What do you get when you bring together seven clowns and a popular Tamil movie song? A bunch of happy children that slowly overcomes its inhibitions to join in the revelry and starts dancing!
That is what happened on several occasions, wherever the ‘Clowns Sans Frontiere' (Clowns Without Borders) group performed in Puducherry recently.
The group is from France, and travels the world performing for underprivileged children, to bring a smile to their faces.
Laughter follows
In Puducherry, they performed at various locations, including Maison Colombani, Government Observation Home in Ariyankuppam, Satya Special School and Infant Jesus orphanage. Everywhere they went, laughter followed.
Their show for these children was in Tamil, with three clowns from Chennai, who practised with the French troupe to bring out a hilarious show on the hunt for a boodham or ghost.
The story features the lead Tamil clown — Rosa — who spearheads the hunt for the ghost. Following a number of hilarious escapades, where they try to capture the boodham using brooms, buckets, bags and Styrofoam sticks, the clowns decide to use another character ‘Lily' as a prey to catch him.
A dash of magic
The boodham and Lily fall in love, which infuriates Rosa. Finally Rosa agrees that the show would be better with a little magic.
The magic show is also just about the laughs, with two of the clowns performing “magic”, and ending up drenched. The show ends with the children in the audience being showered with confetti, and the clowns dancing to ‘Kalasala Kalasala' from “Osthe”.
Clowns Without Borders performs for street and underprivileged children. At most of the shows, the grounds were packed with children of all ages, parents and teachers.
The crew of eight people — Achil, who handles the logistics; Doriana Moretus, art director; Maud Beraudy, Gaelle Vanoudenhoven, Vincent Pensuet, Shantha Kumar S., Aparna Gopinath and ‘Living Smile' Vidya — was in Puducherry for a week, going to different places to entertain children who normally do not have access to this kind of entertainment.
The team left for France after a final performance at the Infant Jesus Home, and with a promise of more entertainment for underprivileged children around the world.
