I am a huge Bollywood fan. I  grew up watching Bollywood films.  I remember my father would take me to cinema hall almost every month and he would ask me to pay attention to each and every dialogues of the film. Even he would encourage me to watch selected films on television.

I am talking about 90s. I did not why my father would ask me to pay so much attention to a film, but he always forced me and I obeyed it religiously.  I would watch films of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Naseeruddin shah and Sanjeev Kumar.

That’s how I started loving Hindi films.  Much later I realized I learnt lots of thing by wathcing films. I learnt the art of talking and learnt correct diction. I started using good words in my day to day talking. My language had improved a lot. Even my teachers in my school would always ask me to recite poems. Bollywood films during my childhood had very good dialogues and poetry. That’s why I always feel cinema can be a good medium to teach young minds.  I know many schools in India take their pupils to cinema hall once in a while as a part of extracurricular activity.  Now when I am a father and am living in Dubai, I also take my daughter to cinema halls once a while. 

Shahzad Ali, By email