They got into the bus one by one. Before long the ride turned bumpy as they swayed from one end to the other, hanging on dearly to the iron rod that runs along the top. At times, some of them got thrown to the ground. One of them ends up in the driver’s seat after the bus flies over a bump. It is the last rehearsal of the mime performance for this group of children from the Government School for the Deaf and Dumb in Jagathy.
None of them are regular commuters on buses and a majority spend their time in the hostel attached to the school, but their faces mirrored almost perfectly the expressions visible on the faces of frequent travellers through the State’s potholed roads. On Tuesday, they will have the first public display of their acting skills at the open stage inside their campus, during the inauguration of ‘Theatre magic’, a year-long initiative to train the students here in theatre.
