Message for the masses
ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN
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A therukoothu show carried the message that clean action and thoughts can lead to a healthy life.
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Photo: S. Thanthoni
KIDS TAKE A LEAD ROLE: Hoping to make a change. Photo: S. Thanthoni
There is something about the beat of drums that makes people stop and listen. This is exactly what happened in the slums bordering the Chetput Railway Station recently. People stopped to listen to a group of children from the Chetput Corporation School putting up a "Therukoothu" with an environmental theme.
The "Little Theatre" group run by Ayesha Rau and Ch. Jeya Rao from the "Theatre Lab" decided it was time that people living in the slums were made aware of their surroundings. And so 40 kids from Stds. VII and VIII were roped in and trained to spread this message through the folk art tradition of "Therukoothu" which literally means "Street Play". A 45-minute play was enacted on the main street that cut through the slum. As per tradition, the street play began when the sky darkened and people who were returning home after the day's work. Broadly translated the plays title could read as "Clean action and thoughts can lead to a healthy life." Over a span of six days, this play was taken to the slums in Nungambakkam, Vadaplani, Pulianthope, and Santhome.
The play begins with the children discussing the sewage that pollutes their village. "There are buffaloes and pigs wallowing in the water along with human beings, who use the same water for bathing cooking and drinking purposes," laments one while another child "defends" her slum by shouting angrily "What are we to do? This is the city, it will be like this only and we have got used to living like this."
Meanwhile in another scene a group of trees discuss all the good they have given to man, only to be rewarded by the thoughtless action of being cut down. "Aren't they educated?" muses ones tree, "Don't they know they have to plant at least two trees before cutting down one?"
Is there a solution?
Realising that there is no salvation from the garbage that is threatening to choke them, the children lament in the oppari style.
Using public open places as the toilet was well brought out by the children, as it was their duty to see that the message of environmental cleanliness in every sense of the word reached everyone present.
Lord Yama arrives in his black cloak and mighty mace and rebukes them for the filthy lifestyle they lead. He is quite blunt when he tells them "You spend money to buy beedis and paan, can't you spend just 50 paise to use the public toilets that have been built especially for you?"
He also advised them not to dump the garbage around the garbage bins but inside it and definitely not over the wall into their neighbours compound. As a solution to this problem he explains about waste management, about recycling and to divide their waste into bio gradable and non-bio gradable groups.
Yama who promises to be present with people who are specially driving recklessly talking on their mobile phones, leaves after exacting a promise from them that not only will they keep their homes and surroundings clean, but also their city, country and the world.
And the drums rolled again signifying the end of the street play, while four overflowing garbage bins and children using the street corners to urinate bore testimony to the message that was just conveyed to them. Will people change their outlook? Time can only tell.
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