Plays portray sorry state of education system

Amritsar, June 22

A national theatre workshop being held at Virsa Vihar for children culminated with two dramatic and striking plays put forth by child artistes. Plays ‘Sone Da Pinjra’ and ‘Phoolan Nu Kitaban Vich Na Rakho’ were both staged by children between the age group of three years to 13 years. The two plays presented the sad picture of the education system in the country and the pressure children go through while studying in schools. The question asked by the children ‘who probably suffer the same very fate that the poor parrot in Rabindra Nath Tagore’s story ‘Tota Kahani did’ made for an excellent stage production. Based on the 100-year-old folk tale, the play, ‘Sone Da Pinjra’, was directed by Emmanual Singh, Narinder Sethi and Sarabjit Singh Ladda. The story was recreated by Kewal Dhaliwal with the team of technical experts Pavel Sandhu, Sarbjit and Narinder Sethi.

Improvised by Kewal Dhaliwal, ‘Sone Da Pinjra’ symbolised the golden cage to a fancy, ‘elite’ schools that have commercialised education and offer accessories in the name of education. Hence, 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 also there. “Children are being stuffed with information, whether academic or otherwise, thinking that it would help them grow, when in fact, it does the 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, children, 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,” he said Dhaliwal. ‘Phoolan Nu Kitaban Vich Na Rakho’, written by Pali Bhupinder, was also about letting the kids breathe and nurture their creativity rather than putting them in a closed box. — TNS