes, numbers or any other visual material. Such children maybe intelligent also but cannot express their intelligence in tests. Many people in today's time are not able to understand or accept or maybe do not have knowledge about this problem. If their child does not perform well, they scold them and label the as 'useless', 'dull', 'duffer' and what not. Everyone wants their child to become successful. Some children who are gifted (we do not use the word disabled) face too much pressure from their parents, peers, school that they get emotionally detached from them. Parents should understand that their child is gifted who has a special ability to study and interpret images. They may not be genius in academics but can master other skills like Ishaan in Taare Zameen Par.

Taare Zameen Par is a 2007 released bollywood movie directed and produced by Aamir Khan. The film revolves around the life of a 8 year old boy Ishaan Awasthi (starring Darsheel Safary) who is suffering from Dyslexia. This movie has a wonderful tagline- 'Every child is special.' This indicates that every parent has to understand then only they can discover the uniqueness of their own child. Ishaan, a boy who finds it difficult to match his world of colours, kites and animals to that of the other of his age group who are more into studies and homework. He does not perform well in school and when complaints start coming in large numbers, he is sent to boarding school. There is no difference in his regular school and the boarding school. He is constantly insulted and beaten by his teachers and becomes a laughing stock of the class. He feels lonely and inferior. He finds it difficult to overcome his problem. After some time, Mr. Nikumbh (arts teacher) arrives who realises that he is suffering from dyslexia and tries to help him in every way possible. He makes everyone understand his problem and request them to behave normally with him. He makes everyone realise that he is a special child with unique talent. With time, patience love and care from Nikumbh, Ishaan succeeds in overcoming his inability and gain confidence.

" Every child comes with a message that God is not discouraged of man. Every child is a star on Earth, is special who cleanses the soul, an empty canvas, waiting to be painted with love."

                                     - Rabindranath Tagore

1) Ishaan is a skilful, adventurous, artistic, lovely, sensitive, nature lover and lives in the world of fantasies. He can solve puzzles easily, can paint, can understand poetry (he tells the meaning of a stanza from Hindi poem during class). His problem is he cannot read, write, calculate (surprise maths test), is not able to memorise or answer, cannot follow instructions fastly (when he is instructed to open a particular page number and read a particular paragraph and line). When he fails to do something or he is scolded by someone for something, he feels angry, lonely, abandoned and frustrated at times which can be seen when he kicks the flower pots. He lacks motor skills as he cannot know his tie or tie his shoelaces properly. 

                                                       Ishaan's Painting

2) One of the scene shows large insects moving out of Ishaan's bag to reveal that books and studies seem to be scary to him. 

3) Dyslexics have poor time management, get easily distracted and might lose their sense of time. This thing is shown in the movie when Ishaan forgets to board his school bus and the conductor gets him to the bus. At that time Ishaan is fascinated by the fishes in the school pond.

                         

4) According to Sally S. (2013), Dyslexics have 'vivid imaginations'. They are disoriented in time and space. They are known to be "right brain dominant." This can be seen when Ishaan and his classmates are given a surprise maths test where he does not know what to do. He stares at one question and then goes away in his imagination. While be comes back to reality, he is able to solve only one question which is also incorrect (3×9= 3).  ( VIDEO LINK IN THE BRACKET)

5) BDA (2007) "With proper teaching methods, dyslexics could cope with daily life and in school. However, dyslexia is permanent and cannot be outgrown." This is shown when Ishaan is sent to boarding school where he meets his arts teacher Mr. Nikumbh who helps him in every way possible and uses specialised teaching methods to help him learn better and in the end, he shows tremendous improvement and scores higher grades in all the subjects.

6) Mr. Nikumbh is also shown to be working with children with special needs in another school where he interacts with them on a very simple level ( with love and care). Those students perform in a function which is a very heart touching emotional moment. This shows that children (facing these types of problems)  can overcome these struggles if they are treated in the right way.

7) When Ishaan's parents come to know about his condition, his father comes to meet Mr. Nikumbh and says that they do care for him as his mother has been doing online research on dyslexia. But here, Mr. Nikumbh very gently makes him understand what caring actually is ("khayal karna is ko kehte hai na? Muje ye sun kar khushi hui ki aapko lagta hai ki aap khayal karte hai.") He says that parents' responsibilities don't end with providing the best educational options or materialistic comforts or a luxurious lifestyle. Taking care of your child means to comfort him, be with him when he needs you the most, motivate him when he is dejected, just a hug or kiss is enough to show that you really care.

