space of the immeasurable so what are
the words that come to mind when one
speaks of the immeasurable infinity
eternity feelings emotions intuition
dreams memories peace harmony love and
so on and so for the list is endless now
we know of the five elements in the
indian scriptures the first element
being space often understood with use of
words like ether ether spirit sky from
the times of the Puranas Plato Aristotle
Einstein Newton Rudolf Steiner three
Aurobindo and in more recent times
Laszlo and many philosophers thinkers
scientists have dwelled upon this
element which came to be called the
fifth element which we believed was the
first which was the source of the next
four elements a fire water earth how do
we see these playing out in our lives we
know that we can be as connected as the
air or we can rage like a fire or be
flowing with our ideas and thoughts like
water or be has rooted and yet in motion
like the earth but when it comes to
space this infinite undefinable
unquantifiable element what is it that
actually manifests itself
in our lives and often have grappled
with this question what is it that is
immeasurable within each one of us
within me there is a joy I experience
when I sing when I perform and that to
me is immeasurable just as joy is
immeasurable I find pain to immeasurable
now I’m not talking of physical pain
we’ve managed to measure that but when
it comes to feelings and emotions how
does one measure that I remember I lost
my parents and I lost them to death I
lost another very dear person my friend
philosopher guide and much more to death
and then it was in a court of law
in an ugly court battle that I was to be
separated from my sons and that void
that it left in my children’s lives
I cannot imagine the magnitude of that
how does one measure the width of
unsheathe years how does one calculate
the sorrow that is carried in tears
well I myself roamed around with a
bottomless pit hollow in my heart and
mind for a long time and often I would
have people say to me oh my god we’d be
dead if we had to go through half of
what you went through and I would wish I
was actually sometimes and yet I seem to
go on I seem to survive and I wondered
where that was coming from where was
this faith in the universe that some
grace of the universe will prevail where
was this coming from because that hollow
that seemed to swallow every hope every
joy every strength of mine now seemed to
hold all of my inner strength and that I
think is there in each one of us
every child but I come in touch with
through my work through theater through
film and I think that is what is
prevailing most of the time in our most
vulnerable moments that is where our
inner strength Springs out of and it was
a bad time that I felt that this is
where it is seeded it is seeded in that
fifth element in that sky within what is
seeded is that thought the seed of the
thought dwells there the origin of
intuition that strength that inner
strength and it exists with a quality of
diversity that diversity which we find
all around us in nature you go take a
look at a garden you don’t have a go to
garden go look at a pot or look at some
modern a pot it holds the power to give
birth to nurture growth to make
something blossom and that exists in
each one of us in every child
monoculture is not the way nature
survives or sustains itself and yet we
seem to buy into that idea whether it is
in our agricultural systems or whether
it is in our educational systems we seem
to buy into the idea of mono perfection
we want our children to be just one
thing and we tailor our educational
systems to do just that why
and in the process learning becomes so
much of a pressure and hardly a pressure
as recently as January 6 The Times of
India carried an article which said
Karnataka lost one student every day to
suicide 1.47 to be precise and cover now
to top the list with 2.68
how much is 0.47 of a child
how much is 0.68 of a child numbers
candy
human eyes surely they do and yet we
allow it we buy into that idea we
endorse it we encourage it
we even enforce it in the lives of our
children in classrooms numbers matter in
schools numbers matter to a child marks
begin to matter more than they’re worth
it’s all around us
in entertainment eyeballs matter in
shopping malls foot falls matter where
does the individual matter it is in the
arts and crafts it is informing that the
individual and the larger context the
micro and the macro both matter and now
that brings me to that immeasurable part
of the performer in every child you know
there is the measured part of the
performance of course which can be
reduced to number of seats occupied
tickets sold but I’m talking about the
experience the Rosanna Brava as it’s
called that shared synergy that bond
between the performer and the audience
that immeasurable response that shared
gaze between the two it could be through
laughter it could be through applause it
would be through did a nervous cough or
it could be through just a silent ear or
plane silence and this resonant hug is
available to the child remember the
times when as a child we played you
played things like house house under a
bed the cot itself became the roof of
the house and you played out rules of
