If knowledge is imbibed through impressions in classrooms , libraries and laboratories, it is an auditorium or a central discussion hall where you learn to express this knowledge, in a way useful to your society and to yourself.
Thirukkural has a complete chapter on Stage Fright , “Avai Anjaamai” (அவை அஞ்சாமை ) . Every couplet in the chapter is a gem , but my favorite is Couplet No 726. A rough translation would go like this :- “ What have they to do with a sword who are not valiant, or they with learning who are afraid of an intelligent assembly ? “ Only of late, our engineering colleges and B Schools are waking up to the idea , generally to improve the placement prospects for their students.
Many a time you get to know yourself better by expressing yourself through a work of creativity; it could be a speech, writing , fine arts or performing arts. To that extent an auditorium plays a great role in learning. An auditorium need not be an indoor space with with world-class acoustics and interior decoration. It could as well be a raised platform set up under a banyan tree where children can express themselves freely in front of their teachers and peers.
Our school did not have a dedicated auditorium to begin with. We had a temporary construction for senior boys mess which doubled as an auditorium for all kinds of functions that required a stage and seating for 300 boys.
Going back to Feb 1968, it was just a few days after we had joined the school. Mr Selvaraj turned up at our hostel one evening , after dinner. I remember we were in our pajamas for his reading test or should we say, the audition test. He made every boy read a verse or a paragraph from a text book. Tamil is a unique language that even among native speakers of the language , a vast majority cannot handle the different sounds of ல , ள ,ர ,ற ,ழ (two Ls, two Rs and a sound not expressible in letters of the English alphabet, or for that matter any other language in the world barring Malayalam ) May be because we were the tiniest or may be because we could handle the pronunciations better , five of use were selected. I remember Baskar and Mouli and cant’t recall the other two)
It was for participation in grandiose sounding Tamil Literary Association Meeting though our role was nothing more than reciting some nursery rhymes about dogs, cats, birds and so on.I suppose , it was also a way of of welcoming our batch to the Auditorium.
The next big occasion was the Feeder House day that was celebrated along with Children’s day in 1968. Considering that we were all in class V , it must have been a tough job for the teachers to prepare us for a full fledged entertainment program as it happens on any “House Day”. The matrons Ms Gowri and Ms Julia were also fully involved in the preparations. The program included songs , dance and plays in Tamil, English and Hindi. It is surprising how a child can memorize dialogues in a language he knows little about.
The Hindi play directed by Mrs Visalakshi was about Meera and I played the role of Meera. Miss Visalaakshi, not only had large eyes as her name suggested , but also had a large heart and everything about her was XXL . She was a great singer with a sweet voice. The play had three scenes with short dialogues and a longish dance at the end where the Child- Meera is thrilled to be in possession of a Krishna idol. Since an attempt to teach me to sing turned out disastrous , Mrs Visalakshi sang in the background and Meera holding the idol of Krishna danced to “Mere Angane men murli bajao”
In our house day functions, we had a norm that the program always started with an elaborate opening tableau. A lot of efforts went into the project . It was a Still or a kind of slow animation of characters against a backdrop set to some theme like freedom struggle, education and so on.
For our feeder house day falling on Children’s day, the theme was children and so it was the scene of Krishna stealing butter. We already had a Krishna, Gnanasekar, made up and ready for the play “Meera”. They put a head scarf ,dubatta, on my head to convert child-Meera to adult-Yashodha! These days , teachers are smart. They decide the cast and crew based on the ability of parents to run around and provide costumes and accoutrement . I don’t know from where the blouse, skirts , bangles and all materialized; all procured by teachers and matrons. On the lighter side, having played the roles of Meera and Yashodha on the same day, I have become a die hard fan of Krishna . Today when most people write Sri Ramajayam , I write Om namo bhagavate Vasudevaya!
Despite this great start I never reached anywhere in the subsequent years mostly doing small roles in the House day programs , reciting poems in Hindi literary meetings and an odd participation in a debate in English.
In 1969, we moved to the new school complex and in 1970 or 71 , Avvai Auditorium came into being. It was a little more than an asbestos shed , but it had a large space for stage and we had a decent audio system. The auditorium is named after Avvaiyaar, the great Tamil poet. A plywood cutout of the poet was placed above the stage. On hindsight ,I wish we had had a grand statue or a bust .
A point to note is that Avvaiyaar was more of a poet and philosopher than a playwright . In schools auditoriums are for literary meetings , debates and quiz programs as much for music, dance and plays.
We would also remember Avvai Auditorium for the daily morning assembly. I think it is the only school , I have come across where teachers wore their academic gowns every day during the morning assembly. We had a practice of one of the choirs , one for each language; Tamil, English and Hindi singing when teachers walk in , in their academic gowns, to take their place on the stage. On my first day in the school, I remember the Tamil Choir singing the Bharathi daasan’s song “Kottu murase”. I just loved it and since then have loved every one of the songs from the morning assembly.
Any performance on the stage can be divided into stuff that is prepared and regurgitated or stuff that required thinking on your feet. While declamation and recitation fall in the first category, debates and quiz programs would fall in the second. I feel schools should focus more on getting children to think rather than memorize. To me, memorizing couplets from Thirukkural or the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling makes sense; but not memorizing poems like “The old horse dobbin out at grass…..” or a complete speech by Mirabeau on national Assembly of France. Some of my classmates may remember the hours put in on Mirabeau’s speech. Sometimes I do regret not utilizing the enormous capacity in childhood to lap up every poem of Bharathiyaar or some great couplets from Thirukkural.
The junior boys took turns to announce birthdays and read out the news for the day the seniors had to give a talk on any subject of their choice.
Many of us took the easy route of picking up an essay from the “NDA Master Guide” that was considered the ultimate store-house of all knowledge. You started with “The path of duty is the way to glory ….napoleon said this, Nelson said that and so on” . Some of us wrote our own scripts for the talk. I remember speaking about Poetry, Power of Concentration and about Dreams.
If I were to design a school building today, I will start with an auditorium and then design the class rooms and other facilities around it. I did have an opportunity to be part of a deliberation on the standard design for Army Schools. The auditorium was ‘fitted in ‘ in the space enclosed by rows of classrooms more as a space saving measure than for any reason that had to do with educational requirements.
This proposal was shot down by the majority on the plea that an auditorium with class rooms on all sides would be a big disturbance for teaching. This idea is obviously from the understanding that an auditorium was meant for musical and dance performances and the countless rehearsals that goes on to stage any function would render the place ever noisy. For most people, an auditorium is a place for the gladiators of the school to perform on the Annual day for the parents and guests to applaud.
I think , it should be a place for the children to learn to think on their feet in front of peers and teachers . It should be a place for discussions and debates and not only for guitars and drums , disco lights and dance. For our school , Avvai Auditorium definitely met the requirement.
