Day: March 5, 2011

by Soibam Haripriya There are ways of bridging gaps between people and communities through cultures. The professed theme of the recently concluded North East Theatre Festival (19th to 28th February, 201) in no uncertain terms says it all. As a part of the festival, plays from Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Assam were staged. The festival that opened with Budha Chingtham’s Mythical Surrender, directed by Ningthouja Deepak of NT Theatre, maintained the tempo and at the end gave a befitting climax with Habib Tanvir’s Charandas Chor in Assamese directed by Anup Hazarika. For theatre enthusiasts, the festival’s immense task of “Bridging the gap through culture” reflects aspirations of communicating through the medium of theatre. One could however refrain from the oft repeated rhetoric of the mainland-marginal or the topographical pattern of the region as a reason to reach out to one another and look at this medium first and foremost as connected to oneself and one’s milieu. The festival did exactly that, connect us to ourselves and make us look at oneself through the eyes of a Greek tragedy like Antigone, stories from the Mahabharata, Ee teiraba numit, an Ao-Naga folklore, Lichaba’s Daughter or the understanding of freedom so subtly underlined in The Fire and the Rain (Mei Amasung Nong).

Among many other plays I had the opportunity to be enthralled with, Hanglai (marionettes), a play by Y. Rajendra. The director welcomed the audience as hanglai(s) to view a play Hanglai directed by a hanglai himself. Indeed the absurdness of the whole situation, within and without the play, and the brutal depiction of ‘selves’ were put up on stage for all to see. In a play which had stories within stories, the sense of the absurd, not as in absurdism, had the arsenal to fire ‘realities’ beyond realism. Hanglai, (I regret missing it in Delhi, 2007) had characters, Tathei and Takhut of the Marionette Repertory Theatre where they led the performance of marionettes – Mahadev and Parvati. They received a letter from Sanakhya. Sanakhya wanted them to discard the old marionettes and enact a contemporary play written by Sanakhya himself. Tathei’s effeminate gestures can be taken by many an attempt at caricaturisation of the third sex. However, the effect of this on the play is brutally truthful when Sanakhya in his anger with the news of the marionettes refusing to play their part in his play, asked Takhut and Tathei to enact the part of the uniform man raping a woman after planting a camouflaged cap and a gun on Takhut and an embellished inaphi on Tathei. The symbolism employed here is potent and possible through the process in which the audience whose lifeworld have been enveloped with layers and layers of cruel social and political fact. While the antics of Tathei drew laughter, one can look beyond to understand that it is but asaturated mockery of ourselves. This play refuses to be an interweaving of text and performance alone but carries a message beyond absurdism and realism.

Certain moments which drew laughter of the audience like when Tathei rebuke the lamenting Hangma (mother of the hanglais) stating that the role of the meira paibi is yet to come or when the people of the land of the Hanglais – Hangleipak revolts against the powers that pull the string with placard that reads – “Marionettes have the right to revolt” or the scene when a hangcha when shot at looks at a place to die and asked Tathei-Takhut whether it was alright to die at a particular spot, it is as uncomfortable as looking at a murky pukhri to see the ugliness in oneself and yet in a bitter irony, some laughs at the reflection taking it to be someone else’s.

It is those who pull the string who decides everything. They decide when a mother should lament, when one should weep and where one should die. The Hanglai who cut themselves off the strings are sure to die. Therefore, even in dire situations, they resist the desire to severe themselves off the strings. The mother of all irony here is: All Hanglai derive their existence from and through the strings and it is Tathei and Takhut that gives them life and yet the strings do not stop there; Sanakhya pulls the strings of Tathei and Takhut and the closing scene depicts yet another pair of crimson hands pulling the strings of Sanakhya. Hangleipak – the land of marionette is a grave where the dead walks. And the dead here walks when commanded: S/he weeps, love and lust when the ‘strings’ are pulled, the final brutality being that one doesn’t know where the string stops. We gave a standing ovation at the end of the play in a sweet insult to ourselves and life’s endless strings that we have ceased to see.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/sX0gBnmJZOk/

