Students at Play
Geetanjali Kulkarni
In 2006, Geetanjali Kulkarni was attending a seminar on education where she was to share her views and findings about the ways in which mathematics can be taught to children. The actor had been exploring the field of academics with the hope of contributing to children’s lives. She realised that seminars can be monotonous and decided to present the research a tad differently. “I used a talk show format, with the academician I was partnering. I became the clown, who did not understand mathematics, and we presented our study in a way that it looked like a performance. The audience, dull after lunch and bored, instantly came alive,” she says.
The event made her realise that the best way to work in the field of education was to combine it with her theatrical skills. In 2007, Kulkarni launched QUEST (Quality Education Support Trust), a research-action organisation concentrating on enhancing the quality of education. As part of QUEST, Kulkarni, her husband Atul Kulkarni, a bunch of academicians and theatre practitioners, have been working with children from schools in adivasi villages of Maharashtra’s Palghar district. “Atul and I were happy working as actors, but we realised that acting had become our profession. We wanted to do more and this became a path to take,” says actor, 44.
Credit: indianexpress.com