Movie Screening - Super 30

Hello Readers !

Movies give a remarkable message with a new horizons of thoughts. Movies enable us to think our contemporary issues like corruption, poverty, starvation, unemployment, brain-drain, political malpractices, frauds with common men, etc. We're talking about a Bollywood movie, Super 30. Here are some details of the movie.

Production House : Phantom Films
Co-producer : Sajid Nadiadwala
Director : Vikas Bahl
Release Date : July 12th, 2019

On 1st August, 2019 a movie screening of Super 30 was jointly organised by the department of English and Hindi, MK Bavnagar University, at the Top-3 Cinema, Bhavnagar.

A Patna based mathematician, Anand Kumar starts free coaching for unprivileged students, who want to take admission in IIT. Fighting with different threats and dangers, he succeeds in the mission, all 30 students pass the IIT exam.

This movie rightly shows how the education in India has become a business. Poor and needy people are easily neglected. The right to education doesn't support any kind of cultural, religious, and class biases.

Anand, right from the childhood, develops interest in mathematics and becomes a scholar student in higher studies. He earns gold medal for good performance. He is interested in solving more and more complicated equations, he solves one from an international journal, Librarian pulls him out of the reading hall, peon suggests Anand that if he publishes an article in the journal he can get free issues of it. He works very hard and at last, his article is published in Cambridge University Journal. Anand gets admission in Cambridge University. He starts preparing for going to Cambridge, but, being poor he doesn't get financial help from anywhere. Lower middle class family tries much hard for collecting money. Anand's father dies due to tension of money. Anand doesn't give up the plan of going foreign. One day, Lallan, finds Anand on the street and convinces him to leave this hardships and start working as a teacher his coaching institute. At first, Anand finds this work very beneficial because financial condition becomes good. But at certain point he realizes that he is being used as a puppet in this big coaching business. He decides not to work with anybody, but to start his own classes. He makes IIT coaching free for needy and poor students. 30 students join his class and gradually after facing many hurdles and downfalls they all successfully crack the IIT entrance.

Interesting Points to Notice

Very inspiring dialogue of Anand's father, अब राजा का बेटा राजा नहीं बनेगा, जो राजा बनने का असली हक़दार होगा वही बनेगा।

Idea of capitalism is reflected in the movie

Anand explains students the art of questioning. Each question must generate one more question.

The art of visualizing the question and then finding the answer of equation. In the movie this scene is best shown with good graphics.

Case study of failure. What are the causes that failure occurred ? Student describe their problem that how classicism became barrier to face the exam. Speaking English is a big problem for students. Anand challenges students to speak English without mistake. He tells students to organize a play, and it must last 20 minutes. Students give very good performance with great confidence, Occasion of Holi, fills the color and joy to the scene.

Problem of food, the unbeatable question. By cleverness and wit he manages to get food from a restaurant. With the proper use of mathematical calculations, he convinces restaurant manager.

To bring the grass-root change in society is the courageous task. Students apply all the rules and theorems of science and mathematics to fight with goons, Anand gets injured by a gunshot, but survives the attack.

Endless motivation helps student to pass the exam. Happy ending.

Thinking Activity 2 - Renaissance Literature

Hello Readers !

Literature, in many ways provokes us to think critically. Questions, which arise in our mind, set us to start a thoughtful quest and they never let us rest. In Renaissance period of literature, the same quest begins for the search of knowledge, and very interesting answers are also found. As a student of literature, this thinking activity enables me to compare and contrast the two ages of English literature. This is an academic task given by Dr. Dilip Barad.

• Write in brief about Edmund Spencer or Ben Jonson or Francis Bacon or on any one of their works.

Ben Jonson (1573? - 1637)

Ben Johnson was an English dramatist and poet who enjoyed his literary space for twenty-five years in London. Known for his ability and great learning, he stood like a rock against his contemporaries. He wanted to restore the classic form of drama, but he couldn't. On the other hand his great work and influence lived longer and became classicism of the 18th century.

Ben Jonson's first comedy, Every Man in His Humour, is the key to all his dramas and comedies. He has the ability to highlight a particular qualities of a character, that all the other qualities lose their importance. This kind of style is also used by Charles Dickens in his many novels. Ben Jonson exaggerates the humor just like a cartoonist makes a humorous picture of any person and makes some features remarkable by drawing them extra big or large.