by Soibam Haripriya There are ways of bridging gaps between people and communities through cultures. The professed theme of the recently concluded North East Theatre Festival (19th to 28th February, 201) in no uncertain terms says it all. As a part of the festival, plays from Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Assam were staged. The festival that opened with Budha Chingtham’s Mythical Surrender, directed by Ningthouja Deepak of NT Theatre, maintained the tempo and at the end gave a befitting climax with Habib Tanvir’s Charandas Chor in Assamese directed by Anup Hazarika. For theatre enthusiasts, the festival’s immense task of “Bridging the gap through culture” reflects aspirations of communicating through the medium of theatre. One could however refrain from the oft repeated rhetoric of the mainland-marginal or the topographical pattern of the region as a reason to reach out to one another and look at this medium first and foremost as connected to oneself and one’s milieu. The festival did exactly that, connect us to ourselves and make us look at oneself through the eyes of a Greek tragedy like Antigone, stories from the Mahabharata, Ee teiraba numit, an Ao-Naga folklore, Lichaba’s Daughter or the understanding of freedom so subtly underlined in The Fire and the Rain (Mei Amasung Nong).

Among many other plays I had the opportunity to be enthralled with, Hanglai (marionettes), a play by Y. Rajendra. The director welcomed the audience as hanglai(s) to view a play Hanglai directed by a hanglai himself. Indeed the absurdness of the whole situation, within and without the play, and the brutal depiction of ‘selves’ were put up on stage for all to see. In a play which had stories within stories, the sense of the absurd, not as in absurdism, had the arsenal to fire ‘realities’ beyond realism. Hanglai, (I regret missing it in Delhi, 2007) had characters, Tathei and Takhut of the Marionette Repertory Theatre where they led the performance of marionettes – Mahadev and Parvati. They received a letter from Sanakhya. Sanakhya wanted them to discard the old marionettes and enact a contemporary play written by Sanakhya himself. Tathei’s effeminate gestures can be taken by many an attempt at caricaturisation of the third sex. However, the effect of this on the play is brutally truthful when Sanakhya in his anger with the news of the marionettes refusing to play their part in his play, asked Takhut and Tathei to enact the part of the uniform man raping a woman after planting a camouflaged cap and a gun on Takhut and an embellished inaphi on Tathei. The symbolism employed here is potent and possible through the process in which the audience whose lifeworld have been enveloped with layers and layers of cruel social and political fact. While the antics of Tathei drew laughter, one can look beyond to understand that it is but asaturated mockery of ourselves. This play refuses to be an interweaving of text and performance alone but carries a message beyond absurdism and realism.

Certain moments which drew laughter of the audience like when Tathei rebuke the lamenting Hangma (mother of the hanglais) stating that the role of the meira paibi is yet to come or when the people of the land of the Hanglais – Hangleipak revolts against the powers that pull the string with placard that reads – “Marionettes have the right to revolt” or the scene when a hangcha when shot at looks at a place to die and asked Tathei-Takhut whether it was alright to die at a particular spot, it is as uncomfortable as looking at a murky pukhri to see the ugliness in oneself and yet in a bitter irony, some laughs at the reflection taking it to be someone else’s.

It is those who pull the string who decides everything. They decide when a mother should lament, when one should weep and where one should die. The Hanglai who cut themselves off the strings are sure to die. Therefore, even in dire situations, they resist the desire to severe themselves off the strings. The mother of all irony here is: All Hanglai derive their existence from and through the strings and it is Tathei and Takhut that gives them life and yet the strings do not stop there; Sanakhya pulls the strings of Tathei and Takhut and the closing scene depicts yet another pair of crimson hands pulling the strings of Sanakhya. Hangleipak – the land of marionette is a grave where the dead walks. And the dead here walks when commanded: S/he weeps, love and lust when the ‘strings’ are pulled, the final brutality being that one doesn’t know where the string stops. We gave a standing ovation at the end of the play in a sweet insult to ourselves and life’s endless strings that we have ceased to see.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/sX0gBnmJZOk/

