Monday, October 19

Author: Jane Sahi

Jane Sahi has been involved in alternative education working both with children and adults over the last 45 years. She lives in Bengaluru.
From <i>Eye-to-Eye</i> to <i>Screen-to-Screen</i>
21Jun By Jane SahiNo Comments
Chiaroscuro, Issue 13 – June 2020

From Eye-to-Eye to Screen-to-Screen

Opening Up the Book Club in Time of Lockdown A book club in Bengaluru for children between the ages of 9 and 13 was started about three years ago. The pattern has been that each month one of the members would choose a book a few weeks in advance and the other members would have a chance to read the book and come prepared for a discussion and an activity related to that book. Typically the child who chose the book would lead the whole event including choosing the next ‘host’.  It would be hosted in one of the homes of the children and sharing food and fun were an integral part of the whole happening. Most of the children had been or continue to be homeschoolers and the levels of reading and engagement with books were high.  One of the distinctive features of this Children’s Book Club is th...
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<i>Story as </i>“<strong>a weapon for survival</strong>”
30Jan By Jane Sahi1 Comment
Issue 12 – February 2020, Spotlight

Story as “a weapon for survival”

Image courtesy: www.kobo.com Matilda, the protagonist and narrator of Lloyd Jones’ novel Mister Pip[i]  confides to the reader at the conclusion of the story, “Pip was my story, even if I was once a girl and my face black as the shining night”. She is referring to Pip, the hero of Charles Dickens’ classic, Great Expectations and also to the context when she first heard the story as a 13 year old pupil in a village school in a remote Pacific island off the coast of Papua New Guinea in the 1990s. The island which forms the historical backdrop of the fictional story of Mister Pip is torn apart by a brutal civil war and is under siege from the ruthless Government forces of the nearby mainland following a dispute over mining rights. There is a certain irony that the children of the island of ...
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<i>Some images of</i><strong> shame and pride</strong> <i>around</i><strong> literacy and illiteracy</strong>
26Oct By Jane Sahi1 Comment
Chiaroscuro, Issue 11 – October 2019

Some images of shame and pride around literacy and illiteracy

Illustration: Alia Sinha “You ask yourself, have I got a name if I can’t write it? Am I a human being if I can’t read it? You turn to stone ...” Stanley has just lost his job once again on account of being unable to read or write and here he is confiding in Iris, a feisty and fiercely independent working woman who later helps him to learn to read.  Stanley and Iris is a Hollywood adaptation (or re-scripting) of Pat Barker’s unsentimental book called Union Street which is about the resilient lives of working class women in the 1950s in England. The film has a very different tone and focus from the book by making the main plot about Stanley becoming literate. It reinforces certain stereotypes that are associated with illiteracy and the magical transformation that is apparently brought about...
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<i>Preface to </i><strong>Issue 6</strong>
25Jul By Jane Sahi1 Comment
Issue 6 – July 2018

Preface to Issue 6

The theme of this issue of Torchlight is ’Library and Art’. We have explored this theme from a number of unusual and fresh angles: some of the articles are related to education; some, are connected tangentially to libraries but all are linked to art in one form or another. Jyoti Sahi discusses explicitly how words and images are inextricably linked and both are rooted in how we experience the material world. Nina Sabnani describes how the collaboration of artists of many kinds  -  a traditional painter, an illustrator, a designer, a story-teller and an inspired publisher -  came together to create a book that blends seamlessly so many elements and gifts. Liz Kemp explores how words can generate images which in turn give rise to words.  She describes her gentle and ‘fluid’ facilitation of ...
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