Rehanna @ Miranda House

Our third screening was held with a very enthusiastic crowd from the Sociology Department of Miranda House college. The screening was held in the college auditorium and was attended by over around 25-30 students. The day started with the SMILE’rs sharing their Rural Internship experiences with the audience and it managed to generate quiet a lot of interest among the students.


The movie screened was “Rehanna” which is a journey of a Muslim woman who decided to break the shackles imposed on her by the society and work for the betterment of other women who might be in the same position as her own. After the screening was over the general consensus among the audience was that they felt charged up and emotional some of the initial reactions generated from the audience were:

- If you really wish to live a “normal” life then you can challenge the ways.
- Shocked that issues like Domestic Violence, rape and other atrocities among women exist in such magnitude.


-Some of the members of the audience felt that there were no male reactions in the movie and the only two men showed in the movie were smiling and meek. Which led to somebody asking from the audience what would be men’s reaction to the movie to this one of the Sociology Department Professor who was amongst the audience shared his experience


- The notion of oppression of women by women was also discussed, to which some people from the audience said that it is a result of conditioning by the society.


- The issue of Reservation for women in Parliament and Panchayats was also discussed.


- The discussion also touched upon topics more closer home like, wearing clothes appropriate to the society one lives in, perception of women as an object, no identity for women apart from those provided by the society.


In all the discussion led to a lot of us in the audience to think and explore new grounds. We would like to organize more such screenings with the college and a heartfelt thanks to the organizers.


Keep :)ing


SMILE'rs

Posted in: , , , on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at at 6:03 PM 2 comments  

Movie screening @ IIT Delhi, read on!


"NSS IITD" in collaboration with "Pravah" organised the screening of "India Untouched" on August 29, Saturday facilitated by SMILE volunteers. The highlight was the discussion part after the screening. Beyond all expectations, audience found the relevance of the issue and almost everyone present there was an intimate part of the discussion. The issue of the movie was well known to all, but the way it was put there in the movie and later the points discussed seemed to enlighten everyone and put a lot of unknown facts forward. The way the audience discussed their personal examples related to the issue, showed it was very near to their hearts.
Some of the major points that came out of the discussion and movie were:

· The awareness of the fact that it was still so prevalent both in practices at the grass root level and psychologically in the so called educated elite, the point to think about is, does it exist in IIT too? (as highlighted by the JNU student case).

· The fact that people who are victims of untouchability further perpetuate the practice (subdivisions in Dalit castes and how some Dalitsub-castes subjected other Dalit sub-castes to various atrocities that they themselves were victims of).

· Someone pointed out that the Manusmriti isn’t an integral part of the Vedas and that in the Bhagvad Gita Lord Krishna offers help to everyone irrespective of their caste.

· The caste discrimination subconsciously still exists in our hearts even if we don’t explicitly practice it in reference to the lady who denied any caste beliefs but still wanted to strictly marry within her caste.

· State machinery uses castes to divide us for their own political gains.

· It was new to some to that caste distinctions occur in almost all religions and even states like Kerala which is a communist state and boasts of the highest literacy rate in India has such a rampant growth of caste based practices.

· There was a heated discussion on the issue of reservations and whether they should be community based or community, on the creamy layer issue, the positives of the system of reservations which drew some interesting and thought provoking arguments from either side.

· Finally some were perplexed at the reasons for this sort of discrimination and longed for the prevalence of humanity in all.

This brought us to the question of taking initiatives and not waiting for the society to change but to start changing ourselves. The effort to start the process of thinking and self-questioning thus got underway. The very hope to change and not to accept things as they are seemed to flame in everyone. It was very encouraging for us to see your enthusiasm and to hear out your point of views.

SMILE Pravah would like to continue its association with IIT Delhi and we eagerly await any comments on the movie or related issues. We would also like to further conduct such screenings and discussions if feasible. Please feel free to write out your views of the event and also to contact us for any sort of information or comments.

Posted in: , , , on at at 5:28 PM 1 comments  

India Untouched screened @ Kirori Mal college

Our second movie screening was held in Kirori Mal College on the 26th of August with the help of the film society in the college. The movie screened was “India Untouched” by Director Stalin K. who with his team spent four years traveling the length and breadth of India to bear witness to the continued exclusion and segregation of those considered as ‘Untouchables’.


The screening was attended by about 20 participants and after the screening a brief description was given about Pravah and SMILE to acquaint our audience about where we were coming from and why we wanted to share our experiences with them and why we felt the need to be there.


Some participants shared that they felt “Sad” “Disturbed” and “Shocked” after watching the movie, some also said that they were unaware that caste existed in so many areas of the society. What shocked most of the audience was the fact that issues like untouchability and caste system are still prevalent in states like Kerala which has the highest literacy rate. One of the student also shared, and I quote, “JNU is supposed to be an institution which is stereotypically a leftist and it’s shocking to see that discrimination like this is there also, I wonder if this also happens in DU” .


The issue of reservation which in our country is closely related to the system of caste is also raised in the movie and the students gave their opinions and shared what they felt about the issue, and I quote again, “Caste is prevalent across all parts of the country and all sections of the society” Another issue that was raised in the movie was that of back door entries and students coming in through self financed seats.