8) Another thing Nikumbh tells him of Solomon Islands where people don't cut off an unwanted tree but gather around cursing it and indirectly it dies after some time. The same is with a person. Words can make or break a person. A slap will never have the same effect that harsh words have.

9) Some famous dyslexic people are Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Agatha Christie, Walt Disney.

International Webinar on ELT & Technology

I got a chance to attend the second webinar organised by Department of English (my favourite place where I earned my Post graduation degree) MKBU, Bhavnagar, Gujarat on 2^nd and 3^rd June 2020 on the topic ELT & Technology. This time I presented a paper and my topic was "The use, advantages and disadvantages of Multimedia technology in English Language Teaching."

Abstract- The paper aims to analyse the use of technology to ELT in the non-native speaking countries and to bring out the problems faced by both teachers and learners of English. The rapid development of science and technology such as multimedia technology has offered a better tool to explore the new teaching methods. It has played an important role in ELT, especially, in the non-native speaking of English situations. It also aims to make non-native speakers of English as language teachers aware of the strategies to use it in an effective manner.

Earlier it was a one day webinar but there were around 90 paper presenters so Dilip Sir decided to extend the event to 2 days. But there were some problems with the weather conditions. A cyclone (Nisarg) was predicted at the seashore so it may disrupt the event but sir is always ready with Plan B. Fortunately everything went on smoothly both the days. As it is said- 'Where there is a will, there is a way'. Sir's dedication towards work has always been appreciable and beneficial not only for him but for others too.

This was my second experience of participating and presenting in an International event. The paper presenters were from different states and countries. All the paper presenters presented their papers very well. Their topics were very different where I came to know about many new concepts and tools used in language teaching like Flip grid and Mentimeter. Plenary sessions were also very interesting as the speakers talked about their real life experiences and the teaching methods were also discussed. The plenary speakers were-

1) Vance Stevens (Malaysia) who talked on "From thinking SMALL on social media assisted language learning to TALIN: Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN."  He showed one image from the past and one of present. Then a comparison was done. In the nearer beginning, there were computers and there was language learning and the two began to converge in the 1970s. Then be showed some images of earlier computers, a spirit copier and typical output. A discussion was also done on Krashen's book "Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition" (1981). He then talked about Siemens on the necessity of chaos in learning, learning language by making sense of chaos. A talk was also held on Levy and Hubbard's (2005) Why call CALL 'CALL'? (this term has been in use for 2 decades at the time the article was written). SMALL (social media assisted language learning) was also discussed along with TALIN (Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN). Overall, it was an interesting topic and we got to know many new things.

2) Dr. Ania Lian (Australia) spoke on "Remote teaching and learning of English Language in higher education contexts: Experiences and research from a country where distance learning is be norm, not a calamity." She discussed on what makes leaning in higher education different today where Top 10 skills required in 2020 were told i.e. Complex problem solving, Critical thinking, Creativity, People management, coordinating with others, Emotional intelligence, Judgement and Cognitive flexibility. The first point was the expectations of technology which are HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills), Learning by immersion and Self- directed learning. Second point was what is available were it was told about the activities that extend the students' capacity to act in a broad range of contexts, expand their intercultural understandings and values and develop critical thinking. The third point was limitations of what is currently available online and they are Preparation, Scope of activities and Technology Tools.  The fourth point was what can we do today. This too was an interesting session as we got to know about the latest skills which are required and the different activities which take place in different countries (which we can also experiment on our students).

3) Heike Philp (Belgium) interacted on "Is teaching live online the new normal?" An online poll was taken on some questions like How do you feel about teaching remotely, Name the tool/app/platform which can be used in remote teaching for development of 'Writing skills', What other hurdles in using technologies in your local environment are there and how are teachers' ready to use technology. This vote was taken on mentimeter where the speaker can control the questions on the screen. This session was very interactive as after the live poll, every question was discussed in detail and the poll results were also shown where the speaker discussed about her own experiences too.

After the webinar was over, we had to give an online test and then give feedback. In the online test, I scored 30/30 and I got a Certificate of Participation and a Certificate of Paper Presentation. These two days were very fruitful for me and helped me expanding the horizons. All thanks to the organising team and Dilip Sir who never misses a chance to motivate us with his tireless interest and efforts.