Chandigarh, October 23
The Centre for Adult, Continuing Education and Extension, Panjab University, has adopted the Central Jail, Ludhiana. The centre has initiated a number of programmes for the inmates of the jail.

According to Dr Sween, Director of the centre, the centre has started a vocational training project in the jail with a view to provide the inmates with skills that will help in their rehabilitation on their release from the jail.

The centre is launching two vocational programmes, four-month certificate courses in “plumbing and sanitary fittings” and “electric fittings and wiring,” to empower prisoners with marketable vocational skills.

Chandigarh, October 23
In yet another hit-and-run case a pedestrian was injured here. According to the police, Mr Swaroop Singh of Dadu Majra Colony sustained injuries after being hit by a car on the road dividing Sectors 24 and 25 on October 20. A case of rash and negligent driving has been registered against the unidentified car driver.

Mohali, October 23
A group of 11 schoolteachers from the UK visited Sant Isher Singh Senior Secondary School, Phase VII, here today under the Indo-British Teachers Exchange Programme.

The teachers from Rotherham, UK, took a round of various classrooms and interacted with students as well as teachers.

Students presented a cultural programme for their guests. The teachers from the UK also participated in the function and danced along with the students.

Prof Rajpal Singh, Project Coordinator and Director, Heritage Institute for Art, Culture and Education, said the teachers from the UK would visit six schools under the programme. — OC

Mohali, October 23
A large number of students in schools in the UK are unhealthy and special efforts are being made to improve their health, said Mr Michael Connell, School Improvement Officer, Rotherham. UK.

Mr Connell, who headed a delegation of schoolteachers to Mohali under an Indo-British Teachers Exchange Programme, said about 20 per cent of school students were unhealthy. This was so because they consumed too much of fast food and had to go through a lot of work pressure. Fast and processed food was easily available and comparatively cheaper. He said when students were given meals in schools, it was ensured that they were made to have five portions of fruits or vegetables everyday. Awareness was also created about the ill-effects of having fast food.

Talking about the differences in the education system in the UK and India, Mr Connell told Chandigarh Tribune that there was great respect for education in India and the system had enormous strength. He said support and partnership between homes and schools in India was remarkable. However, in the UK a lot of effort had to be made to maintain the required kind of coordination.

He said students from India performed extremely well in the UK and outperformed British students even in higher education. He said in the UK about 15 per cent of the students left school for work at the age of 16 without acquiring adequate qualifications. In Rotherham, 75 per cent of school students studied till the age of 18. At present only about 40 per cent of them went in for higher education though the target fixed in this regard was 50 per cent.

He said in the UK there was a need for improving literacy among children, particularly between the age of 11 and 16. A number of students could read and write but were not equipped with skills that matched the 21st century.

Chandigarh, October 23
‘Naga-mandala’ is being revisited and city-based theatre director Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry is at the helm of this return once again. With no rehearsals so far she is in a state of ‘‘complete panic’’.

The worry, though is needless, for this is the play, written by Girish Karnad, that she had woven so skillfully more than 15 years ago, way back in 1989.

She remembers the first show being staged on November 14 and creating a lot of excitement then. ‘‘But when I saw the video recently to make my actors hear the music (composed by B V Karanth) I was horrified to see how bad it was,’’ she says.

However, today it is her ‘‘style of working’’ that has changed. ‘‘Earlier the stress was on melodrama and exaggerated imagery but now I want the actors to go within themselves. The tools have changed; the relationship with the body and with speech has changed, the whole effort is more subtle now,’’ she explains.

Revisiting this play was not an easy decision. ‘‘I was not sure whether the play would still affect me the way it did then. But I was amazed because not only could I still see the relevance in its powerful narrative I could also see the images leaping out at me,’’ she avers.

In fact ‘Naga-mandala’ is no simple story. It is deeply layered and has so much subtext still to be pulled out that this time round Neelam discovered nuances she had not felt and seen and which started to get highlighted as she worked on the play again.

There is a strong duality at work in the play both at the literal and metaphysical levels. ‘‘While the story in itself is gripping there is that integral quality of myth which takes its cue from the past yet the theme remains contemporary,’’ she explains.

However, it was getting rid of the baggage from the earlier work, especially within her actors, that proved to be the real challenge. ‘‘My approach then and now is completely different. This time the play emerged out of a series of exercises, of making the actors improvise without the text. So what surfaces this time round is the truth of the character, the imagination of the character,’’ she elaborates.

The story, based on folk tales narrated to Karnad by A.K Ramanujan (Folk Tales of India) when the two met at the University of Chicago, was picked up by Neelam when she read about it in a journal. ‘‘I was a relative newcomer to theatre then but I wrote to Girish and asked him if we could do his unpublished play. I was happily surprised when he agreed immediately.’’

Perhaps it was the ‘‘quality’’ of the story, perhaps Karnad’s name, but Neelam wanted to do something that had ‘‘a great text and was new and fresh and would challenge me.’’ And it is this congruence between the written word and the dramatic world that she has succeeded in creating in her ‘Naga-mandala’.

The written play has two endings, one tragic and the other happy and this time round unlike the earlier times, she has chosen to end it happily. ‘‘The snake denotes imagination and desire and how the community takes it all away. But the protagonist can still live within the social framework while her mind takes her on a journey to wherever she wants to go.’’

This is what Neelam refers to as ‘‘the need to dream to survive’’.

Translated into Punjabi by Surjit Patar, ‘Naga-mandala’ will be staged at the Rock Garden Phase I from October 25 to November 1.