To this the students said that Many instances of the Vedas came up as many portions of the Manusmriti are mentioned in the movie, to this the group reached a consensus that it might be that when the Vedas were made during the ancient times it fit into the scenario and they might have been scientific for those times, but the interpretation that has trickled down during centuries has been seriously misinterpreted.
A very interesting topic that was raised was the discussion of Burqa which was left at the open ended question of “Does the individual really have the choice to decide whether to wear one or not? “


In all it was a great discussion which led to a lot of thinking, it was followed by another screening on the 28th of August details of which will be coming up soon. A special thanks to the film society of Kirori Mal college in helping it become a success and we would like to carry on with this association.


Keep :)ing

SMILE'rs





Posted in: on Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at at 9:15 PM 2 comments  

First screening @ Youth For Development workshop!


Date: 24th August 09
Venue: Don Bosco Technical Institute


Introduction:
The event started with a fun activity, wherein the volunteers were divided into pairs and were asked to balance a pencil between their foreheads without actually touching it. The activity managed to gear up the audiences and also helped the facilitators who were supposedly unknown initially to develop a connection which is an integral part of any interactive session. Thereafter, a random question was thrown at the audiences. The question was “What images come to your mind when you hear the term boundaries." There were diverse response to these questions and following terms seemed common in the responses that were received.
Partition
Controversy
Limitation
Barriers



A thought process commenced and just to add spark to the fire another question was thrown randomly after jotting the previous points at the whiteboard. This time the question was “What image comes to our mind when we hear of the term terrorist”? Again a lot of different answers came from the audiences and following points seemed prominent.
Blood shed
Violence
Destruction
Fighting for a cause




Movie : Little Terrorist
The movie managed to keep the audiences engrossed at all times. The very first scene which depicts a scene, wherein a group of children are trying to retrieve a ball which has crossed the Line of control aroused curiosity among the audiences and that connection seems to be everlasting. One amazing thing about the screening was that audiences were thrown in an ocean full of varied emotions and at the end one could see questions of the faces of people. People who were from different background, Different geographical locations having different interpretations. However one thing seemed to be common. There were questions looming large on their faces.







Discussion:
Once the movie was over the question about the images comes to our mind after hearing the term terrorism was again referred to. It initially started with the debate on identities. A part of the audiences agreed to the fact that that we fall prey to stereotypes and our own preconceived notions and label a person as terrorist and the views are predominantly based on physical features which has been beautifully shown and portrayed in the movie. Gradually a few interesting perspectives came up which not only intensified the discussion but also gave a proper ground for brainstorming.
“People are same irrespective of their religion”
“Humanity is our first religion”



Thereafter the discussion turned towards the cause of the problem under consideration and the following important points were the core of the discussion


  • It was discussed that fear is an important cause and the customs/tradition that we at times blindly follow are affected by fear that we have

  • A few thought that fear exist owing to the insecurity that a living being have and it is an animal instinct to form a group in order to feel safe and secure.


Finally the discussion moved towards solutions and almost everyone present there agreed that we are the only problem and we are the only solution. And although it is not possible to find a solution instantly but the fact cannot be ignored that the onus is on us to change the things.



Feedback:
The involvement of the audiences during the movie screening and the subsequent discussion helped us to get a feedback on the proposed activity. The discussion has a direction and purpose. One important observation of this screening was that a film with limited duration helps us to connect with audiences better and leads to a comprehensive discussion.




In all it was a great session which provided us with just the perfect amount of motivation, enthusiasm.




SMILE'rs :)

Posted in: , , on at at 12:44 AM 0 comments  

Action Project '09!

Hello to all!


Guess who is back in action?

Yes, you guessed it right.. it's we SMILE'rs '09!!

We have come back from our Rural Internships and have boarded the ship loaded with ideas, learnings, experiences and much much more, we have been moving from shore to shore sharing experiences and taking in more and more of them.



As a part of our Action Project we have started a chain of movie screenings across different colleges in Delhi, SMILE'rs themselves are facilitating these sessions with a lot of enthusiasm and we are very happy to tell you that till now we have screened documentary movies in 3 colleges starting from 24th of August with a thought provoking discussion followed by a documentary screening.



We will be keeping you posted about the screenings through this space and we will also be posting about the discussions that are taking place in various colleges. So that we can share our experiences with all of you and get to know your thoughts, as they are important to us :)



Looking forward to hear from you and sharing with you!




SMILE'rs :)

Posted in: on Sunday, August 30, 2009 at at 10:11 PM 1 comments  

SMILErs at play this summer

the journey just started at the orientation camp there's a long distance that was covered post that... an account of some of those journeys...

http://www.younginfluencers.com/sitec/images/public/Publications/SMILE_NEW_LETTER.pdf

Posted in: on Thursday, September 18, 2008 at at 11:33 AM 0 comments  

Orientation camp

a little insight into what goes into preparing oneself before we tread towards our rural internships... read to get some accounts of some SMILErs experiences

http://www.younginfluencers.com/sitec/images/users/1/SMILE/SMILE%20please.pdf

Posted in: on at at 11:33 AM 0 comments  

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