By Chitra Ahanthem The topic of education in Manipur has various layers of complexities considering the way all educational institutions gets affected by the cycle of bandhs, curfews, school closures etc. On one hand is the apathy that exists in Government schools where teachers hanker after increase in their salary structures while on the other hand we have private schools mushrooming around us. The irony lies in the fact that teachers in the private sector are grossly underpaid, and work over time while the standard of education in Government schools is such that parents who teach in Government schools actually send their children to the private run schools! Yet, every private school is not the answer to putting in value in education. There have been many cases where schools have been set up and vanish within less than a year; of schools running without any recognition and flouting norms etc.
Yet, with school academic sessions just around the corner, most parents who are looking towards the school admissions of their children would be busy keeping a watch on admission norms and procedures. Schools on their part, but specifically private run institutions are busy running advertisements in various media forms to hold the attention of the parents. It has long been a norm for young children to be submitted to entrance level examinations. But post April 1, 2010 it may not be the same anymore for private schools.
April 1, 2010 was when the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), came into effect after it was passed by the Indian parliament on 4 August 2009. The Act provides for free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India. It has its share of social protection for children of weaker sections and those with special needs with the Act specifying that the State must even provide for transportation support for such children. One interesting feature is the specification that every school must have a school management committee in place that is to be comprised of parents (75%) and the remaining being teachers, community leaders, education experts etc. The Act also puts the impetus on the state to ensure that parents send their children, which is obviously aimed at keeping children who do labour. To do this, the Act specifies that no extra fees will be taken from children in schools as capitation charges (exam fees, laboratory fees and others).
In the context of Manipur where academic sessions are affected by the regular cycle of bandhs, strikes, curfews and school shutdowns thanks to the fragile law and order situation in the state, parents and guardians have looked at the easy way out by encouraging private classes, also known as “tutions”. The RTE Act bans teachers working in government or private elementary schools are banned from taking private classes. But mostly, while Government schools looks set to have their infrastructure resources being upgraded it is the private schools that will have their wings clipped. They can no longer subject a child to tests or interviews for admissions, which will now have to be based on random selection.  The RTE provisions cover quite a lot of ground and one column will not suffice to cover every bit of it. For now though, we can begin by looking at the Manipur context of how the Act needs to be implemented and ensured. The first mandate for the State Government would be to get on board the various Student groups and civil society organizations as stakeholders towards ensuring the right to education.  Unless there is a consensus that education be left out of the sphere of disturbances that happen in the state, the Act will not really transfer into anything of value. Schools and school students have borne the brunt of various political agitations in the state so far every year. The 3 month long shut down of schools in 2009 is a case in point here.
An important inclusion of the Act is the ban on corporal punishment in schools and that students cannot be detained or expelled. But what of violence among students? I will make my point by illustrating with the example of a private school in Manipur, (the school will not be named) which has parents as the main stakeholders and part of the management board. This example will reflect what can well happen in every school when School Management Committees with parents as main stakeholders come into effect: a student beat up another student to the point that the second student suffered from concussions and a broken nose. The child who was involved in the beating had been implicated in other acts of violence against other students in the past and the school head decided on expulsion. The school managing board did not allow this to happen and the head of the school resigned followed by other teachers.
The question here is not whether the school head should have expelled the child in the first place but what the school board was doing when the earlier cases of student violence had been reported. Would teachers have to pay every time such cases came to light? Just as every child has a right to free education, every student has the right to being in a safe environment in school. Unless there is strong support system of trained counsellors at schools to look into matters of student violence and other juvenile behaviour, keeping a rein on disciplinary action may affect the morale among teachers.
End-point:Education is a huge investment for the future and all stakeholders have to ensure that the opportunities that the RTE gives to the citizens of the country, but specially its young citizens are properly channelized. Having said that, the gaps in the Act and its application to the local context of Manipur need to be looked at thoroughly.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/B7ntrRfKxx8/

