The Science Performer

The Science Performer

There are all kinds of performance artists who entertain people through their crafts such as dance, drama, music and mime. But rarely does one come across a Science Performer. Therefore, it was a unique experience watching Arvind Gupta perform his bag of science tricks at the Ali Institute of Education auditorium last Friday, April 7.

When he rose from his chair and faced the 150 + teaching staff spectators, Arvind looked a neo-Gandhi activist in a well-worn khadi kurta with a frayed front pocket, unpressed khaki trousers and Bata slip-in black canvas shoes. Other than a pair of gleaming eyes, set in a mobile, beard-fringed face that often cracked into a hey-hey laugh, there wasn’t much in his balding, middle-aged appearance that distinguished him above the ordinary.

I watched closely for signs of genius as he unpacked his knick-knacks from shoebox sized white plastic boxes onto the wooden table. What he had laid out resembled little more than assorted trash- old film canisters, dot pens, cycle tubing of various sizes, tetra pack Frooti juice throwaways, old newspapers and the like; no fancy black hat where-from to pull out rabbits. I began to feel vaguely disappointed.

Then Arvind began his show.

Before my skeptical eyes, matchsticks connected by snippets of cycle rubber tubing progressively became triangles, squares, tetrahedrons, cubes and increasingly complex polygons. Because the joints were flexible Arvind could show that while a square could easily be bent to a rhombus, a triangle formed a rigid, fixed structure. He explained how this property of triangles was ubiquitously used where stability was needed as in the tripod, the three-legged stool. He then demonstrated how the tetrahedron (structure of four-triangles) is the most rigid of all natural geometric forms; he positioned 3 matchstick tetrahedrons on the table and placed a couple of books on them. While the tetrahedrons did not buckle under the weight, 3 cubes placed in similar positions fell flat. Arvind related this to the shapes of pylons supporting bridges. Dipping his hand into a bag of marbles, he then heaped 4 glassy balls inside a tetrahedral matchstick skeleton to represent methane, elaborating how tetrahedral Carbon was the basic building block of all living forms. Thus, within a few minutes of matchstick manipulation, Arvind had drawn the audience from the dull everyday into the marvelous world of geometry, architecture and the molecular design modules used by Nature.

Matchstick models laid aside, Arvind picked up a 6-inch length of discarded cycle tubing with two empty film roll canisters fitted snugly at either end; a plastic straw protruding from one. He attached a balloon to the straw, flexed the cycle tube a few times and hola! the yellow balloon with streaks of orange had filled out, ready for a party! Soon we saw all kinds of air and water pumps being fashioned out of discarded bric-a-brac. Arvind explained the construction and functioning of the pumps, the mechanism of one-way valves- flaps of stiff paper stuck with tape to the base of film cans that had been punctured in the center. In his deft hands, a length of flexible plastic tubing dipped in a bottle of water became transformed into a handheld sprinkler- he siphoned the water from one end of the tube and as the water began to flow he swung the tube in circles above his head, the centrifugal force throwing the water out and emptying the bottle in seconds!

Then followed one of the highpoints in the 2 hour show- the demonstration of centrifugal force in the clothes hanger and coin experiment. Arvind placed a 5-rupee coin on the hook edge of an Aluminum clothes hanger that he had bent into a diamond shape (“This is Aluminum. It is non-magnetic. It won’t attract a coin”). One end of the diamond swung vertically from his forefinger, at the other end rested the coin on the inverted-question-mark-looking hook end. Now if he were to swing the hanger in horizontal circles, what would happen to the coin? Would it fly off? Would it stay? With great panache, no less than that of a master magician, Arvind steadily accelerated the circular swing of the hanger, all the time raising it gently by degrees from the vertical to the horizontal, until he stood like Lord Krishna wielding the all-powerful Sudarshan Chakra (Beautiful Spinning wheel), the hanger spinning around his upheld forefinger, the coin kept in place against the inward-facing bend of the hook. The test, of course, is not whether you can climb a tall tree, but whether you can come down from there! And come down Arvind did; he brought the hanger back from spinning fast horizontally to the starting position- zero oscillation, vertical. With the coin still at rest on the hook!

