DIGITAL INDIA-INCLUDE CLASSIC ‘MOVIES’ IN SCHOOL-COLLEGE SYLLABUS

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DGITAL INDIA-INCLUDE CLASSIC ‘MOVIES’ IN SCHOOL-COLLEGE SYLLABUS

… like ‘Mother India, Gandhi, Cromwell, to name a few; just like plays and dramas of Shakespeare

It is said and believed that old books and movies take you back in times and is the true mirror of any country or civilization. Yesterday, on the occasion of mother’s day while I was remembering my Mom, and surfing channels I came across the famous evergreen classic ‘Mother India’ being broadcasted in one of the channels. Although, I had seen the flick earlier, I was tempted to see it again, as my old time buddy Sajid Khan had worked in it as a child star.

But this time when I was watching the movie, I was getting a very different feel. A feel as if I was not watching ‘Mother India’ but watching ‘Real India’ of 1957. It is the story of a poverty-stricken village woman Radha (Nargis) who in the absence of her husband, struggles to raise her sons and survive against a cunning money lender Sukhi Lala amidst troubles. And, despite all the hardships she sets a goddess-like moral example of an ideal Indian woman and that too way back in 1957. The movie in many ways gives you a vivid picture of what our ancestors may have undergone during those times and with what intensity of harshness.

And that brings me to a moot point. In the archives of Bollywood, and other regional movie hubs like Kolkata and Chennai, lies a huge treasure of movies like ‘Mother India,’ that can become the mirror of ‘Indian times’ and the Government must form a panel that can decide to include these great Indian classics in school and college syllabus just like any other play or drama of Shakespeare.

Today, we talk of digital India, where people don’t have time to read, and where 65% of our burgeoning population is below the age of 35 years. Many surveys have revealed, the attention span especially of youngsters has gone down drastically, and people don’t prefer reading beyond five hundred words in one go. And, in such a paradigm we should select exclusive movies that can showcase India to the younger generation and even the outer world and include them in the syllabus.

And, extending the point further; historical and classic movies of Hollywood or any other country that can be useful for our migrating young population could also be thought of as an extra curriculum in our professional and business schools that will give our students that extra thrust of historically knowing a place where they intend to work.