Though the writer doesn’t explain that in the textbook chapter, recently Dinesh Shankar (Shailendra’s son) beautifully described the incident in one of his Facebook posts. In Dinesh’s words, “As Shailendra insisted he was right, Raj Kapoor chipped in and explained that they also count the intermediates between the four major directions. To this everyone agreed, but then it still made only eight. At that moment, they all looked towards the poet who kept smiling and puffing his cigarette. Without saying a word, he then pointed towards the sky and the ground below. The argument had ended and Raj Kapoor hugged Shailendra, his Kaviraj, who had not let him down.”
The chapter truly excels with such educating references and it continues doing so in its exercise section too, asking students to read the original novel and write their review of the film, making all the important references. In the same set of questions, it also asks them to find more Hindi films based on the works of famous authors representing our Indian literature and more songs that have their origin in our rich Indian traditional folk music.
Unfortunately, the chapter on Teesri Kasam has been deleted from the course this year, as per the changes made in the syllabus because of Covid-19. But we certainly need many more chapters like these in the school textbooks, educating youngsters about Cinema, recognizing the medium as a respectable part of the cultural heritage of India.
(The writer is a critic-columnist, an explorer of cinema and author of ‘Did You Know’ series on Hindi films also active at bobbytalkscinema.com)
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