No one to blame

14 July, 2011- Thursday

As we saw our little chat on recent blasts taking shape of a bigger debate and arising many questions we thought of continuing it further as a bigger discussion in the volunteer group instead of the scheduled open space event. Mumbai, a city that has suffered four terror attacks in the past decade, was once again targeted on Wednesday, when three bombs exploded within minutes of each other in various locations around the city causing 18 deaths and 131 injuries.

The discussion has gone really intense as some of the entirely different view points came up from different people though one thing which was clear enough was that everyone was questioning their beliefs of non-violence.

People came up with different reasons for the attacks like some thought it is another terror attack, some thought it’s a political gimmick and even as a pre-planned strategy to counter the budding Lok-pal bill hype.

A volunteer Jaiveer said that we get pretty much used to and careless after a while. Moreover repetition of such events makes us don’t care about it and we get inattentive which cause loop holes in our security system.

Puneet said that he’s pretty much concerned about these issues and try to do whatever he could but he just don’t know what he can do to prevent them.

Jimmy, from states, said that he doesn’t like to judge people and he has his beliefs in non-violence, but incidents things like that make him doubt his beliefs.

Khalil, a film-making unit member, said that we just talk on such issues and then we forget about them without taking any preventive measures.

Another volunteer Jitendra who was pretty sure that the root cause of all this is our flawed political system and hence our bureaucratic administration. As he said that our stereotypes are so strengthened that sometimes they overshadow the reality. According to him the current corrupted political status is responsible for every bad thing happening to our country and each one of us is equally a culprit for these blasts as we are not aware of our responsibilties and rights and we’re not giving worthy governance to our nation and neither taking any steps against them on an individual level.

Another PRAVAH member Abhishek questioned are we really playing our part in being active and attentive citizens. We’re blaming our politicians and defence forces but are we really aware of whom we’re selecting as our representatives in assembly elections.

Soon after our discussion came to an end we get to see some of our politicians giving statements on the blasts when mumbai was still struggling to get back on its feet. But it din’t had much effect on our ministers as they continued to get in their blame game once again. As Rahul Gandhi told journalists that 99 per cent of terror attacks in the country had been halted thanks to improved intelligence and other measures. It is very difficult to stop any single terrorist attack. Our home minister P Chidambaram said it’s not an intelligence failure as it was a coordinated terror attack of ISI and IM. At the other end Raj Thackeray aimlessly blaming the migrants from north and east India for the blasts in Mumbai. While Advani pointed out at Pakistan and ISI, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley commented on TADA. At a time when the political class needed to come together, it's their contradictions which have come to the fore.

But looking at the government’s counter-terrorism record, it shows a complete different picture. The unpleasant truth is that the much-vaunted police modernisation effort the government began after 26/11 has just not delivered. Not one of the five urban terrorist attacks that preceded the latest Mumbai bombings has been solved.

In my perspective, whatever the reason may be but one thing I’m sure of is that these things aren’t going to change any sooner if we won’t start acting like a reponsible Indian citizen. And to some extent I do agree to the point that we all are equally responsible for these attacks. Political statements as such shows us the drastic socio-political status of our counrty and the unprofessionalism of our intelligence and investigation agencies, but that doesn’t mean that we all our innocent. As it is our responsibilty to prompt policemen when we see negligence in security, it is our responsibilty to see in what hands our country’s governance and defence is going in and it is our job to make people aware of such facts by public disussions and awareness campaigns. Otherwise we have no right to blame anyone, so are we really playing our parts?

Story Telling Workshop

Story Telling Workshop

Pravah Jaipur Initiative organized a 3-day workhop (June 7,2011 – June 9, 2011) for the members of PJI’s Critical Video Unit (CVU) and youth interested for film making internship. This was to improve the writing skill in script writing and story telling.

Mr. Manak Matiyani, trainer for this workshop, from Commutiny Media, New Delhi, was really inspiring. He shared his knowledge and taught the skill of writing to the volunteers through simple examples such as the popular story of “the Hare and The Tortoise” and experiences makes it easier for the volunteers to understand.

The concept was explained through interesting mediums like graphs, presentations, video screenings, discussions, etc. A very important concept of story mapping was taught by a powerpoint template of a graph to show where a story needs to have a point of interest.

Through traditional and popular stories volunteers identified the essential elements of story such as Plot, Conflict, Climax, Resolution, etc. The symbolic ability of a story and its perspective as one way of telling stories differently gives a different identity to a story. On the first day, a group activity of innovation on a film was done and all the volunteers enjoyed it fully by making a remake of “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” to a hilarious movie “Dilwale Dulhe le Jayege” in a proper structure giving it a new look.

