JOIN USStudents get a slice of literature at Bahuroopi
Director of Rangayana B V Rajaram on Sunday highlighted the significance of inculcating tradition and culture among students, apart from academics.
He was speaking at a programme organised at Vijaya Vitthala PU College here to introduce the thoughts of Jnanpith awardee Chandrashekara Kambara to students.
In a first such exercise of taking theatre to students as part of Bahuroopi national theatre festival, Rangayana has organised similar programmes in eight colleges to share thoughts of equal number of recipients of the highest award in Indian literary world.
Rajaram said when students are deviating from culture and tradition, the very exercise assumes significance. He blamed the teachers for the current pathetic scenario, where the students are being taught how to excel in studies, but not values to make for a good human being. The teachers earlier stand example for infusing values into their pupils.
Rajaram quoted ‘Tollu Gatti’ (weak and strong) a famous play by T P Kailasam. The author, in the play, draws a comparison between two brothers — one who is sound in knowledge, scoring higher marks and another an average student. However, when it comes to adverse situation, the boy with sound knowledge prefers to sift things belongings to him, while another cares for the lives of his parents.
The message here is education alone cannot make man a human being, but it also needs a sense of wisdom. Theatre activist and convener of Bahuroopi H S Umesh said taking theatre to colleges dates back to the period of Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar.
When the then Maharaja established Raja’s Free School (now Maharaja’s high school and junior college), the students were also staging plays, said Umesh quoting a record available with the archives. Vice-president of the institution R Guru and honorary secretary R Vasudev Bhat were present.