While the country was immersed over the
strike for the hike in petrol prices, I was among a bunch of creative heads, doing
something unrelated altogether … so where was I? I was at Promise Personality
Development Centre for Children at Pimple Saudagar, Pune to deliver a workshop
on film making along with my friend Krithika Krishnan to the little ones.
Though I had my own doubts on our performance and our ability to rejuvenate the
class, I must say I had a fantastic time with the kids of Promise.
We
both entered into the centre and were immediately received with smiles and
polite greetings. I saw that drawings of the children were plastered over the
walls and that made me dive into my own pool of childhood memories. Back in US
where I did my schooling, everything that we drew, created, and wrote would be
displayed in the corridor, proudly boasting the work of growing minds. The
other side of this coin was what it added to the children. If it weren’t for
someone encouraging my scribbles and believing in me back then, I would’ve
never gotten so far now. And that was all I wanted to do at this workshop. I
just wanted to believe in them, and whatever fantasies they were conjuring in
their minds. ‘Last exciting workshop – Film Making’ was sketched onto their white
board and I honestly hoped I lived up to that expectation.
When
we started off with a power point presentation, approximately 25 eyes stared at
me. Out of that, 20 were those of little ones, wide with awe and innocence. We
went according to plan; Krithika briefing the technical, history, parts and
genres of films. I tried breaking that down into things they can relate with,
things that would make it easier for them to understand what we learnt just a
year back. I think I won over Ronak when I explained about the Dark Night
Trailer; the lad who was a statue before nodded his head and zeal filled into
his eyes. I don’t know if it worked, for
some of them I was not able to win over…talk about strong personality! But by
the end of the presentation in 45 minutes, majority of them were charged up and
ready for the activity. The children were going to pick out a concept, write a
script, conduct auditions, direct it, edit it and cherish the film as their
first movie making experience ever. I feel good saying it right now also! I won’t
get into how we executed it, for we did just fine. I could however like to
share my views on the workshop.
What makes these kids so adorable is that
they are modest, but filled with talent. I remember myself saying to my little script-writer
Renuka: ‘your concept is say an apple… you have to make it into a script. It can
be a green apple, a red one… but not a-’ ‘orange?’ came the answer. I laughed
silently inside for she grasped. When defining the one liner with Finding Nemo
example, Kush stood up confidently and impressed us with his one liner,
suddenly making filming seem like a cake walk. Madhur took our autographs and
that was my third one for the day, in my life. It made me glow inside all the
while. All the kids were amazing, though I’m not able to recall their names, I mean
it when I say they were little angels who certainly made my day!! What an experience
to teach kids, knowing that you are putting something into their heads at least
for a few hours, knowing that you’re changing something in them! Does this mean I want to become a teacher? Don’t
know… does this mean the workshop is going to turn them into film makers? Don’t
know… but do I want to look back on this day after many years and be glad I took
this opportunity to believe in them? YES!! 
No comments:
Post a Comment