Childrens Day and Puppet Show at School
Childrens Day has always been special. In India, it is now customary to celebrate it on birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru – as he loved children very much. We remember it more as a day when we got toffees and ‘laddoos’ at school! This time on Childrens Day, we were invited to Isha’s school (Kangaroo Kids, Jabalpur) for a Puppet show.
When we were small, I remember that once our school brought in puppeteers – and that was really fun. I have forgotten the stories told in that show, but definitely remember there were horses, monkeys, birds and human characters in it.
The school had prepared for a good strength of parents – but that was not to be. Only a few parents had come. The storyline of the puppet show was around ‘Skippy’ a small Kangaroo and its adventures in dreams, where it gets lost in the sea!
I personally found the theme quite alien. Here were small children sitting in central India – and hardly if anyone would have seen a sea. And most of the sea characters itself would be totally unidentifiable. One might have seen a fish or at most a tortoise – but many of the characters of the puppet show – even I had never seen in so many years – except if on television in some Discovery Channel show.
Also, the storytelling through accentuated pre-recorded song in English seemed too western. The teachers would occasionally try to interject in Hindi and try to increase the attention of children. However, the children looked quite confused and even bored!
The teachers had definitely put on hard work preparation for this. However, it is too much to expect teachers to also perform like professional puppeteers. I would have really preferred if the school had hired professional puppeteers and the theme was more identifiable to these children.
It is one thing to learn difficult things as a matter of knowledge in school – and it is quite different from the fun aspect – if one is not able to enjoy the fun aspect – then I guess there is no fun in it – and it becomes another ‘boring’ session of learning. Perhaps, the school could have used such puppet show to make learning interesting – but, it did not make fun interesting!
Apart from that, there were other things in attraction – where children could dress up as any sea creature – through dress provided, and get oneself photographed.
The fun part was that children were distributed toy balls for play at the end. And for some days, my daughter was really happy with it.
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