Puppet play Presentation at Vidyanjali Centre- a Centre for Children with Learning Difficulties

I started my career after my Post Graduation in Social Work at Rotary School for Slow Learners, Hubli, Dharwad District, karnataka State India.This school is functioning under the guidance of Smt. Vaishali Gore. I was introduced to the school by one of my friends Smt Sahana Hombali, a great lady, I admire her for her guts and tough stands that she takes. I use to give tuition to her children Aditi and Anuj till class VII. Now Anuj is working with an IT firm and Aditi is now a Neuro Physiotherapist and Trainer at Bangalore. Eventually we both became so close. Of course she also use to take care of me like a second mother.  Well,  back to Slow learners school.... Yeah! I started it in the year 1995 and was with the school fro one year as a School Social Worker/ I was paid Rs 100/- pm.

Well, the day I joined there were two new admissions onto this school -One Arihant Gogi and one more student ) I am not sure about the name). Arihant was Mangolic kind called Dwarf Syndrome. Very intelligent and hyper active. It was a difficult task to make him sit at one place for few second. Well, these two children were under me as I was also new. Arihant was also highly sensitive to dust and spicy food and he use to have frequent attacks of cold and cough. He would sneeze badly and whole lot would flow down from his nostrils. It took an year for me to teach him to clean the mucus flowing from his nostrils with the help of a cloth napkin. I was happy when his mother Sushma Gogi told me that he uses handkerchief (cloth napkins) at home to wipe the mucus. I also met him after two years at their native place Hospet, Bellary District, Karnataka State, India. Arihant came running and hugged me. Tears rolled from my eyes. He had grown a bit tall, but had become bit moody too. Well, after that I did not see him. Hope he is doing well!

Recently, I was invited by another friend of mine Smt Shashi Gupta, who is the  Principal of Vidyanjali-a Centre for children with "Learning Difficulties". When Shashi asked me to present a puppet play I willingly accepted as it was the place from where I started my career.  It was like giving back to them in the form of Puppet play. The students at Vidyanjali are normal but have lower IQs, they are not retarded. I am afraid whether I can use the word "RETARDED" any more as I see the replacement as "Mentally Challenged" "Specially Abled" and so on.
A small centre caters around 50 students.  I was amazed to see that the students so well behaved and were highly responsive. They were in fact answering to questions put by the puppets and interacting well. They responded  to the Dappu beats on counts to Mr. Ramachandranna who was playing it.

I presented puppet play on "ZERO IS HERO", "BEAT THE ROOT"-A story on Beetroot and other vegetables and "CLEAVER CROW", OF course Mallu the monkey and Malli the monkey were the chief Anchors.

It was on July 27, 2012 Friday at morning 10:30 am. The centre is located at Dharam Karam Road, Ameerpet, Hyderabad. I was a bit skeptic to make a puppet play presentation as I was not sure about there levels and how far they would be able to receive it. But, it was really amazing to watch children who enjoyed and more so, when I asked them to shake hands with my puppets. Now I can plan better concepts for these children. I enjoyed playing for these children than common children. I found that my "Puppets" were doing a great job and could reach them better.

I was moved when one one of the students kissed my puppet, as my puppet could even help the child emotionally and the child found in my puppet some sort of closeness. This was like a eye opener to me. and now I am planning to work out some of the emotional concepts to make my puppets handle.

 "Kudos to  Puppets"

who ever is using puppets in educational or social field, they are doing a great service by being a responsible citizen.

Well, I had three guests from abroad- Ms. Vicky Hart from London. She is into Media service and Documentary Film Maker, her brother Andy Hart- Photographer by profession and Assistant Professor of Theatre-Dr. Claudia from USA. They too enjoyed and interacted with the stduents, staff and Shashi Gupta.


Sphoorthi Theatre Team Members behind the stage manipulating Puppets were:
Mr. Soyam Bheem Rao, Mr. H.K Punesh Patel, Sri, Ramachandra on Dappu, Mr. Asmat Pasha, Mr. Ankush Pasha , Master Anirudh Srinivasan and Padmini Rangarajan