Children question India’s education system through ‘Sone Da Pinjra’, win hearts

AMRITSAR: Build huge institutions, accessorise them with fancy, hi-tech equipments and furniture, enroll the most qualified teachers and ensure that children, who come to study at these centres of education, will have a secure future.

The children’s theatre workshop culminated at Virsa Vihar after the staging of the play, ‘Sone Da Pinjra’, in Amritsar on Sunday. A Tribune photograph

Neha Saini

Tribune News service

Amritsar, June 26

Build huge institutions, accessorise them with fancy, hi-tech equipments and furniture, enroll the most qualified teachers and ensure that children, who come to study at these centres of education, will have a secure future. Or is it so?

The question was asked by the children, who probably suffer the same very fate that the poor parrot in Rabindra Nath Tagore’s story ‘Tota Kahani’ did. Based on the 100-year-old folk tale, the play, ‘Sone Da Pinjra’, was staged at Virsa Vihar by the students of children theatre workshop today evening. Presented in a musical format with new cultural and time references, the story was recreated by Kewal Dhaliwal with the team of technical experts Pavel Sandhu, Sarbjit Singh and Narinder Sethi.

So the hapless, tiny bird was there, the gold cage was there, a king, who thought he could turn the bird into a genius by stuffing pages and pages of written word, was there. The only difference was the actors, who were presenting this sharp satire on quality of education and the eventuality of over-expectations from children, and were, in fact, the probable victims of the same education system.

“Children are being stuffed with information, whether academic or otherwise, thinking that it would help them grow, when in fact, it does the exact opposite. Just like the bird in this story ends up getting suffocated under the burden of all those pages and books in its golden cage, kids, too, are suffering from anxiety and depression at an early age. The education system should be based on the quality of education being imparted not quantity. Every child is different and needs space to grow and think,” said Dhaliwal.

The parents in the audience applauded the efforts of kids and some even demanded that the half-hour production should be staged at schools for better reach. The dramatic end of the play had a song that summarised it all…Bhaarey bhaarey bastey, lambey lambey rastey (heavy, huge bags and long roads to travel).