Films about Divaswapna

Story of Divaswapna (English)

Arvind Gupta recounts the story of a very inspiring book on Education.

DIVASWAPNA (meaning DAY DREAMING) is the story of an imaginary teacher Laxmishankar who despite the rigid and bureaucratic structure of the school tries to imbue life in it. He soon realizes that Stories went straight to children's hearts. He does away with boring state text books and with the money thus saved he starts a classroom library. The dream is NOT THE WORD, BUT THE WORLD.

Story of Divaswapna (Hindi)

Here Arvind Gupta tells the story of DIVASWAPNA by Gijubhai Badheka in Hindi. This book was written in 1931 in Gujarati and translated the same year in Hindi by Kashinath Trivedi. It remains India's most original contribution to Education in the last century.

Temple on the Hill

In 1999 a student from the National Institute of Design – Ms. Parul Gehlot made a film on Gijubhai's school in Bhavnagar. It is titled TEMPLE ON THE HILL because Gijubhai wanted his school to be located on a hilltop. It is certainly the best film on Gijubhai's techniques and adaptation of the Montessori method to Indian conditions. It also highlights the significant role of Vimuben Badheka (Gijubhai's daughter-in-law) who ran the school for over 50 years.

Great Indian Educationist

Gijubhai Badheka (1885-1939) was the greatest Indian educationist of the last century. He got involved in the upbringing of his son, leading to an in-depth of study of the Montessori method of education. His genius lay is adapting Montessori's method creatively to Indian conditions. His book DIVASVAPNA (meaning Day Dreaming) remains an unparalleled treatise on education (arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/ds.zip) Hope someday this amazing book will be translated in all languages of the world.

Ek Ek Kadam Aage (CIET)

The National Book Trust published Divaswapna in the early 1990's in several Indian languages. This revived people's interest in Gijubhai and his works. Thereafter the CIET, NCERT got very interested in Divaswapna. They called several meetings of eminent educationists, one which was also attended by Sri Kashinath Trivedi. A video was made on their reactions to Divaswapna. CIET also wanted to make an Educational Serial based on the journey of an inspiring teacher depicted in Divaswapna. Instead of a "period" film they wanted to adapt it so that present day teachers could relate to it and draw inspiration from it. Unfortunately, they completed only two episodes (which were shot in the NCERT's experimental school on campus) but later abandoned the project.