Triple Celebration For Pankhudi

Hi..
It was indeed a great show on November 18 by Pankhudi Chennai team..
The much awaited detailed report – here it goes.. bear with my style of writing
Whenever a big event is planned, the night before the celebration would go as a sleepless night for me.. Imagining sequence of events to take place, things to take there, do this do that etc.
My heart jumped like a small school kid going to Educational Tour the next day. The day before evening went to a super market to get gifts for the children, prizes for the games.
The profile of the children is
0 – 3 years : 20
3 – 10 yrs : 25.
So gifts and games were planned according to that. Since the kids were too small, thought of giving some games related gifts. So got tennis bat for 3 – 10 yr old kids and smiley balls for the children..
Also thought of teaching the kids with some dolls and hence got a sponge and few rubber bands to create a very basic doll.. Other than that games planned were
1) Lemon and Spoon
2) Identifying objects
3) Filling the bottle
4) Baloon bursting
5) Passing the ball
6) Tapping ball for long time
7) Few more.
Idea was 5 games for small and kiddies. 5 for little grown up children.

Other than this an exciting magic show by one of the renowned magician in the city.. how will all these make an organizer sleep. Before the actual show atleast thousand times I executed all that in my eyes.
Although the number of volunteers who promised to come had some reasons for absence, I thought let’s give it a shot. Everything will be perfect…

The D-Day came.. I started from my home with aunty and two kids. It was good to see the kids were very excited to see other kids over there. On the way they were very excited to meet them and were saying that they will get new friends etc.
We reached the get together spot sharp at 9.30 and from there Swarnabha ( my colleague ) joined us and we reached Balagurukulam around 10.15
We met the care taker of the orphanage first. That time we were 5 in number. Myself, Swarnabha, my aunt, and two kids.
The care taker was a very open person and we had talk for about 1 hours. It would be too long to say all that we discussed. I will just highlight the important things to be noted.
• The kids are taken from dustbins and are mostly abandoned children
• Babies 2 days old were also there
• It’s been 6 years since starting the orphanage
• The children are admitted in a very good school and are mostly good in academics
• The life ambition of the care taker is to bring more than 300 children like this and make at least 100 IAS / IPS from them.
• All these kids call him father and he has got order from court too. Has not specified any community for them and specified only INDIAN for them.
• Other than children, he also brings cats and other few animals (including some snakes :O – but in a separate place )
• According to him, this Balagurukulam is only 30 percent of work and other than that he is also working for village empowerment and has adopted around 55 villages.
I am sure with such a wonderful care taker the kids would surely become collectors and IPS officers.
It was 11.30 by the time we completed and we went to one main hall where we thought we can conduct the magic show. The scene of the hall will stay in the eyes of many of them for long days. The kids in sounth india will usually be in a made sleep in a hanging cradle made out of cotton saree. Usually there will be only one cradle in a home. But in that hall there were many cradle. It was really cute to see that. There were many small small babies sleeping in that and other kids were playing here and there.
After some struggle we organized the kids to sit in an order and started distributing the sponges for creating the doll. But by the time the magician came and he had to leave soon. Hence, the craft session was halted and magic show proceeded. By the time the magician finished preparing the table for magic, the kids completed the dolls themselves tying rubber band here and there. Each doll by them was as cute as them 
I contacted the magician through an internet website and that time he was in Delhi. He reduced his cost as soon as he came to know the program was for kids and this was the first time he was doing without any music around and in a simple writing table. But he adjusted and said I am happy to do for the kids.
Really the magician was enthralling us with the show. Even elders will be surprised to see the tricks performed by him. He was simply great. The kids had great fun seeing the magic show.
By the time he finished the show, it was 12.30 and after he left the kids completed the doll and also named it. Few more volunteers joined us by that time. Then it was time for lunch.
The kids were sitting in a huge circle and said a very long prayer before they started eating (for about 10 mins). There was another cuter thing that we witnessed. All the one year kids were made to sit in row in chairs and there was one 6 year old kid holding a big vessel full of cerelac. Usually I have seen cerelac in a small cup. It was different to see a big vessel full of cerelac . She keeps feeding each kid in a row. And by the time she comes to first kid again, it would have digested the food feeded. It was really a cute scene. It also showed how much each kids supported each other and loved each other. The one year kids also ate the food without any hindrance. I have seen many parents dancing to make the kids eat the food.
Not only this, for some 2 year old kids, we were asked to feed. It was yet another great feeling. I was also feeding a kid and she ate the food so well. Some kids were not eating and volunteers made them eat by playing with balloons etc.
After lunch we thought we will play games. But unfortunately it started to rain so we couldn’t have any games in the ground. We went to a big hall which was in construction and organized games there.
Haa… the kids gave me a good exercise. It was too difficult to handle them. They kept bursting the balloons and playing here and there. For lemon and spoon if we keep the game for 5 kids, there will be 8 kids saying I came first. We had only 5 lemon and spoon and no kid compromised to come in second round. Etc etc. So we found it near impossible to finalize who came first and who deserved prize. So we forgot about the game things and just had fun.
The kids had great fun making me run here and there and bursting all the balloons when I keep blowing them. It was fun for everyone. There was this kid, Dheena (whose ambition is to become Police Officer )was naughtiest of everyone. .
Then we had filling the a small waterbottle from a bucket full of water by carrying water from one end to other with hands. Oh.. the fun we had cannot be described. First of all I instructed how to play the game, but once I gave start, one kid took the bottle itself to the bucket and filled it.. the other time all kids kept dashing and pushing making the water fall out of hands.. They enjoyed, cheered and fought nicely with each other.
There was another wonderful moment. There was this girl Meenu who was my aunt neighbor who came with us. There was a small fight and she started crying. This was during that water filling game. Immediately few other children seeing her crying filled her bottle themselves and said you were first, don’t worry don’t cry. It was really touching. It was really great to see how they showered love and care to others also. Since she was bit elder than others they were calling her akka (sister) and very attached to her. When she was playing also they were cheering her.
After sometime we thought we would leave because it was getting late and bid bye to the kids. Dheena came with us till the gate to bid us bye  

Volunteers Participated:
1) Divya
2) Saroja (My aunt)
3) Seenu (2nd std)
4) Meenu (7th std)
5) Kavitha
6) Praveena
7) Swarnabha
8) Karthik
9) Ramanathan (From IVolunteer thru Anvesha)
10) Dhanraj
11) Manish
12) Venkat
Thanks for Everyone!!! It was a very wonderful day !!!
Cheers,
Divya Senthamil Selvan