mcrc lighting workshop

i couldn't believe my ears/eyes when some weeks back, i get this email from jamia mcrc asking me if i'd be free n willing to do a week-long lighting workshop...i mean, it was what, 15yrs since i graduated from there. never felt particularly good about the place, held some grudges...but was secretly thrilled that they wanted to do something like this. we never had anything like this when i was studying there. whatever we learnt n did was often despite the faculty there...but yes, the resources we had n the access to equipment was unrivalled....
i didn't take much time to think n almost immediately said yes. no shoots happening. i had done a lighting workshop at sristi earlier this year. ended up being most intense but very satisfying. but 50 students!!! daunting, to say the least...we were a mere 27 in comparasion. they'd fly me down, put me up in the guest house n even pay me...nice, i thought!
i had been there just once since passing out...but now, as i walked in, an overwhelming sense of decay greeted me...i dunno what it was at first...it seemed stuck in time n we had moved on...gotten worse as we got better. it bothered me but only increased my resolve to enjoy myself n get the students to have a fun time learning. very dull they seemed blinkered by their tv news presenter aspirations. what could i do to change that, i pondered...
in these many years of teaching, i've often been asked, "so how's this batch?"...i never know what to say which would be a suitable response to some expectation...i'd like to think of each group of students quite like the other. soft moist clay on a potter's wheel...tho i never thought of myself as ajay kumbhar!...we just dived in together into the deep end, splashed around, swallowed some water occasionally but came out on top, mostly.
enjoyed it immensely...tho the numbers did make it exhausting this time. i tried my best to dissuade them from coming to class. all will be marked present, everything is optional...but nothing worked...day after day, session after session, they'd be there like good dry sponges...soaking it all in. even at 6am on a cold misty winter morning! to look at available light...and till 830 at night to watch the evening film.
i'd meet friends over dinner, classmates too who're teaching...and we'd crib endlessly about the abysmal quality of students these days...yes, we too were one n twenty once upon a time, but then, our seniors said the same disparaging things about us too, remember? it seems to be a universal phenomenon...to the problem seems to lie with us, not them. the onus is on us. yes, they don't read the newspapers, nor watch movies, are lazy lumps of undeserving @#$&...we rant on...this is exactly what drives me...to figure how to make a connection...figure what their pre-occupations are...
they spent an entire day realising the one situation they had scripted in order to evoke a particular "mood or feeling"...what a day it was!...i hardly spoke...they experimented, slogged, skipped lunch n by the evening shared their work nervously but excitedly like it was their first film! later they told me they'd never experienced anything like this here...i've been smiling very widely since ;)