BUILDING BRIDGES : the BEING HUMAN workshops @ JLF 2011
Amidst the colour and glitter of the Jaipur Literature Festival 2011, a group of 50 teenagers from schools and NGO’s from in and around Jaipur were learning to be Human and to work on their communication skills. The “BEING HUMAN” workshops this year started out with a focus on ‘Building Bridges’ between people from vastly different walks of life and ended up making each individual connect with the lost little persons within themselves.
The first day saw some very confused teenagers trying to figure out the motive of the Introduction session and the mirror exercise, not understanding that the one day preceding the launch of the workshops at the Literature Festival venue, was solely to have these very different students get to know each other better and feel comfortable with one another. Yet, it seemed like a massive effort to get everyone out of their comfort zones and groups and to mingle with the others. At the end of the day, they seemed a little less lost, but clueless nonetheless.
Once at the venue the next day, as the Festival kicked off with a ceremonious lamp lighting ceremony by the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Shri Ashok Gehlot, the students found themselves becoming small fish in an endless sea of people from all over the world.
A pot pourri of races, colours, languages, ages, the literature festival brings together some of the finest of the literati and the intelligentsia from across nations face to face with the common man. Our group of students from schools saw this as a mammoth opportunity to meet celebrities, while our NGO friends were only visually devouring the spectacle of beautiful people and things, mostly unknown to them.
Someone who was a common thread between the urban and the rural was Gulzar Saab, one of the most noble and modest people the students will ever meet. His session touched our NGO kids as much as it moved the school kids. Krishna from Doosra Dashak, an NGO which works on livelihood and education with rural adolescents, came back teary eyed from his session. “Its amazing how he makes people out of things, how a tree can have a voice and how the wind can wear bangles on its wrists. I couldn’t have even imagined these things, let alone WRITE about it.”
Alex Belloss’ session on Mathematics, had the students absolutely spellbound and very motivated about maths. Raghavendra and Shivansh from Sawai Man Singh school realised after the session that” If Chimpanzees can do Maths, so can we!” After having attended various different sessions, the students always came back together in our workshop tent to share what they grasped at the sessions. Where language had become a major issue, our friend Akul from Neerja Modi School efficiently translated for everyone. The first day ended with a session by Pratham books, where they encouraged children to write lots of stories and also read out some of their books!
The next two days saw students attend sessions on the use and misuse of Hindi with Mrinal Pandey, Prasoon Joshi, Gulzar , Javed Akhtar, and Sudheesh Pachauri. We were all put to shame when we realised we were unable to translate some very basic words into Hindi. Our sessions in the tent were thus transformed by the combined efforts of everybody to converse only in Hindi. The students also sat down and indulged in some soul searching and creative writing, jotting down some beautiful poems on the “Search for Self- Swayam ki Khoj mein”.
Shabana from Doosra Dashak, who was one of the lucky people to share her poem with Gulzar Saab wrote:
“ Lekin mai hoon kaun? Mai ek soch hoon, mai ek samaaj hoon,
Kya mai aisa samaaj hoon jo zulm, sitam se hai?
Lekin mai hoon kaun? Mai samaaj ko badal doongi!
Kyunki mai sochti hoon, samajhti hoon aur dekhti hoon.”
Anjana from Urmul wrote:
“ Kya Kabhi kisi ne mann ko bhi kahin
Sheeshey mein utara hain?
Kya mujhe kuch sapno ko hi pura karte jaana hai?
Ya khud ko bhi kisi nazar mein jaana pehchaana hai?
Khud ki aawaz sunke aaj maine kai band darwaazon ko khatkhataya hai
Kuch gard si hai mere mann ka ik halka sa saaya hai.
Jisme ek roshni si ab phael rahi hai…”
Day 3 was packed with excitement for the students ; from a private session with Gulzar Saab and Prasoon Joshi to an open session only for young people at the workshop tent with the very loved Mr. Ruskin Bond. On one hand the students got to share their poems with the very stalwarts of poetry and learn from them, on the other they got to ask Mr. Bond some adorably personal questions. Gulzar Saab and Prasoon ji listened encouragingly to the students’ poems and read out some of their own inspiring works. Ruskin Bond answered some very innocent questions about his life as a writer. A five year old participant asked him if he made drawings as he wrote, he told us that he did indeed doodle as he wrote! All our students sat together, laughed together and learned together. The students were then part of an interesting session on the Right to Information Act, where the students wrote RTI applications with the help of Kamal Ji, Renuka Ji and friends from the RTI Manch in Rajasthan.
On the 24th we started with some intensive theatre work on Emotions and Emotional Intelligence, where the participants became aware of their emotions in different situations, the physical changes that came about in their bodies as emotional energies swept through them and those of their partners. Carrying this understanding of emotions into our next session where Bulbul Sharma guided us on the use of the colour spectrum to emote, our students put their emotions on to paper. Our canvas scroll from last year which students had adorned with beautiful nature images was put up in the tent and it constantly inspired our students. The result of this art workshop was some beautiful depictions of emotions by the students. The colours helped transcend all linguistic barriers and understand the connection between the colours and emotions. We ended the day with some Non Verbal role playing.
The last day was emotionally very heavy, as the students realised this would be their last day at the workshops. Our NGO friends came with their luggage all set for their journey back and the school students also prepared to return to their schedules. Amidst all the heavy sentiments, we had a hilarious story telling session with Gcina Mhlophe and Paro Anand, where they both energetically innovated on a common folk tale, “The Monkey and the Crocodile”. Gcina ended by teaching the students some Zulu and with some very warm and never ending hugs! The children’s laughs and exclamations were priceless. The storytelling was followed by a feedback and sharing session, wrapping up the last five days of activities. The poems, songs and feedback were truly touching and made us realise the impact the workshops had made on every student present there. Our last session was on Youth and Democracy where the students were addressed by Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh from MKSS. Through songs, plays and puppet shows, they demonstrated the importance of young people in governance and the need to ask questions and act immediately!
Six days for us passed like a moment, yet those faces, words and memories will stay with us forever. One last funny incident I’d like to mention before signing off- the second morning of the workshops, I walked into the tent to find a message on the white board that said- “If you need a workshop to Be Human, its a serious problem. Being Human is only about Love!” The anonymous giver of this epiphany was quite right. It truly is about love. But perhaps we need this workshop because even people who KNOW everything fail to put it to use. The anonymous person disappeared with our marker. =)
For the students’ feedback and poems, click here.
