BENGALURU : In a sunlit room at a government hospital, four-year-old Sunitha (name changed) plays with Tickles, a puppet. Tickles, along with a doctor and nurse puppets, is at a hospital set-up, which looks much like the one where she is, a hospital for her cancer treatment. Tickles, known as a happy puppet, follows the advice of doctors.
This is the brainchild of a young puppeteer Aarti Kathpalia, who came up with the idea five months ago as a tool to help explain nutrition, medical procedures to children with cancer. A storyteller, puppeteer and founder of ‘Tickles & Tales’, Aarti meets children at various government hospitals every alternate week. Having worked as a teacher, she says she always wanted to give back to the society, and all she could think was her love for the puppets, which she believed was the best mode to communicate many complex issues. “After being a teacher for nine years, I wanted to pursue my creative urge which is when I started ‘Tickles & Tales," she says.
Mr Tickles and Mrs Tales are the two puppets that Aarti has christened and lent her voice to. She has also given the two puppets their very own distinct character. "While Tickles is a puppet that brings joy on any child’s face through its tickles, Tales is a puppet who tells stories to make children happy,” says Aarti.
The room, filled with at least 25 children and their care-takers, are all ears and giggle for the entire two hours in the hospitals. After her first show at Kidwai Cancer Hospital, she realised that this gave a sense of fulfillment which no other experience could match. She then started writing stories for these children, keeping various life threatening diseases, or stories around social stigmas.
Children with bandages who are otherwise confined to their hospital beds and radiation rooms, find a reason to smile. “There are many children from rural villages who have not even seen a puppet,” she says.
A one-and-half-hour puppet show includes fun elements of drama, rhymes, music and dance. Following which she also arranges craftwork or games. She has even made merchandises of her puppet characters Mr Tickles and Mr Tales and sells it at exhibitions and private schools. The entire proceeds from the sales are donated to charity.
While the doctors and staff at the hospital are happy with Aarti’s gesture, the parents of the children say, “It’s a big relief for us. All said and done, children know that there is something really wrong with them. They become extremely fussy at times and don’t follow doctors' instructions to maintain oral hygine and eat nutritious food,” grieves Mahadevamma, mother of a 6-year-old girl from Sindhanoor at a government hospital. She says programmes like these help their children understand the disease well and also take the advice of doctors seriously. More than anything, it brings tremendous joy to them, she adds.