people who were part of your life people
you’d met or people you’d seen from a
distance and it was just for the fun of
it not to win not to gain points and
there was something happening there we
were learning of life and
doesn’t seem to happen in the classroom
because there seems to be more
competition than collaboration in the
classroom in theatres we are very
vulnerable as actors very often we are
falling physically flat on our faces or
even figuratively and that’s the worst
because those cars don’t show on the
outside but my god they really hurt and
here in the classroom that very thing is
happening but there’s no room for the
expression of love of true heartfelt
hand-holding for empathy for sympathy
for compassion numbers it’s a number
game you can’t have 30 kids in a class
going and sitting and hugging each other
out of sympathy so it doesn’t happen but
in theatre it’s possible it’s happening
all the while and often we fall on our
faces and the situation demands that you
get up on your own dust your bottom and
get on with it but there is somewhere
this knowledge of being in the same boat
of being together of knowing that one is
not alone and in that just developing
that inner strength that sky within that
space within which allows you the
freedom to make mistakes to learn easily
and effortlessly from someone else’s
mistakes and your own and in that the
learning gets internalized it is it all
happens in a very free manner and that
is what happens in farming you throw a
seed if a child gets to throw a seed and
watch something grow the child learns of
life’s processes right from birth to
death and everything in between
without anything being repressed or
suppressed learning is not disjointed
but in our classrooms we seem to box our
children into rooms and then we do that
for years and later on in life we are
telling them to think out of the box as
Aurobindo said the first principle of
truth
thing is that nothing can be taught
there was an actor who came and we were
doing the plane we were workshopping and
he had to play hide and seek and it was
his turn to take the dents so gladly he
did and he started counting but he stood
in the middle of the room with his eyes
open and started counting so he said no
you have to close your eyes and then
counts so he stood right there and
closed his eyes and started counting and
we said no you have to go to a wall at
the side and then count so he goes to
this wall but he’s still standing in the
center of the wall and facing us and he
said we hide with you facing us even if
your eyes are closed and I was excited
by then and I said come on haven’t you
ever played hide-and-seek before don’t
you know how to play it back came the
answer in a feeble tone no he said I
played structured games we played tennis
basketball football badminton and such
games we just stood there shocked but
after that we played hide and seek every
day now if this this was an actor who
knew all the techniques he had them all
at his beck and call he knew them he had
learned them but it wasn’t available to
him when it came to actually expressing
himself of finding the child with him I
Steiner says we can find nature outside
of us only when we had first learned to
know her within us what is akin to her
within us must be our guide this marks
our path of enquiry and we played
hide-and-seek every day after that for
quite some time to come and something
happened something immeasurable
something I cannot quantify for you but
something happened and he found it this
actor was able to do what was required
he had found the child with him and this
is what we are hoping will happen in
education
because we seem to be losing out on our
traditional learning systems we seem to
be losing out on the wealth that is
possible for us through those we’re
losing out on our lullabies mothers are
hardly singing the lullaby to their
children and I believe the lullaby holds
people’s songs
yes but people’s stories the song of the
heart the dance of emotions that is what
the lullaby holds and we seem to be
losing that we find even in the crafts
people are forgetting how to make those
knots they know the steps in between but
they’re forgetting how to begin a piece
and how to end it even a simple thing
like a Gojira we don’t know how to begin
it and ended we know that got lots in
between but we don’t know how to tie it
up and that is very precious because if
we lose what is precious in the hands if
we lose dexterity then we’re losing
something immeasurable in our hearts and
minds something that allows us to
construct deconstruct and reconstruct
this can happen through farming natural
farming arts and crafts so the points I
make in conclusion are open the sky
within to the sky without include
natural farming arts and crafts in
education nurture traditional and
contemporary knowledge systems imagine a
child making a film on the flora and
fauna in his village or a child making
an a theatre piece or an animation film
on a weave that is peculiar to her
village that would be priceless and we
need to do this with no grading let us
value rather than evaluate for us to be
able to draw from our hearts all that is
precious from the sky within to the sky
you [Applause]