By Chitra Ahanthem The topic of education in Manipur has various layers of complexities considering the way all educational institutions gets affected by the cycle of bandhs, curfews, school closures etc. On one hand is the apathy that exists in Government schools where teachers hanker after increase in their salary structures while on the other hand we have private schools mushrooming around us. The irony lies in the fact that teachers in the private sector are grossly underpaid, and work over time while the standard of education in Government schools is such that parents who teach in Government schools actually send their children to the private run schools! Yet, every private school is not the answer to putting in value in education. There have been many cases where schools have been set up and vanish within less than a year; of schools running without any recognition and flouting norms etc.
Yet, with school academic sessions just around the corner, most parents who are looking towards the school admissions of their children would be busy keeping a watch on admission norms and procedures. Schools on their part, but specifically private run institutions are busy running advertisements in various media forms to hold the attention of the parents. It has long been a norm for young children to be submitted to entrance level examinations. But post April 1, 2010 it may not be the same anymore for private schools.
April 1, 2010 was when the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), came into effect after it was passed by the Indian parliament on 4 August 2009. The Act provides for free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India. It has its share of social protection for children of weaker sections and those with special needs with the Act specifying that the State must even provide for transportation support for such children. One interesting feature is the specification that every school must have a school management committee in place that is to be comprised of parents (75%) and the remaining being teachers, community leaders, education experts etc. The Act also puts the impetus on the state to ensure that parents send their children, which is obviously aimed at keeping children who do labour. To do this, the Act specifies that no extra fees will be taken from children in schools as capitation charges (exam fees, laboratory fees and others).
In the context of Manipur where academic sessions are affected by the regular cycle of bandhs, strikes, curfews and school shutdowns thanks to the fragile law and order situation in the state, parents and guardians have looked at the easy way out by encouraging private classes, also known as “tutions”. The RTE Act bans teachers working in government or private elementary schools are banned from taking private classes. But mostly, while Government schools looks set to have their infrastructure resources being upgraded it is the private schools that will have their wings clipped. They can no longer subject a child to tests or interviews for admissions, which will now have to be based on random selection.  The RTE provisions cover quite a lot of ground and one column will not suffice to cover every bit of it. For now though, we can begin by looking at the Manipur context of how the Act needs to be implemented and ensured. The first mandate for the State Government would be to get on board the various Student groups and civil society organizations as stakeholders towards ensuring the right to education.  Unless there is a consensus that education be left out of the sphere of disturbances that happen in the state, the Act will not really transfer into anything of value. Schools and school students have borne the brunt of various political agitations in the state so far every year. The 3 month long shut down of schools in 2009 is a case in point here.
An important inclusion of the Act is the ban on corporal punishment in schools and that students cannot be detained or expelled. But what of violence among students? I will make my point by illustrating with the example of a private school in Manipur, (the school will not be named) which has parents as the main stakeholders and part of the management board. This example will reflect what can well happen in every school when School Management Committees with parents as main stakeholders come into effect: a student beat up another student to the point that the second student suffered from concussions and a broken nose. The child who was involved in the beating had been implicated in other acts of violence against other students in the past and the school head decided on expulsion. The school managing board did not allow this to happen and the head of the school resigned followed by other teachers.
The question here is not whether the school head should have expelled the child in the first place but what the school board was doing when the earlier cases of student violence had been reported. Would teachers have to pay every time such cases came to light? Just as every child has a right to free education, every student has the right to being in a safe environment in school. Unless there is strong support system of trained counsellors at schools to look into matters of student violence and other juvenile behaviour, keeping a rein on disciplinary action may affect the morale among teachers.
End-point:Education is a huge investment for the future and all stakeholders have to ensure that the opportunities that the RTE gives to the citizens of the country, but specially its young citizens are properly channelized. Having said that, the gaps in the Act and its application to the local context of Manipur need to be looked at thoroughly.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/B7ntrRfKxx8/