Teachers’ Day Celebration
The Dialects of Delhi by Fouzia Dastango
For us, Teachers’ Day is not a single day marked on the calendar but a continuous journey. Every time a child embraces a challenge, finds joy in discovery or explores new horizons, it becomes a Teachers’ Day moment. These everyday experiences are opportunities for us to reconnect with our inner selves, reflect on our purpose and realign with our chosen profession.
Our collective celebration of ‘large circle time’ on 5th September then manifests through the nature of our daily interactions - spontaneous conversations, lively debates and thoughtful discussions.
As part of the celebration this year, an art experience was planned for the entire team. The teachers immersed themselves in creating collaborative pieces of art in small groups. Connecting with their memories and experiences of Shikshantar, their favourite spaces here and the elements of nature that they identify the most with, the team poured out their expressions on large sheets of paper, freely exploring a vast range of art techniques and mediums like paper collages, origami forms, finger painting, watercolours, crayons and markers.
It is yet another occasion to interact with people from different creative fields like artists, academicians, authors and writers to enable an enriching exchange of ideas. This year, Fouzia Dastango, the first female dastango of India, took us into the world of ‘Dialects of Old Delhi’. It was a stimulating narration of dramatised anecdotes and stories speaking with ‘regional and social dialects’ like ‘बेगमाती जबां’ - an Urdu dialect spoken by women in 19th century Delhi, particularly by feudal class begums and some more like ‘करख़नदारी जबां’ - another unique dialect of Urdu spoken in the narrow lanes of Old Delhi, and ‘नाई की जबां’. As the names indicate, these were the dialects of those who lived and worked in a wide set of artisan communities.
The session served as a reminder to keep alive the memory of the purity of regional dialects and the joy found in authentic heart-felt expression; they could be so incredibly expressive and poetic in times of haste and bustle. We guffawed, reminisced and walked out lighter, connecting with each other over epithets, songs, a token for all with some lip-smacking food.
This Teachers’ Day too left us creating fond memories with open hearts and arms.