• Can we differentiate general characteristics of Renaissance literature with that of Reformation / Restoration or Neo-classical or Romantic or Victorian or Modern literature?

At first, let's go through some of the main characteristics of the

Renaissance literature.

(1) The Renaissance Literature has very deep connection with the age of Elizabeth. About this age, it is said by Milton "a noble puissant nation, rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks." The queen Elizabeth gave full freedom to create and pursue for new things. This age was the witness of Religious Tolerance. The queen decided to unite all the religions and break all the false ideals. Under the queen's reign, Spanish Armada was defeated and the event brought much more patriotism and enthusiasm to do many explorations and quest for finding new things was started. 

(2) It was an age of social-contentment. The increase of manufacturing town gave the contentment to the people and labor who have had been idle for longer time. Trade with other countries was started and it brought enormous wealth to England.

(3) Exploring new things was the key characteristic feature of the age. Drake explores the world, and the young philosopher Francis Bacon said, "I have taken all knowledge for my province". Some literary work like Collection of Voyages, Purchas, His Pilgrimage, were produced. Explorers found many new places and lands which were wealthier than ever. Marston writes in Eastward Ho! "Why, man, all their dripping pans are pure gold. The prisoners they take are fettered in gold; and as for rubies and diamonds, they goe forth on holydayes and gather 'hem by the seashore to hang on their children's coates." New Earth was revealed by new explores - Cabot, Drake, Frobisher, Gilbert, Raleigh, Willoughby, Hawkins.

(4) All the characteristics found reflection in Drama. Corneille, Racine, and Moliere, brought drama to France. Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson carried forward the genre.

Restoration Age and it's literature

French Influence played a vital role in producing certain kind of literature in Restoration period. After the Revolution of 1688, many French writers like Pascal, Bossuet, Malherbe, Racine brought forward new literature. But when one has to take something as a model, he selects virtues but not vices. But, writes of England adapted and copied the vices of French comedy. Poems written by Rochester, plays of Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh and Frquhar, are now mostly unreadable.

Many new Tendencies also came into existence like Realism and formalism. Writes of this period have painted realistic pictures of the corrupt court and society. Restoration writers opposed the style of long Latin quotes, and filtered the unnecessary words and descriptions from the text, and made very short, clean-cut literary work.

Citation

Long, W. J., English Literature - It's History and It's Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World (2015)

Thinking Activity 1 - Aristotle's Poetics

Welcome Readers !

Digital Skill, nowadays, has become the most essential part of our routine life. At the Department of English, MK Bhavnagar University, this skill is shaped very well with the endless encouragement by Dr. Dilip Barad. By making blog, we can make our entire workplace portable. Anywhere we go, we can just open some useful applications and sites to complete our tasks. By using Google Classroom, Barad sir has enabled himself as well as students to stay connected with each others all the time, and here is the thinking activity task, in which I've answered the questions which were uploaded by Dr. Dilip Barad in his Blog on Aristotle's Poetics.

Readers might be wondering that what is thinking activity ? Here you are! After completion of a unit or a topic of syllabus, students are given some questions and points to think upon. Whatever answers students find, they have to publish them on their respective blogs. By doing so, students not only understand the whole unit thoroughly but also start re-thinking the unit critically and raise their own questions regarding the unit. This kind of Student-Teacher interaction really helps in many ways.

Q1.  How far do you agree with Plato’s objection to freedom of expression and artistic liberty enjoyed by creative writers? Name the texts (novels, plays, poems, movies, TV soaps etc which can be rightfully objected and banned with reference to Plato’s objections)

Ans. Plato objects to freedom of expression and artistic liberty enjoyed by the creative writers, because they produce immoral and unethical work. According to Plato, a creative work should be produced morally and philosophically, rather than the intention of pleasure and enjoyment. By reading such highly moral and philosophical work, people can take some lessons and apply them in their lifestyle and up-bring their morality. There are many examples such as Marvel Cinematic Universe's Movies like Thor, Spiderman, Daredevil, Avengers, Hulk, etc. All the characters depicted in these movies are far from reality and morality. Though they are shown as good characters and they do every good to "save the world", but if we look with Plato's eyes, we must say that these characters are immoral and unethical. Children immediately copy and imitate these kind of unreal things. So I agree with the objections of Plato.