Hooking people, especially children, on to science, is Arvind’s game. And he has mastered it well. For 25+ years he has been practicing activity-based science teaching; is linked to several educational organizations in India, both governmental and non-governmental. For his efforts he has received the National Award for Science Popularization. Along with 2 other able assistants he now runs the Muktangan Science Exploratorium for Children that was established in 2004 at IUCAA, Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune. Here, everyday 50 children, 2 from any one school, come and spend 4 hours toying with science. In summer, children get to do science projects with one of the many scientists at IUCAA.

After graduating with a degree in Mechanical engineering from a premiere institute IIT Kanpur, Arvind worked a couple of years in industry, TELCO, soon realizing that this was not his calling. Ever since quitting TELCO he has been following his bliss, taking the path dictated by his heart. His path, with many turns, has led to children and making their learning of science fun for them.

What fuels his drive? Relaxing in his comfortable room at the Rausing Center at LUMS, Arvind admits that it is his colorful memories of childhood, particularly the time he spent with his mother that keeps him going. Being a girl, she was deprived of schooling. She had vowed that her children would not suffer her own fate- against strong opposition she had sent them to Marie-Gorrettie Convent at their hometown Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. After returning from school Arvind would spend hours relating to his mother all the ‘non-sense’ that had happened that day. She would listen with enthusiasm. “When I quit TELCO my mother just said, ‘Achha hua, abhi wo kuchh nek kam karega’ (Good. He will now do some good work). It is because of my mother’s deep trust, that I would do something good in life, that I am here. She is the well-spring of my life”.

Arvind has been doubly blessed. His wife Sunita, a sociologist, has supported him in his brilliant madness. For 15 years he has free-lanced, taking his science show to schools, writing books, translating children’s classics into Hindi and getting the National Book Trust to translate them into other Indian languages.

Advocating for context-based, child-centered education that frees the human potential of a child and not stifles it is Arvind’s primary goal. His science show is just one aspect of this larger concern. Skillfully interwoven through demonstrations of physical principles through affordable, make-it-yourself toys is Arvind’s educational politics (“Never were your politics on your sleeves” he advised us later). A gifted raconteur, he holds his audience mesmerized through tales that speak of alternative, more holistic ways of learning, such as that of the Japanese girl Tatto-chan and the choo-choo train school she had attended. Arvind is strongly critical of the dumbing-down we do to our children in the name of education.

To beat the system he now uses modern technology, the internet: at his website www.arvindtoys.com he has made available more than 400 world class literature on education and philosophy of the good life, ranging from anecdotes, stories, parables and essays. The site has detailed illustrated manuals for building his repertoire of science toys. A few inspirational films and a documentary on the kind of activity that takes place at his children’s science play center are also there. Moreover, Arvind has copied all this information on a CD, which he is distributing free of cost and encouraging others to pass on his generous act. The Ali Institute of Education has agreed to copy the CD and distribute it to every institution that had sent a representative to the teaching-with-toys lecture-demonstration (lec-dem).

How did Arvind pull it off? drop out of the charted path and take the road less trodden? Where did the money come? How did he support himself? Arvind bursts into his hey-hey laughter and asserts “Kam meiN kuchh khushbu hona chahiye (Your work must be fragrant, that’s all). There’s no dearth of good people in this world. If you bring them something good, they will support you. You bring your bag of tricks to them, open their minds to new things, they will serve you food and pay the bus fare to your next destination!”

Arvind will not suffer cynics. He listens me through patiently enough, though,- my complaints of the corrupt, repressive system here, the power of the religious right, the marginalizing of independent thinkers, doers- Arvind is not dismissive. “I can see how it can get here. We in India are much more fortunate. Hinduism is no religion (hey-hey hey). We have much more space to do things. But hey! let me tell you the story of Duishen. He was the man who planted trees. And before the trees, he prepared the soil so that the saplings could grow. If you find the land is barren, go create fistfuls of fertile soil! Wherever you find a crack, a crevice in the system, put your foot in, make more breathing space. Life’s so short. You have so much to give.”

Arvind visited Pakistan for two weeks, courtesy the Ali Institute of Education. His visit was facilitated by his friendships with Pervez Hoodbhoy, T. Siddiqui, and extended in outreach by his e-acquaintance with Isa Daudpota who connected him with Zaffar Junejo of Dadu in interior Sindh. Arvind held his lec-dems in 4 cities, Karachi, Hyderabad, Islamabad and Lahore. When the organizers in the Lahore school he visited led him to the room where 60 of its best students had been assembled, Arvind exclaimed, “I’m here from India (who knows when I shall cross the border again). What will I do with 60 kids? I want to speak to the whole school!”