The last few weeks have been spent trying to cast kids for a show that we might be doing. The show is centred around 10 year olds – doing what ever 10 year olds are supposed to be doing.
The entire process has made me glad that I have no kids – children in Mumbai are scary. They behave like petulant & irritating 18 year olds. the girls try and act sexy, the boys macho. I asked a question, what games do you play. Pat comes the answer – nintendo, games on my playstation, or playing is for babies. No chor police, no lagori, not even the modern equivalent of out door games.
It is positively scary. I hope it is a function of the kind of kids who want to act (or whose parents want them to act) rather than symbolic of the entire lot of Mumbai/metro kids. After looking for almost 15 days – we still haven’t found the kids. Because the kind of naughty innocence that we are looking for doesn’t seem to be available.
Scary is right. Our urban societies have degraded to a point where things that we so took for granted as kids actually no longer exist. For example, a place to ride a bike. A kid without a bike will never ever grow up to be a decent human being because the bike is where she learns about freedom and responsibility. In many ways, it is the child’s first introduction to the ways of the world.
I see my friends in Mumbai who have kids and my heart bleeds for the children. Can you imagine growing up in closed places, going everywhere in cars, airconditioned all the time with no place, no place at all to let off all that energy that kids have. No wonder they’re petulant. Massively pissed-off is probably more like it. I know I would be….
it sure is scary i have heard 10 and 11 yearold kids in my building talking about gfs and bfs.. at their age is insanity .. and i hardly see them running about or playing cricket .. but rather would sit in a bunch and talk about video games and tv.. really sad..
it sure is scary i have heard 10 and 11 yearold kids in my building talking about gfs and bfs.. at their age is insanity .. and i hardly see them running about or playing cricket .. but rather would sit in a bunch and talk about video games and tv.. really sad..
To strike a dissenting note- you did find the kids. Maybe you were looking for nostalia, an imagined past.
Remember Gibran?
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Hi Sid
i thank fully live in a building society where kids still come out ot play. yes and cycling around the compound is their favourite past time. girls and boys play cricket and football. But, this group is younger than the ones we have been screentesting.
At a certain level i feel guilty about getting kids to act. At the other the kids and their parents have this burning desire to be on screen.
Today i screen tested a 12 year old who sounded like a mature 21 year old. she has been acting for the last 4 years.
And it is amazing the moment the camera is switched on they become all cutesy and child like. and the moment the camera is off…. they go back to being spoilt and petulant
hi harsh
gf’s and bf’s are par for the course. i read somewhere today that the average length of these relationships is around 7 weeks. but some girl said that not having a bf would be uncool 🙂
possibly Bhupinder. And yes i remember Ghibran. i can understand the child not being your or a reflection of you. But, they can still be children in the context of what their society provides them.
but, i guess there in lies the problem as Patang points out – the lack of open spaces in a city like mumbai could be a reason why children turn out the way they are.
it isn’t so bad in smaller cities and towns. But, i am sure that they face a different set of issues.
indian child actors r pathetic.
The same problems exist in New Zealand. If I had young children at home now – I had six and am now seventy six – I would drop kick the TV into the local rubbish tip and ban Playstation. No body in our house would watch American films – the culture they export is their worst – violent!
Hi, I am doing a feature on how increasingly urban planniners are overlooking kids — parking spaces for cars are more important than leaving spaces for kids to play in…. I liked what patang says … can i use it? (credit it to your website) and also do you have anything to say on the matter?
hi,
sure you can use it.
not much else – except the entire system from housing to schooling seems to revolve around concrete and glass. Even schools don’t have playgrounds anymore. And then they wonder why kids watch adult television 🙂