Education: What Makes It Feminist?
A teacher walks the aisle of the classroom with a stick in his hand, waiting to use it on anyone who falters in their dictation test. Bhisham Sahni opens this scene of a classroom in his story ‘Imla’ where the same teacher when positioned outside the classroom changes his walk and talk. How do the structures of power change around the same teacher?
In this new episode of Bolti Kahaniyan, Dipta Bhog narrates ‘Hekdi’, a story by writer Vijaydan Detha. This story is taken from the Hindi translation of his anthology ‘Batan Ri Phulwadi’ published by Rajasthani Granthagar.
It is 10 years since I made my last documentary, many people ask me, when are you making another film? And to some I answer truthfully, that according to me, Agents of Ishq (AOI) is also a film, a very lengthy film—an infinite film.
Harjant Gill, a documentary filmmaker and scholar who has made multiple documentaries on Indian masculinity(ies), says, “One of the challenging things about talking about masculinity is that you engage men in this conversation and they don’t really know where to go with it, or like, how to even interrogate it…
Work on gender in the development and social sector has traditionally engaged with women and girls. It was only in the mid-90s that some NGOs started working with men and boys on issues of gender. One of the first entry points for this was population control and reproductive health where they were encouraged to use condoms and to accompany their pregnant wives to healthcare centres.
History syllabi tell us how Bharata thought of this dance at the behest of the gods; in the theory hours we utter slokas listing physical features that make one an ideal dancer, and in the practical classes we strive for angashuddhi (purification of limbs or movements).
Words scraped against my brain as I Iay down, exhausted, in my stark white hostel room. I tried to find comfort in the lingering smell of the oil my roommate was massaging her knees with—that smell spelt care. Setting my alarm for five the next morning, my innards groaned.
I am a 23-year-old student from Haryana, who studied at Delhi University (DU) for her BA, and at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) for her MA. Over time, I have found that education is something I hold absurdly close to my heart.
It is often said that a film should either entertain, engage, or educate (not in the same order though). And in our country, one obsessed with cinema, we expect a film to entertain us and make everything larger than life and extraordinary.
One evening, last year, I finally coaxed my mother to sit down and take pause from constantly running around the house. I had been following her around for days to have this conversation. Sometimes, she silently smiled, and at other times, she eluded me. But that evening, she let her guard down.
