With Bollywood India created a brilliant recipe to unite Hindi and contemporary culture and music. In 2016 I travelled to India for the first time. I rapidly noticed that wherever you go in India Bollywood sound is with you. It fills the busy streets, accompanies bumping taxi rides and … completes the curriculum in the school we supported in the slums of Puri.
There, the students were taught in math, biology, chemistry … but I never saw their eyes sparkling as much as during that one hour of weekly Bollywood dance class!
While the school was struggling with limited funds they were about to consider to cancel the dance classes. I strongly advocated not to do so and to first check for other options to save funds.
I utterly believe that cancelling art related subjects is the wrong way for making people ready to cope with life. It is «cultural practice» that since 300’000 years has been differentiating us from animal beings and it is artistic creation like music and dance which moves our hearts and minds in a way no other scholarly discipline can do.