Everyone shared their individual stories looking at innovative ways of telling and structuring. A very essential 3-Art Structure of scripting was explained by looking at the structure of a popular bollywood film “Sholay” and 3-Act Division, Plot points, teaser and tag was taken in detail and the volunteers learned breaking up the story to organize their ideas and follow a simple structure and identified transitions, symbolism, visual and audio elements and layering by looking at some short videos and discussing on it.

Had screenings of PJI short film and identified the 3 act structure. Also seen and discussed movies which do not follow this structure, knowing when and why you are breaking the rule and innovations on the three acts.

As PJI always works on youth development and talks about social issues, a concept of social cinema i.e. messaging through movies on social issues was taken deeply by taking cues from advertising of Jagori’s, MustBol, Indian Railway, etc. After discussing upon these, volunteers learnt that a target audience need to be defined with tone, plot, narrative style. A story with a emotional and personal connect is more effective in conveying a message.

Manak, the mentor also tried to meet the expextations of our volunteers and explained the differentiated the concept of story, script, screenplay and story board. The feedback of the volunteers for the workshop was very positive. “I had so much many stories in my mind but never knew how to express it effectively. Now I can write it in an interesting way” said Mohammad Khalil. “After this workshop I know how a social issue can be shown in an appealing and interesting manner” added Abhishek Chawariya. - Kritika Shukla

Story Telling Workshop

Story Telling Workshop

Pravah Jaipur Initiative organized a 3-day workhop (June 7,2011 – June 9, 2011) for the members of PJI’s Critical Video Unit (CVU) and youth interested for film making internship. This was to improve the writing skill in script writing and story telling.

Mr. Manak Matiyani, trainer for this workshop, from Commutiny Media, New Delhi, was really inspiring. He shared his knowledge and taught the skill of writing to the volunteers through simple examples such as the popular story of “the Hare and The Tortoise” and experiences makes it easier for the volunteers to understand.

The concept was explained through interesting mediums like graphs, presentations, video screenings, discussions, etc. A very important concept of story mapping was taught by a powerpoint template of a graph to show where a story needs to have a point of interest.

Through traditional and popular stories volunteers identified the essential elements of story such as Plot, Conflict, Climax, Resolution, etc. The symbolic ability of a story and its perspective as one way of telling stories differently gives a different identity to a story. On the first day, a group activity of innovation on a film was done and all the volunteers enjoyed it fully by making a remake of “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” to a hilarious movie “Dilwale Dulhe le Jayege” in a proper structure giving it a new look.

Everyone shared their individual stories looking at innovative ways of telling and structuring. A very essential 3-Art Structure of scripting was explained by looking at the structure of a popular bollywood film “Sholay” and 3-Act Division, Plot points, teaser and tag was taken in detail and the volunteers learned breaking up the story to organize their ideas and follow a simple structure and identified transitions, symbolism, visual and audio elements and layering by looking at some short videos and discussing on it.

Had screenings of PJI short film and identified the 3 act structure. Also seen and discussed movies which do not follow this structure, knowing when and why you are breaking the rule and innovations on the three acts.

As PJI always works on youth development and talks about social issues, a concept of social cinema i.e. messaging through movies on social issues was taken deeply by taking cues from advertising of Jagori’s, MustBol, Indian Railway, etc. After discussing upon these, volunteers learnt that a target audience need to be defined with tone, plot, narrative style. A story with a emotional and personal connect is more effective in conveying a message.

Manak, the mentor also tried to meet the expextations of our volunteers and explained the differentiated the concept of story, script, screenplay and story board. The feedback of the volunteers for the workshop was very positive. “I had so much many stories in my mind but never knew how to express it effectively. Now I can write it in an interesting way” said Mohammad Khalil. “After this workshop I know how a social issue can be shown in an appealing and interesting manner” added Abhishek Chawariya. - Kritika Shukla

Share-A-Smile Cafe

On Friday, Ashutosh hosted a Cafe meeting to informed the volunteers about the Share-a-Smile program and its Project Yatra. The project is a program to help members explore themselves, learn about different social issues, and contribute their own skills by teaching English in a government school.

The first phase of Project Yatra is the "virus" stage, which aims to make people more aware of the ways they are linked to and play a role in social problems. This will be achieved by hosting public meetings. In the cafe, the members started out playing games which forced them out of their comfort zones and urged them to consider different concepts, such as efficient use of resources.

The cafe participants then discussed the next two phases of Project Yatra. The next phase is "Gyan", in which the participants will go to government schools in Jawahar Nagar and other areas of the city. They will seek to help the students by teaching them English.

The last stage of the project is "Khoj", an exploration of one's self, in terms of skills, options, and active consideration of the choices we have in life. Ashutosh speaks about how Kabir said that the only question we can really seek to answer about ourselves in "Who Am I?", and this will be a central part of "Khoj".

Share-A-Smile is actively seeking volunteers to join the Project Yatra campaign for the next two years! If you are interested or would like more information please contact Ashutosh at 8302485842 or shareaasmile@gmail.com.