Until a few months back,
roughly around six months back, I was playing the role of a student. Being a
student is always a luxury, as you are a recipient of all the knowledge
imparted in an institution and are not bound to any sort of full time responsibility.
As a student you tend to be frivolous, can engage in intellectual debate,
challenge the professor’s point of view and live a truly stimulating life. What
is more interesting is that during this phase, the practical necessities of
life- earning a living or making it big in the world, do not seem to bother the
student. Hence it gives you a free reign to cherish these few days of freedom
before you will be thrown into the real world.
Although, this freedom also comes with a few commitments and the idea of
absolute freedom seems a little ambiguous or may be unachievable to me.
But these commitments also
revolve around the same process of learning and exchange of ideas and thoughts.
Being in a university with a vibrant cultural atmosphere is all the more
invigorating and one does not feel like leaving it ever. It’s like a cozy
little cocoon where one can just spend the rest of their lives and not conform
to the reality outside. A University like the one where I studied gave a lot of
room to students for critical thinking, raising questions and the most
fascinating part about it was that the line between the authority and the
students seemed to blur. The professors were approachable and ready to help at
any point, would converse with students just as any other person of our age
would. But I guess one cannot stay in a
cocoon all their lives as it can be delusional. Well, a lot of them do but I
wasn’t that fortunate enough to stay back and continue due to some practical
reasons. So coping with the world outside the university and returning to the so
-called ‘real’ world was a little challenging. To add to it I was faced with
what most people of my generation go through is utter confusion- what would be
my next step after graduating from the university? The idea of teaching was on
my mind but I wasn’t confident about completely plunging into it.
With the
thought of teaching a lot of anxieties and fears seeped in. I was
inexperienced, I was a student myself and how Iwould deal with a class full of
60-70 students and engage them for 2- 3 hours was a constant concern for me. It
seemed quite a daunting task. Being a part of a Jesuit school as a kid and then
later moving into a typical college in my high school years, I was aware about
the teaching methods I wouldn’t adopt. But again, looking back at some of my
professors in undergraduate years and then at the Masters level, I had thought
of a lot of interesting ways to approach the class, drawing from my memory and
personal experiences. And that’s it. I was fortunate enough to be given a
chance for a demo lecture at DGMC. I was very apprehensive about delivering a
class on French New Wave cinema, though a lot of labour had gone into preparing
for it but the fear of keeping the class engaged for three hours was constantly
looming over my head. And eventually, when the moment arrived, I just started
speaking and everything started flowing organically and all my apprehensions were
resolved. The first half of the lecture was a little taxing for students
mentally as the nature of the topic discussed was primarily theoretical. In the
latter half, there were screenings of clips from various films and all that was
discussed in the first half converged in the minds of the students.I felt the
response was favourable and I heaved a sigh of relief gauging from the
students’ reaction. I also realized the students are very enthusiastic and
sensitive in learning about different cultures and their cinematic practices,
provided it is presented in the right manner.
There are high chances of them scoffing,
sniggering, if something explicit appears on screen but the real task for
the professor lies in how to communicate these ideas that may be unsettling or
not openly discussed in our cultural and academic institutions. The satisfaction one feels in elucidating or debating about these
issues and in the art of teaching is indeed ecstatic.
After all, we are dealing
with something that is invariably a part of our lives, and has shaped our
experiences, emotions and imagination- Cinema.
I believe we cannot teach cinema, but at least we can inculcate the idea
of reading cinema critically and deconstruct its nuances to broaden our
understanding of this powerful medium. That will be my goal and intention as a faculty
in this institution…
-Dinesh Khemani
-Dinesh Khemani
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